Lake Oswego and open-meetings law · 18 September 08
One veteran anti-secrecy activist has dubbed it “The Lake Oswego Outrage.”
The Lake Oswego City Council is considering a policy restricting access to executive sessions that appears to go well beyond what’s allowed by Oregon Public Meetings Law. The move could boomerang on journalists all over the state while promoting greater government secrecy.
The proposal was sparked by a blogger’s attempt (as I noted here last month) to gain entry to the Lake Oswego City Council’s executive session. He cited, among other things, his Barack Obama campaign credentials and that he has done some reporting on his blog. He did not provide his real name, only his screen name.
Yuxing Zheng of The Oregonian did a nice piece that explains the council’s concerns with his position.
Now, in response, the Lake Oswego council is considering a draft policy that, in the eyes of many experts, would go well beyond what the law allows. Among other things, it would :
•require most reporters to pre-apply for city permission to exert their statutory right to sit in on executive session. And the proposed criteria are written in such a way that many media outlets would not qualify.
•attempt to require city council permission before a reporter could report on inappropriate and unlawful conversations of the city council, in other words those taking place secretly under the cloak of executive session even when those conversations do not fit the statutory criteria for executive session.
This latter requirement would seem to effectively destroy the check and balance that was the Legislature’s public-interest intent in crafting the law. It would do so by effectively removing the possibility that an unannounced reporter’s visit would result in exposure of unlawful secret conversations involving the public’s business. Government lawyers would have less incentive to educate public officials about when the public’s business is legitimately not public. Anecdotal evidence suggests some government lawyers in certain municipalities are already not fulfilling this obligation.
The repercussions of this matter could extend statewide. The Lake Oswego proposal, modeled on an existing policy in Columbia County, is expected to be considered elsewhere as well. Regardless, the situation in LO is likely to be exploited in the next legislative session by those seeking less transparency in government.
(I should point out that the above is stricly my analysis, based on talking to people well-versed in the law.)
For more information on Oregon Open Meetings Law, there is an easlily downloadable guide offered by Open Oregon.
What can you do about this? Drop us a line or sign up for the journalist-only OGRE listserv (see the link in the left margin) whether you’re an SPJ member or not. We will have further discussion there.
Comment
Upon reviewing the Oregon Open Meeting Law statute, it appears that the problem is due at least in part to the failure of the Legislature to define “news media”...Several definitions are provided under ORS 192.610 however no definition as it relates to “news media”-regrettable…So, Mr. Burdick may be correct, in order to secure clarification of this statute and it’s applicability-in particular the special consideration given to those in the “news media”-a Legislative review-perhaps, at the request of the Oregon League of Cities may come forth during the next session.
One would sense it helpful if the journalism community sought to provide examples of definitions and/or model statutes/regs.
Also for consideration guidelines for journalists/news media somewhat similar to SPJ’s Ethics Standards…For example, would it be ethical for someone from the news media to receive special consideration/access to an Executive Session (ES) if that individual had publicly demonstrated “advocacy” regarding the ES matter? Or, let’s say, if an individual was determined to have a conflict of interest in the matter at hand-say perhaps a property interest in a site under discussion would/should such preclude said individual from ES attendance?
Times have indeed changed since the original legislation…And just as compliance with the law is critical for government, it should be recognized that standards of behavior are also critical for those in the yet to be defined “news media”
Neither entity appears to have the respect of the people they are deemed to serve.
So it would seem most beneficial for all that a solution be sought which assists in re-establishing such trust.
— erin · 6 October 08 · #
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