TRANSPARENCY
HAS HIGH COST
Lane County has been criticized for its lack of
transparency, and a June meeting of the county’s Policies and
Procedures Committee included a discussion of making it
even more costly for the public and media to gain access to
public records.
Commissioner Rob Handy is a member of the committee,
which also includes County Administrator Liane Richardson
and fellow Commissioner Sid Leiken, among others. Handy
says that Government and Legislative Affairs Manager Alex
Cuyler and Richardson brought up a proposal to multiply the
charges for public records by a factor of 2.5, calling it a
“scrivener’s error update” to changes that were made after a
December 2011 public records update to the Lane Manual.
In the past the county has threatened to charge $140 to
HORSE ABUSE
DOCUMENTED AT RODEO
Horses were roped by the legs, dragged by the neck and
thrown to the ground in a practice called horse tripping at a
recent rodeo in Jordan Valley, Ore., and one bucking horse
broke its leg. A graphic video of the events from the May
19-20 Big Loop Rodeo was posted on YouTube by the
animal advocacy group SHowing Animals Respect &
Kindness (SHARK).
According to SHARK the rodeo’s sponsors include Les
Schwab Tire Centers. The Les Schwab Facebook page is
full of angry comments from customers. The company tells
EW it reviews its sponsorships annually and has no
comment at this time.
Horse roping is the Big Loop Rodeo’s signature event.
SHARK says on its YouTube page that it has not
received a response from the Big Loop Rodeo to the video
and criticism.
Scott Beckstead, Oregon senior state director of the
Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), had
previously videoed these events at the Big Loop Rodeo in
2008, and he says it prompted him to introduce a bill to the
2011 Oregon Legislature that would ban horse tripping in
the state. The bill didn’t succeed “in part because people
were saying this doesn’t happen in Oregon anymore.”
In 2011 the horses were roped by the neck but not the
legs at Big Loop, and Beckstead says, “We thought maybe
happening people
$200 per machine searched in email records requests, and it
recently quoted attorney Marianne Dugan a charge of $3
million for her public records request related to a May 3
emergency meeting and allegations against Handy.
Currently the county manual says “fees shall be calculated
to reimburse the county for actual costs in making records or
information available.” Those fees include the full cost of the
staff position providing the information plus 2.5 percent “to
cover costs associated with building, maintenance, utilities,
etc.” Richardson and Cuyler requested this be changed to
“multiplied by a factor of 2.5.” Other charges include
copying fees, staff time to redact records and materials used.
“Looking at this change, doing the math from a couple
different angles, it’s extraordinary the difference,” Handy
says. He pointed out at the meeting that adding 2.5 percent
on top of the base charge is very different than multiplying
by two and half.
A public records request that costs $200 increases to $205
when 2.5 percent is added. But if multiplied by a factor of
2.5, the request would increase to a cost of $500 to the citizen
or media outlet.
“We had quite a discussion, and I emphasized that this
was not a scrivener’s error,” Handy says.
Leiken chairs the Policies and Procedures Committee and
did not respond to a request for comment before press time.
Handy called the attempt to push the change through
“another in a series of alarming trends in Lane County.”
He says that the change in fees that affects the county’s
transparency needs to needs to rise to the level of having the
Board of Commissioners discuss it and have public input,
adding that “major policy shifts should be made by
commissioners rather than staff.”
— Camilla Mortensen
our effort to introduce the bill got them to stop tripping.”
In a press release after the anti-horse tripping bill was
killed in committee, Dave Duquette of United Horsemen
said, “No rodeo event in Oregon condones, or conducts,
horse tripping. Oregon has comprehensive laws in place to
protect animals. This bill was totally unnecessary. It was
nothing more than a first step by HSUS to ban all roping of
all animals in our state.”
He added, “Horses are livestock, and if this bill had
become law, it would have set the precedent for making it
illegal to rope a cow. After all, they’re both livestock —
happens, according to Beckstead. He says rodeos like Big
Loop don’t get sanctioned by the PRCA (Professional
Rodeo Cowboys Association). “The animals obviously are
traumatized, injured and badly hurt.”
Idaho Power Company was also a sponsor of the rodeo.
Communications specialist Kevin Winslow says while he
did not attend the rodeo, he didn’t see any tripping in the
YouTube video. He says the bucking horse that broke its leg
was an “unfortunate and uncommon incident” and says
Idaho Power sponsors the rodeo because it is a vital part of
Jordan Valley, and the utility’s intent is to support the
communities that it serves.
“Some sponsors are making very bad choices with the
activities they are sponsoring,” Beckstead says. He says that
it’s imperative mainstream rodeos like the Pendleton Round-
Up take a strong position on horse tripping. The Pendleton
Round-Up opposed the anti-horse tripping bill.
He says that under Oregon’s current animal cruelty laws,
which exempt rodeo events, he doubts cases like this could
be prosecuted. “It’s obnoxious to most Oregonians,”
Beckstead says.
The video of the Big Loop Rodeo, which includes
graphic images of a horse with a broken leg and animals
crashing violently to the ground can be seen at http://wkly.
ws/1b3
The Eugene Pro Rodeo runs July 3-7 at the Oregon
Horse Center. It is a PRCA event and does not feature horse
tripping.
— Camilla Mortensen
PHOTO CREDIT RODEOCRUELTY.COM
what’s the difference between horses’ legs and cows’ legs?”
Duquette has currently been working on a project to
bring horse slaughter back to Oregon.
Most people are unaware that horse tripping even
OLYMPIC
CRIMETOWN
Eugene is not only TrackTown USA, according to a
press release from the Eugene Police Department, while
the Olympic Trials are under way, it’s also a Mecca for
thieves. The Trials will bring top-tier athletes, tourists,
music, good times and, the EPD says, an increase in
crime.
EPD “would like to remind citizens of the anticipated
crime increase everywhere, not just the vicinity of the
Trials,” the release says. It continues, “Our area will be a
target-rich environment for criminals due to the increase
BY PAUL NEEVEL
JOSH COEN
A native of Huntington Beach, Calif., Josh Coen recalls the evening his dad
was elected mayor. “We had a babysitter and heard it on the radio,” he says.
“The neighbors TP-ed the house.” Coen studied advertising at Cal State
Fullerton, interned at an ad agency, then was hired on as a copywriter. After
three years, he took leave for a trip to the Amazon with his two brothers. On
his return in 1991 he decided to go it alone as a copywriter. “I’ve been
freelancing ever since,” says Coen, who was also getting into blues music in
those years. “I went to blues festivals with friends who played guitar.” When
he moved north with his wife and daughter in 2004, Coen found that the blues
were alive in Eugene. He joined the Rainy Day Blues Society in 2007 and
played a major role in developing a curriculum and coordinating the Society’s
Blues in the Schools Program. “In the first full year, 2008-09, we visited 750
kids in 10 schools,” he says. “Kids and teachers loved it.” Free of charge to
schools, the program expanded to reach 4,500 kids in 2011-12, thanks to 32
volunteer musicians and teachers. “Every year, we visit the Serbu Youth
Campus,” he says. “Those kids understand the blues.” Check out Coen’s effort
to export Blues in the Schools to other communities at bluescomix.com and
watch EW music listings for his daughter Savanna, aka Eugene’s teen queen
of the blues.
6 JUNE 21, 2012
EUGENE WEEKLY
WWW.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM