4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, JANUARY 14, 2016
Ilwaco limits staff time spent on information requests
By KATHERYN
HOUGHTON
EO Media Group
ILWACO, Wash — The
City of Ilwaco has limited the
time public employees will
spend responding to public
records requests after receiv-
ing an unusually high number
of public disclosure requests
from one person,
During a regular Jan.
1 meeting, the city coun-
cil unanimously passed an
amendment to their public
disclosure policy to include
a limit on public records re-
quests work of 22 hours per
month.
According to the amend-
ment, the monthly cap is in-
tended to ensure that requests
won’t “interfere excessively
with the City’s essential func-
tions.”
City Attorney Heather
Reynolds said that once the
amendment goes into effect
on Saturday, city staff will
spend a maximum of 22 hours
a month responding to records
requests. If a request comes in
after workers have hit the lim-
it, it will be set aside until the
next month. If city staff have
not completed an in-progress
request by the time they hit
their cap, they will put it on
hold until the next month.
Reynolds said while the
amendment could delay ac-
cess to public records, it is
legal.
“Some (people) have hi-
jacked the original purpose
of providing free and public
information,” Reynolds said
during the meeting.
Pushing for rules
Under the Washington
State Public Records Act,
state and local governments
“Open Government
and agencies must
Resource Manual,”
make most records
agencies without
available to the
a full-time public
public. All Wash-
UHFRUGV RI¿FHU DUH
ington cities are
required to provide
required to have a
the “fullest assis-
policy that explains
tance” to requesters
how they will re-
and respond to re-
spond to public
quests in the “most
disclosure requests
timely possible”
to comply with the
Mike
way.
law.
Cassinelli
“ Tw e n t y - t w o
According
to
a memo from Reynolds re- hours is less than most other
garding proposed changes to cities allocate, but then Ilwa-
the city’s disclosure policy, co is smaller than most oth-
VWDWHODZGRHVQRWGH¿QHKRZ er cities and provides water
much time cities must spend and sewer services as well as
working on records requests. traditional municipal func-
However, in previous legal tions,” Reynolds wrote in the
battles over public records, memorandum.
According to Reynolds’
judges have ruled that a city’s
size and staff responsibilities PHPRUDQGXP FLW\ RI¿FLDOV
to the public can affect pol- tried to develop a policy to
deny requests that “... appear
icy.
According to the Wash- to be for unsavory purposes,
ington Attorney General’s such as extortion or retribu-
tion.” However, Reynolds
said that policy would be un-
lawful, so it wasn’t included
in the amendment.
Reynolds also told city
council members that they
could not create a tax on pub-
lic records requests, though
state law allows them to
charge for hard copies.
According to Cassinel-
li, the majority of requests
came from llwaco resident
Ryan Crater, a citizen who
criticized Cassinelli’s per-
formance during the fall and
recently announced a future
campaign for an Ilwaco City
Council seat.
“We did this because of
the harassment that came
from one person,” Cassinelli
([SHQVLYH¿JKWV
In an interview after the said.
In a phone interview, Cra-
meeting, Ilwaco Mayor Mike
Cassinelli said council passed WHUVDLGKHDQGKLVZLIH¿OHG
the amendment because a re- multiple requests in prepara-
FHQW ÀXUU\ RI UHTXHVWV KDYH tion for his upcoming cam-
overwhelmed city employ- paign.
“It’s not harassment for
HHVPDNLQJLWGLI¿FXOWWRDW-
tend to their other duties.
me to ask for public docu-
Between Oct. 1 and Dec. ments,” Crater said. “The
31, the city received nine city has responsibility under
records requests. City doc- state law to provide public
uments recorded that the documents. As a citizen, this
search for public records is our government and we
since October has cost the should have access to our city
city $6,000.
documents.”
3RUWODQGGRFNZRUNZDQHVEXWSD\GRHVQ¶W
Elvis Ganda, the head of
terminal operator ICTSI Or-
egon, said the company hires
for just 30 eight-hour shifts a
PORTLAND — You work, month now — down from 500
you get paid. You don’t work, jobs a week before February.
That means longshore work-
you still get paid.
It’s a deal that helped long- ers are doing 1 percent of the
shore union members at the work they were doing before.
But dock worker pay at the
Port of Portland collect more
than a million dollars in salaries Port of Portland barely took a
last year, even as cargo contain- hit. The International Long-
HUWUDI¿FDOPRVWJURXQGWRDKDOW shore and Warehouse Union
has a pay guarantee plan
and workloads fell fast.
The longshore union has that assures many longshore
UHDSHG WKH EHQH¿WV IRU GH- workers will be paid for near-
cades of a port-supported fund ly a full week of work at near-
that pays members whether or ly four times minimum wage,
not they work. During a lock- regardless of how much work
out at the Port of Portland’s there is to do.
Union advocates say the
grain terminal in 2013, the
fund paid $1 million over the SODQJLYHVPHPEHUV¿QDQFLDO
course of a year — while no certainty in a business that can
HEEDQGÀRZRYHUWLPH
work was going on at all.
But critics of the longshore
Terminal 6, Portland’s
container port and the former union say the plan is why
lifeblood of the state’s small union members aren’t work-
and medium-sized exporting ing with the port operator to
industry, now receives a sin- bring shipping lines back to
gle ship per month. Between Terminal 6. “It’s not much in-
April and July, the container centive to go back to work,”
Ganda said.
terminal had no work at all.
By MOLLY
HARBARGER
The Oregonian
Without the union on
ERDUGSRUWRI¿FLDOVVD\EULQJ-
ing Portland’s direct ties to
Asia and Europe back is a
hard sell. Greg Borossay, a
general manager of the Port’s
marine trade development,
said that ongoing litigation
between the Port of Portland,
the union and ICTSI Oregon
doesn’t necessarily need to
be resolved to bring interest-
ed carriers back, but a work-
force with a history of slow-
downs could hurt Terminal 6’s
chances.
“It would certainly be
helpful if the labor issue could
be fully resolved,” Borossay
said at an Oregon Board of
Agriculture meeting in De-
cember.
The Portland chapter of the
union has been found guilty
by the federal labor board and
judges several times in the
past few years of intentionally
slowing work on the docks at
the container terminal, mak-
ing threats to ICTSI Oregon
RI¿FLDOVDQGRWKHUXQIDLUODERU
practices. Hanjin Shipping
Co. and Hapag-Lloyd both
stopped calling at Terminal 6
in the midst of a West Coast-
wide slow down, but the Port
or Portland issue started be-
fore and likely will continue
long after other ports are back
to normal.
The International Long-
shore and Warehouse Union
did not respond to repeated re-
quests for comment. In 2013,
a union spokeswoman said
the pay guarantee plan is nec-
essary for workers who have
families and mortgages to
survive during disagreements
with the port.
7KH 3DFL¿F 0DULWLPH $V-
sociation, which represents
29 West Coast container port
operators, maintains the pay
guarantee fund and each port
contributes based on the tons
of cargo going in and out.
That means the ports in the
Puget Sound and in Los An-
geles are heavily subsidizing
the lack of work in Portland.
In 2014, the fund paid out
just over $600,000 to Oregon
longshore workers in total,
Mark Graves/The Oregonian
Portland longshore workers paid $1.2 million to not work
at Port of Portland.
with Portland workers aver-
aging less than one day of pay
without work over the year,
DFFRUGLQJWRWKH3DFL¿F0DU-
itime Association’s annual
report.
Last year, the 426 eligible
longshore workers in Portland
exceeded that total by August.
The full 2015 tally will be
released in a few weeks, and
will likely climb much high-
HUWKDQWKHPLOOLRQ¿JXUH
racked up as of the end of
September.
Longshore workers are
Need help getting
health insurance
by Jan. 31?
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SHOP + ENROLL,
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CLATSOP H EA LTH .CO M
DUGANINS.CO M
IN S U RAN C ESTO RES.CO M
hired in batches, when a ship
is pulling into port. They load
and unload containers, which
are then sent by truck, train or
EDUJH HOVHZKHUH WR EH ¿OOHG
and returned.
Usually, unions use mem-
bers’ dues to create their own
contingency funds for strikes
and downtimes. The ILWU
negotiated the pay guarantee
fund into its contract with
the port operators as early as
1971, according to previous
reporting from The Orego-
nian/OregonLive.