| Regional update |
Legislation tackles access
to personal information
Controlling criminal access to the addresses, e-mails
and phone numbers of public officers is a priority
BY CHARLES E. BEGGS
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SALEM — Legislators are consid
ering at least a half-dozen new bills
that would make more information
exempt from Oregon’s Public
Records Law, and backers are facing
opposition on at least two of them.
Those two bills would require
that personal information on trial
witnesses, accusers and others be
deleted from criminal records before
the records are made public.
Criminals can find out such
things as Social Security numbers,
birth dates and addresses of people
involved in their cases because po
lice put that information in reports,
said Mary Botkin, a lobbyist for the
American Federation of State, Coun
ty and Municipal Employees.
The open records law, passed in
1973 during the Watergate scandal,
says government records are pre
sumed open to the public except for
those specifically exempted. The
Legislature has passed more than
300 exemptions over the past
three decades.
Identity theft along with
public concern about privacy rights
has led to many of the recently pro
posed exemptions.
Botkin’s union, which represents
many state corrections workers,
proposed the two bills partly be
cause of the story of John Merrill, a
state prison counselor who was the
victim of a burglary in which his
personal information was stolen.
A man was convicted of burglar
izing Merrill’s house and sent to
prison. Merrill said he found out the
convict was able to see personal in
formation on himself as well as find
information on other people in
volved because of access to records
used in the case.
Merrill said at least two other
criminals now in prison were also
found to have his identifying infor
mation. He said his only losses so
far were from several forged checks,
but that he has no way of knowing
how many people may have infor
mation about him.
A news organization is opposing
the legislation that would exempt
personal details in criminal records
from the open records law, saying it
is too broad.
Tom Gallagher, lobbyist for the
Oregon Newspaper Publishers Asso
ciation, said the legislation would
make it difficult, for example, for
the press to get enough information
to contact witnesses in major cases.
Gallagher is trying to find a way
to prevent convicts but not the pub
lic from getting identifying informa
tion in criminal records.
“We need to restrict the right of
criminals to get the personal ID of
people. Don’t take away the rights
of everybody,” he said.
Botkin said she agrees.
“We want to draw this as narrow
ly as we can without catching
everybody,” she said.
Andi Miller, director of Oregon
Common Cause, a citizens’ govern
ment watchdog group, said the
criminal records exemption may
well be justified.
But, she said, the public needs to
be wary of creating new loopholes
in the open records law.
“If you keep chipping away at
things, sometimes you end up with
nothing,” she said.
Some other bills to make records
confidential are narrow and have
drawn no major opposition. The
House is due to vote on two of them
in the coming week.
One bill would make confidential
the addresses, phone numbers and
e-mail addresses of police,
prison guards and some other pub
lic safety employees, on grounds
that would lessen chances of ha
rassment or threats to their safety
by disgruntled offenders.
Another measure would forbid
disclosure of personal information
about customers of public
water utilities.
Gallagher said from what he can
see, that bill would not be a serious
infringement on public access to
government documents. .
He said the exemption likely
wouldn’t prevent the public or news
media from getting information to
use to contact individual water cus
tomers if, for example, water be
came so polluted that it threatened
public health.
Gallagher said that’s because the
law has a “balancing test” that says
even otherwise confidential records
have to be disclosed when the pub
lic interest outweighs individual
rights to privacy.
Job prospects still grim despite
rebound of Oregon economy
While industries with average wages below $30,000
have added jobs, middle-wage positions are still sparse
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
PORTLAND — The statistics say
that Oregon’s economy is on the re
bound after a painful recession.
But the recovery has been fueled
in large part by low-wage indus
tries, according to data from the
Oregon Employment Department.
Nearly half the jobs created in
Oregon between the second half of
2003 and the same period in 2004
were in industry sectors with an av
erage annual wage of less than
$30,000, like restaurants and bars,
social assistance agencies and tem
porary employment services.
For some Oregonians, that’s
translated into a world of reduced
wages and benefits, decreased job
security and diminished prospects.
Meanwhile, many of the indus
tries hardest hit by the economic
downturn, including manufacturing
and high tech, are recovering but
still not back up to full speed in
overall job counts.
While the employment picture is
improving, those who keep their
finger on the pulse of the job mar
ket say the economy’s heartbeat is
still irregular.
“What I see is that companies are
still hunkered down," said Jean Er
ickson Walker, executive vice
president in the Portland office of
the career management firm Path
ways/OI Partners. “Companies are
not positioning themselves for
growth, which is not the sign of a
confident economy.”
For example, tech companies are
looking for more flexibility with their
manufacturing and engineering
teams. While they used to offer sign
ing bonuses and other perks to lure
workers from competitors, many
now start workers in temporary jobs.
That diminishes benefit costs and
makes it easier for companies to trim
payroll if demand falls off.
Take the case of Paul Chirdon, the
former director of information tech
nology for Hillsboro-based THQuint
Semiconductor, who left when his
company went through a merger.
Chirdon spent $8,500 to hire an
executive recruiting firm for place
ment assistance, to no avail.
He told The Oregonian that when
he managed to wangle an interview,
he was often far more experienced
than the manager interviewing him.
In two years looking for a perma
nent position, Chirdon said he
found not a single company that
was aggressively increasing its in
house IT staff.
The picture in the manufacturing
sector is not much brighter. Ore
gon’s manufacturers shed 30,000
workers between 2000 and 2003.
The average annual wage in the
manufacturing sector in 2003
was $45,000.
Many industrial employers are in
hiring mode again, and the sector has
added back 8,000 employees since
2003, but there’s a long way to go.
“It’s still an employers’ market,”
said Bob Tackett, who was laid off
in 2000 when Reynolds Metals
closed its Troutdale aluminum
smelter and now manages a manu
facturing workers support group for r
the dislocated workers program at
Mt. Hood Community College.
McGough said what Oregonians
are experiencing is a long-term
stratification of the labor market.
The region’s economy is able to
produce many low-wage jobs and a
goodly number of relatively
well-paid jobs for skilled workers.
What’s missing is the middle
wage positions for semi- and
low-skilled workers.
Oregon does retain its strong
lifestyle draw, which inevitably fig
ures into its employment picture.
People move here without jobs, and
those who are here don’t want to
leave when they lose one.
Steve Bruns used to make
$75,000 a year at Wilsonville-based
Mentor Graphics. Now he makes
$15 an hour for custodial work and
managing a rudimentary computer
lab at Southwest Christian School
in Beaverton.
He has no intention of leaving,
even though he is skeptical of sto
ries he reads saying the state has
surpassed its pre-recession employ
ment levels.
“I’m just looking for something
that’s paying $40,000 a year and
benefits,” he said, “something so I
don’t have to tell my kids they can’t
go out for track and soccer.”
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