Three stories in today's Oregonian deserve to be linked together. First is this piece by Shane Dixon Kavanaugh, appearing on page A6. He reports that the Portland City Council has agreed to pay $250,000 to attorney Jeff Merrick and the Dunn Carney law firm for the attorney fees they incurred to challenge the city's refusal to comply with Mr. Merrick's request for public records of telephone and e-mail complaints about homeless camps. When the district attorney ruled in 2018 that the records Mr. Merrick wanted were indeed public, he asked for $52,000 to cover his attorney fees incurred in pursuing the request. The city objected, and the trial court denied his request. Last year the court of appeals reversed the trial court and directed that the city pay his fees, which had by then mounted to $375,000. They settled on the city paying $250,000.
Almost as stunning as the news that the city council's commitment to secrecy had dug a $250,000 hole for the city was the reaction of Commissioners Jo Ann Hardesty and Mingus Mapps. Mr. Kavanaugh reported that Commissioner Hardesty "praised city attorneys for their 'steadfast commitment' [her words] to withholding information that could place 'public servants in harm's way' and said the city should lobby state lawmakers to add new public disclosure exemptions." Nothing in the story, however, suggests that Mr. Merrick sought the home addresses of any city employees. Commissioner Mapps's stance was more nuanced than Commissioner Hardesty's pro-secrecy view; the article quoted him as saying "I understand the need for transparency and I value transparency. But, at the same time, I also feel like this rule that the courts have imposed on us is a violation of the public trust."
The second story, on page A9, is by Noelle Crombie, who reports that Governor Brown's office "demanded the Oregon Department of Corrections find out if an employee revealed the governor's controversial plan to commute the sentences of hundreds of juveniles serving time for violent crimes." Governor Brown herself confirmed to the newspaper that her office wanted to know how the Oregonian got a copy of her September 28 letter to the Director of Corrections that laid out the governor's plan. The Director of Corrections, Colette Peters, then had staff go through the e-mail accounts of "about two dozen employees" to find the leaker. Nothing turned up. The irony is that the governor's letter was a public record. Amber Campbell, speaking for the Department of Corrections, said "this document being referenced is a public record, so even if the search concluded that an employee distributed from a DOC server to the Oregonian, we would not and could not discipline that employee."
I don't know Noelle Crombie. I suspect that she has an engaging sense of humor, for four paragraphs later she cheekily writes, "Brown campaigned on transparency and criticized her predecessor, Gov. John Kitzhaber, for failing to make it a priority." Ms. Crombie also mentions that a paralegal at the Oregon Justice Resource Center also wanted information about the letter, because he "suspected it was intended to undermine the governor's 'internal communications' with the agency."
That brings me to the third story, written by Maxine Bernstein and printed on page A12. You may have read a few weeks back that the Department of Corrections put Mark Wilson, a state prisoner convicted of murder, into 120 days of solitary confinement because a prison librarian (a state employee) as a joke had put a toy telephone on the library desk where Mr. Wilson often worked, which the department considered to be contraband. (Never mind that a state employee put it in front of him.) He is suing the state for damages. The state's defense? The state asserts that Mr. Wilson was collaborating with the Oregon Justice Resource Center (see previous story!) to give OJRC "access to prison affairs," and Mr. Wilson's lawsuit is a put-up job with OJRC. Ms. Bernstein also reports that the Director of Corrections, Colette Peters (see previous story again!) "staunchly defended her department's actions [in putting Mr. Wilson into solitary confinement] before a legislative committee earlier this month. 'While bringing in a [toy] phone might seem like child's play, it is something that's very serious, and both the employee and the AIC (adult in custody) must be held responsible."
A cynic (who, me?) might say that the city council should be spending money to make records public, not to hide them; that in her final year in office our governor should be honoring her pledge to keep government open, instead of emulating Richard Nixon's plumbers; and that instead of inventing a silly reason to throw an inmate into solitary confinement for four months to cut off contact with an outside watchdog, the Department of Corrections should be fixing the problems that the watchdog has been barking about. I am not that cynic; I'm merely a taxpayer who's bemused by how open our elected officials are about their efforts to keep government secret.