Coos County Counsel, Oubonh White is preparing a response to a request sent January 16, for the release of public records, including completed employee questionnaires, interview notes and email deliberations used by the structure advisory committee to reach its “consensus” conclusions available at the county website. To date there has been no official explanation for why these records and emails have not been produced but Messerle told me personally that releasing the questionnaires might violate employee confidentiality so I offered to that all names could be redacted as I only want to know what was said, not who said it.
The advisory committees meet the definition of a governing body and are governed by Oregon statutes 192.660 – 192.690
(3) “Governing body” means the members of any public body which consists of two or more members, with the authority to make decisions for or recommendations to a public body on policy or administration.
The statutes clearly state, “The Oregon form of government requires an informed public aware of the deliberations and decisions of governing bodies and the information upon which such decisions were made.”
Considering Messerle’s rather lame excuse for not releasing these documents and emails to the public an editorial in today’s paper calling for the release of payroll and pension records from the Public Employees Retirement System for purposes of “transparency and accountability”. The paper accuses PERS of hypocrisy and keeping its records “shrouded in secrecy” yet this same publication has turned a blind eye to the Port and the county and the structure advisory committee.
Hypocrisy, thy name is editor, Clark Walworth.
Bob Main
(541) 396-3121 ext 770
Fred Messerle
(541) 396-3121 ext 247
Cam Parry
(541) 396-3121 ext 281
http://www.registerguard.com/web/opinion/27474911-47/pers-percent-legislators-members-employer.html.csp