Oregonians are increasingly losing faith in their government and institutions. All too often, it feels like actions are taken without any notice or public input.
A bill racing ahead in the current legislative session would only heighten that unease. It has the potential to create huge loopholes in Oregon’s longstanding open meetings law, enacted more than 50 years ago in recognition of the public’s right to know what government is up to.
Oregonians should contact their legislators to urge them to reject these hastily considered revisions, which – if enacted – would mean more of the public’s business would be done in a shroud of secrecy.
The legislation, House Bill 4177, is an attempt to help those who serve on public boards and commissions. That is commendable, because the many volunteers who give time to local school boards, planning commissions and city councils deserve clear guidance.
This proposed law does the opposite, however. Instead of clarity, it sows confusion.
Currently, the open meetings law has several provisions that underpin its guiding principle – that deliberations and decisions on government policies must be done in view of all Oregonians.
Serial communications about an upcoming matter are expressly prohibited. That means, for example, a city councilor cannot speak privately to another councilor and then have a series of secret conversations with other councilors. Current law makes clear such discussions must occur in public.
The proposal legislation muddies the water about what is allowed.
Even Susan Myers, the executive director of the Oregon Government Ethics Commission, said some of the proposed changes gave her “heartburn.”
The legislation would create a new and flawed definition for “deliberation,” eliminate “serial communications” from the definition of “convening” a meeting and enumerate myriad activities that would be allowed without any public access.
Replacing a clear, bright line (Do the public’s business in public) with a slapdash list of poorly defined or undefined activities is foolhardy.
These changes undoubtedly would lead to unintentional ethics violations by well-meaning volunteers. Communications related “purely to procedural matters” would be allowed but what is purely “procedural”? The legislation does not offer definitions of key terms.
The proposal says requirements of the open meetings law would not apply to conversations made “for the purpose of gathering information related to a decision that will be deliberated upon or made by the governing body.”
That alone creates a gigantic loophole in the requirement for transparency and the current prohibition on secret deal making.
Myers, the ethics commission director, gave an expert and clarion warning in her testimony: The changes would lead to political wheeling and dealing behind closed doors, in direct opposition to the law’s existing requirement for public accountability.
“This exception would allow governing body members to meet in private and/or communicate privately with each other, outside of any public meeting, in order to gather information,” she said.
City councilors might, for example, interview city manager candidates “with no meeting notice, no minutes or recording, and no news media observers.”
This is not the Oregon way. Legislators should reject HB4177, which was thrown together haphazardly for this 35-day legislative session.
The process was primarily driven by government interests, with news media and good-government organizations largely left in the dark. One legislative committee has moved the bill along despite those very lawmakers expressing clear and serious reservations about its implications for transparency.
Legislators need to put the brakes on this runaway train. Oregonians who cherish our longstanding principles of open government deserve decisions made in daylight.
