Opinion
A4
Thursday, June 3, 2021
OUR VIEW
A halfh earted
commitment
to open
government?
ere’s an editorial for the people who work in
Oregon government. They can be excused for
not getting as wound up about government
transparency as journalists or other members of the
public do.
But Oregon governments from the governor’s
offi ce down to the dog boards are supposed to be
transparent. They are in a number of ways. But they
don’t always put their heart into it. Sometimes they
don’t follow the law. So when one part of Oregon gov-
ernment calls out another part of Oregon government
for not being transparent, we pay attention.
The Oregon Secretary of State’s Offi ce recently
released a follow -up to an audit it did in 2019. That
original report encouraged the state — and in par-
ticular the state’s Department of Administrative Ser-
vices, or DAS — to enhance the transparency in the
state’s budget.
If it’s not easy to fi nd out where the state gets its
money or how it spends it, that’s a problem.
The department did implement a number of recom-
mended changes since that 2019 audit. It worked with
the Legislature to allow additional money be spent to
beef up the state’s transparency website. And it hired
a consultant to compare what Oregon does against
some of the best practices of other states. That’s good.
But DAS is not monitoring a practice of state agen-
cies to use non-budgeted positions. And it’s not using
its position on the Transparency Oregon Advisory
Commission to encourage the commission to meet
regularly and release transparency reports required by
law in a timely manner, the report said.
For instance, there’s a requirement in state law
that the commission shall report to the Legislature on
completed improvements to the transparency web-
site and ways to improve it further by Feb. 15 of each
odd-numbered year. The Legislative Fiscal Offi ce
missed that deadline in 2019. It apparently has missed
it again this year. At least, we couldn’t fi nd it on the
offi ce’s website.
EO Media Group emailed last week the two mem-
bers of the Legislative Fiscal Offi ce assigned to the
commission to ask what was going on. No response.
The impact of the pandemic on state staff could
have certainly been a reason. There could be other
parts of a heavy workload that they chose to priori-
tize. It would be nice, though, if they were transparent
about why they aren’t fi lling a transparency obligation
required by state law.
One other thing struck us about the way the
Department of Administrative Services — which it
is important to note is overseen by Gov. Kate Brown
— responded to the audit. DAS chose to respond to
some of the audit recommendations with what state
auditors called “extraneous responses.” DAS declined
to even disagree or agree with some of the audit
recommendations.
Do some employees at DAS not have a commit-
ment to transparency in their heart? Is Gov. Brown
going to insist they act like they do?
H
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La Grande, OR 97850
My secret mushrooming spots
BILL
ANEY
THIS LAND IS OUR LAND
y mushrooming roots run
deep.
About the time that
spring turkey hunting season winds
down, my forays into the National
Forest shift to searching for another
wild delicacy, the morel mushroom.
I come by this pastime honestly, as
I was exposed as a teenager to the
wonders of mushrooms by my mother
and grandparents.
Grandpa Elden Johnson in par-
ticular was a brave explorer into the
world of wild fungi. He was known
for occasionally trying what he called
“just a small sample” of an unknown
mushroom to see if it was delectable,
barely edible or would make him sick.
This is defi nitely not a recommended
way of learning about mushrooms,
but as a result of his style Grandpa’s
suite of mushroom species that col-
lected for the table was a lot broader
than mine.
I know morels, king boletes,
shaggy manes and corals, but I
remember him also talking enthu-
siastically about oyster mushrooms,
chicken-of-the-woods and slippery
jacks, none of which are on my posi-
tive go-to list.
Somewhere in my collection
of papers I have a manuscript he
wrote about the wonders of mush-
rooming in the Blues. He challenged
the reader to take time to meander
slowly among the trees soaking in
the sounds, smells and feelings of the
M
spring woods. His words resonate in
me every time I step into the forest
in search of mushrooms, and I fi nd
that it is easy to fall into a meditative
state. No wonder mushroom hunters
get lost so often.
What I wouldn’t give for one more
chance to go with my grandpa to
some of his favorite mushrooming
spots in the Blues, for his haunts
are lost to memory now. But I have
started to develop my own mush-
rooming spots, and I like to think that
some of them are the same pieces of
ground that my grandparents used to
walk.
This spring has been incred-
ibly dry, and while turkey hunting
I noticed how the forest fl oor was
crunchy, more like August than May.
But last week we had just a bit of
rain, and my good friend Matt and I
decided it might be time to look for
mushrooms. We found the woods to
be teeming with people heading out
for Memorial Day weekend, with
camps tucked into small forest open-
ings and vehicles parked in wide
spots along the forest roads.
Undaunted, we slipped into the
woods and moved from one known
honey hole to another, and after
an hour of searching had collected
exactly one medium-sized king
bolete, one morel and one fresh coral
mushroom. We moved down the
road, parked at a road closure gate
and hiked 20 minutes to another spot
I had marked last year with my GPS.
As I entered into the stand, my eyes
were fi rst drawn to the abundant
corals.
These are not my favorite, so I
continued my mushroom meander
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when I was rewarded by — a morel. I
bent down to cleanly sever it from the
stalk and saw another, and another
and another. That’s how morel
hunting goes, and by crawling on
hands and knees I was able to collect
several dozen in just a few minutes.
The best part? There was no evi-
dence of other pickers. My secret spot
was and is still mine; Matt can be
trusted to keep it to himself. A mush-
room spot is a secret worth keeping
close, and mushroom hunters under-
stand that it is an honor to be taken to
another’s favorite spot, a sacred trust
that is not to be violated.
There are some places in the Blues
that hold mushrooms but that are
off limits to me — private lands, the
Umatilla reservation. Fortunately for
us, the National Forests have millions
of acres of ground to search for these
delicacies, and it is there for all of us.
You don’t even need a permit if you
are picking mushrooms only for your
personal use.
My grandparents and mother had
their mushrooming spots, I have
mine, and our daughter is developing
her own. While my grandparents
left me their books, their writing and
some of their knowledge, they made
no maps. Perhaps it is better that way,
as I collect my own places to wander
each spring.
I encourage others to do the
same while the spring fl owers are
blooming, the sun is shining and the
birds are singing. It’s a fi ne time to
enjoy our public lands.
———
Bill Aney is a forester and wild-
life biologist living in Pendleton and
loving the Blue Mountains.
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