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The chairman of the Douglas County Planning Commission claimed this week the county intentionally impeded his request for public records.
After taking the county more than two months to comply with his request, David Jaques said he was asked to pay $256 for the costs entailed in locating 254 pages of documents — which made a stack 1 1/2 inches high — and photocopying them.
He accused Commissioner Doug Robertson and his staff assistant of retaliating against him for his refusal to step down from the Planning Commission.
“You broke the law and you used this as a mechanism to punish me,” Jaques told Commissioner Doug Robertson during Wednesday’s meeting of the Board of Commissioners.
After taking the county more than two months to comply with his request, David Jaques said he was asked to pay $256 for the costs entailed in locating 254 pages of documents — which made a stack 1 1/2 inches high — and photocopying them.
He accused Commissioner Doug Robertson and his staff assistant of retaliating against him for his refusal to step down from the Planning Commission.
“You broke the law and you used this as a mechanism to punish me,” Jaques told Commissioner Doug Robertson during Wednesday’s meeting of the Board of Commissioners.
Robertson denied the charge. He said the county worked to provide Jaques with everything he requested. He said the nature of the request made it difficult to compile everything quickly.
“Your request, David, as you will recall, was for any and all meetings, e-mails, calls, communication with the folks at the fairgrounds, anything dealing with the issue. It wasn’t dealing specifically with calls about the issue with you and me,” Robertson said. “It took some time.”
Jaques, a real estate broker who also serves as Commissioner Marilyn Kittelman’s political adviser and campaign manager, filed a records request with the county May 10, after Robertson said he planned to convene a disciplinary hearing to remove Jaques from the Planning Commission for his involvement in the fairgrounds hotel deal.
Robertson claimed Jaques had a conflict of interest in acting as the agent for a California developer interested in buying a 5-acre parcel on the banks of the South Umpqua River at the fairgrounds. He said it was improper for Jaques and Kittelman to spend a year working on the deal without informing their colleagues and for shielding the deal from the public.
At an April 25 meeting of the county Board of Commissioners, Robertson asked Jaques to resign from his seat on the Planning Commission. In refusing to step down, Jaques said he would resign only if Robertson agreed to do the same.
Robertson later said he planned to convene a panel of retired judges from outside Douglas County to decide whether Jaques should be removed from the commission. He said the commissioners themselves would not be able to render an impartial decision.
That process was blocked after Commissioner Joe Laurance questioned whether the commissioners had the right to allow another group to make a decision on a matter that by law fell to the Board of Commissioners.
In his request, Jaques asked for copies of letters, computer e-mail, memos and other correspondence pertaining to the matter that was sent or received by Robertson. He also asked for copies of entries from Robertson’s appointment calendar.
Jaques wanted the documents to assist him in his defense at the hearing. However, he said he did not receive any response to his May 10 request, nor to a follow-up letter he sent to the county May 18.
“Commissioner Robertson and his staff assistant willfully withheld information on the public records request, which is a matter of law. They have to comply in a set time frame (from) the 10th and the 18th,” Jaques said at the meeting.
Jaques said the county had 10 days to respond to his request and by not doing so, they broke the law.
Under ORS 192.430, there is no specified time limit for a governmental agency to respond to a public records request. The law requires a records custodian to provide “proper and reasonable opportunities for inspection and examination of the records. ...”
According to the Oregon Attorney General’s Public Records and Meetings Manual, the amount of time necessary to respond to a public records request depends upon the “volume of records requested, the staff available to respond to the records request and the difficulty in determining whether any of the records are exempt from disclosure.”
In 2005, the Board of Commissioners instituted a policy change and began charging people for the costs of photocopying more than two documents or if it took more than 15 minutes of staff time to locate a record for copying.
Jaques conceded the county had the right to charge him but said it was done in this case as retaliation against him.
• You can reach reporter John Sowell at 957-4209 or by e-mail at jsowell@newsreview.info.
“Your request, David, as you will recall, was for any and all meetings, e-mails, calls, communication with the folks at the fairgrounds, anything dealing with the issue. It wasn’t dealing specifically with calls about the issue with you and me,” Robertson said. “It took some time.”
Jaques, a real estate broker who also serves as Commissioner Marilyn Kittelman’s political adviser and campaign manager, filed a records request with the county May 10, after Robertson said he planned to convene a disciplinary hearing to remove Jaques from the Planning Commission for his involvement in the fairgrounds hotel deal.
Robertson claimed Jaques had a conflict of interest in acting as the agent for a California developer interested in buying a 5-acre parcel on the banks of the South Umpqua River at the fairgrounds. He said it was improper for Jaques and Kittelman to spend a year working on the deal without informing their colleagues and for shielding the deal from the public.
At an April 25 meeting of the county Board of Commissioners, Robertson asked Jaques to resign from his seat on the Planning Commission. In refusing to step down, Jaques said he would resign only if Robertson agreed to do the same.
Robertson later said he planned to convene a panel of retired judges from outside Douglas County to decide whether Jaques should be removed from the commission. He said the commissioners themselves would not be able to render an impartial decision.
That process was blocked after Commissioner Joe Laurance questioned whether the commissioners had the right to allow another group to make a decision on a matter that by law fell to the Board of Commissioners.
In his request, Jaques asked for copies of letters, computer e-mail, memos and other correspondence pertaining to the matter that was sent or received by Robertson. He also asked for copies of entries from Robertson’s appointment calendar.
Jaques wanted the documents to assist him in his defense at the hearing. However, he said he did not receive any response to his May 10 request, nor to a follow-up letter he sent to the county May 18.
“Commissioner Robertson and his staff assistant willfully withheld information on the public records request, which is a matter of law. They have to comply in a set time frame (from) the 10th and the 18th,” Jaques said at the meeting.
Jaques said the county had 10 days to respond to his request and by not doing so, they broke the law.
Under ORS 192.430, there is no specified time limit for a governmental agency to respond to a public records request. The law requires a records custodian to provide “proper and reasonable opportunities for inspection and examination of the records. ...”
According to the Oregon Attorney General’s Public Records and Meetings Manual, the amount of time necessary to respond to a public records request depends upon the “volume of records requested, the staff available to respond to the records request and the difficulty in determining whether any of the records are exempt from disclosure.”
In 2005, the Board of Commissioners instituted a policy change and began charging people for the costs of photocopying more than two documents or if it took more than 15 minutes of staff time to locate a record for copying.
Jaques conceded the county had the right to charge him but said it was done in this case as retaliation against him.
• You can reach reporter John Sowell at 957-4209 or by e-mail at jsowell@newsreview.info.
Records policy changed following Cow Creek request
<b>JOHN SOWELL</b>
The county changed its public records policy following a September 2005 request by the Cow Creek Band of the Umpqua Tribe of Indian for thousands of pages of documents detailing the activities of Douglas County Commissioner Marilyn Kittelman and former Commissioner Dan Van Slyke. Before that, it was standard county policy to provide most documents at no charge. Because of the volume of material requested by the tribe, the Board of Commissioners approved a policy that set a charge for more than two copies of documents or for spending more than 15 minutes of staff time to respond to a request. The tribe ended up paying more than $28,000 for the documents it received. With the policy change, the county started routing documents requests through the offices of the three commissioners. In the past, individual departments handled most of their own records requests. After the change, department heads were told to send all requests through County Attorney Paul Meyer’s office. Since then, it has taken the county an extended period of time to respond to most records requests from The News-Review. In the past, those records were provided in a timely manner. It also took the county more than two months to respond to a request for correspondence sent to the county by an attorney for former Museum Director Stacey McLaughlin before she sued the county. It took a similar amount of time for the county to provide copies of documents referenced in the museum investigative report and a copy of the bill from the investigator who compiled the report. It also took the county several months to allow an inspection of applications by county residents interested in serving on county advisory boards and to provide commissioner travel records. After the policy change, the county began billing The News-Review for copies of documents. The paper was able to obtain a fee waiver, which state law allows for documents copied and provided “in the public interest.” • You can reach reporter John Sowell at 957-4209 or by e-mail at jsowell@newsreview.info. |
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