The Sheriff’s Department confirms an incident report, #S210-09-809 filed on August 25, 2010 at 10:20 AM by a Regina Charlene Hill, was filed charging the Coast Lake News with harassment and publishing ‘untrue’ articles. Ms Hill, known by Lakeside residents as Charlie Hill, city administrator of Lakeside City Hall, has taken issue with the paper’s habit of quoting Hill verbatim, especially when Hill refuses to provide public records.

Coast Lake News, if you recall, broke the story that Lakeside City Counselor, Fred Carleton had crafted an ordinance, passed unanimously by city council, with a ‘constitutional defect’. Caught with a egg on their face, it appears that Lakeside City Hall and Carleton may be engaged in retaliatory behavior.

Carleton is also counselor for the City of Bandon. Bandon mayor, Mary Schamehorn, in her other guise as editor of the Myrtle Point Herald took a shot at Coast Lake News as well, in a Vol 132-37 editorial.

BEING IN THE newspaper business for over 50 years has made me acutely aware of just how much information, and how many leads, you can get out of a police report … whether it be local, another town or the sheriff’s log, I was surprised to see an item in the Aug. 25 sheriff’s office report, Wilh a 535 Queens A venue address. It never gives the lown, so you just have to guess, which isn’t always the best thing to do in the newspaper business.

It says: “Local weekly newspaper publishing untrue article about reporting party. Ongoing for eight months.” The reporting party was contacted by phone and advised that his problem was civil, not criminal, in nature. It doesn’t say which local weekly paper they are referring to, but I’m pretty sure it
isn’t the Herald or the Sentinel.

My guess is it’s probably the new paper in Lakeside. I haven’t seen a copy of it yet, but it’s the only other weekly that is in this area. It didn’t list the reporting party, so it wouldn’t do any good to read the paper to find out what they are referring to.

But it definitely piqued my interest.

Apparently, her interest wasn’t piqued enough to call the Sheriff’s office or the Coast Lake News for that matter, or she might have answered many of her own questions above. If she really wanted to follow a lead, she would have learned that many small communities, Lakeside included, are trying to avert the 1st Amendment by claiming a local council may arbitrarily decide who or what is media. As a news person she should be hot on this story.

Instead, she blithely cast aspersions on another newspaper without doing any responsible fact checking. Would her relationship with Carleton have anything to do with her conduct?

In my opinion, the editor should print an apology to Coast Lake News. On the mayoral side, Bandon City Council should reevaluate their legal counsel.