OPINION
6A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, AUGUST 1, 2017
Founded in 1873
DAVID F. PERO, Publisher & Editor
LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
JEREMY FELDMAN, Circulation Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
OUR VIEW
Open records laws
cast a public light
W
hen it comes to government transparency and
accountability, open records laws provide a great
check and balance for the public and not just
through the media.
That proved true once again as it played out recently in
Mississippi, when a simple records request from an attorney
representing a former University of Mississippi football coach
led to the resignation of the Ole Miss coach, Hugh Freeze.
According to Yahoo Sports and other reports, the former
coach, Houston Nutt, felt disparaged when Freeze and leaders
at the taxpayer-supported university deflected NCAA accu-
sations of program misdeeds to the prior coach and admin-
istration. According to the reports, the most serious of the
violations — if proven true — would have occurred during
Freeze’s tenure, and Nutt wanted that publicly acknowledged.
When the university balked, he sued.
Nutt’s attorney, Tom Mars, in conjunction with a defa-
mation lawsuit against the university, filed a records request
seeking telephone logs of Freeze and the athletic director to
try to show that Nutt had been thrown under the bus. In exam-
ining the records, a one-minute call from Freeze’s state-issued
phone turned out to be to an escort service. Freeze initially
claimed it was a “misdial,” but university officials, alerted by
the attorney’s findings, investigated further and found what
they said was a “pattern.”
Up to that point, the media wasn’t involved in seeking the
records. Freeze, who is married and religious, immediately
resigned and headlines ensued.
Had Freeze been a private citizen rather than a high-rank-
ing state employee, calling an escort service would have been
a private moral matter and the accountability would have
been between he and his conscience. But as a public figure in
a position of high visibility and trust — especially with par-
ents, recruits and players — his phone records are public
and he’s subject to the same accountability as those in public
office.
That level of accountability is important in all states, not
just Mississippi.
In Oregon, legislators recently took strides to improve
records access, but there’s still room for reform.
Among legislatively approved changes are the implemen-
tation of specific deadlines for responses to records requests
and the delivery of requested information that isn’t covered
by numerous legal exemptions. The goal of the change is to
prevent bureaucratic officials from purposely stonewalling
records requests.
The Attorney General’s Office will also compile a full
list of the state’s more
than 500 exemptions
and make the list pub-
In Oregon,
licly available, while a
legislators
“sunshine” committee
within the Department
recently took
of Justice will work
strides to
with lawmakers and
others to review the
improve records
exemptions for poten-
access, but
tial reform.
Legislators also
there’s still room
approved the creation of
for reform.
a post for an appointed
public records advo-
cate who will medi-
ate records disputes. The advocate, appointed by the gover-
nor, will also chair a newly created Public Records Advisory
Council and will engage in training public officials on records
disclosure.
The changes here are meaningful, and as the Mississippi
instance illustrates, the disclosure there wouldn’t have come
to light without a records request and the clout of the law
behind it. Taxpayers benefit from laws that create that trans-
parency and accountability.
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SOUTHERN EXPOSURE
Remembering a ‘salty local’
and his favorite area haunts
By R.J. MARX
The Daily Astorian
I
wish I had known Mike Knop.
Horse racing, brewing beer,
cooking great meals, baseball,
hockey and fly-fishing were Mike’s
favorite pastimes.
“Mike believed in living life to
the fullest, chasing dreams, plac-
ing bets, cherishing and cultivat-
ing relationships, enjoying hobbies,
learning something new every day,
and reading,” read his obituary. “It
was important for Mike to live in
paradise, catch and
release and spend
quality time with
friends especially
at Cheri’s.”
Cheri’s of
course is the quint-
essential Cannon Beach hangout —
locals hold sway here, but well-be-
haved visitors are always welcome.
Former bodybuilder-turned-restau-
rateur Cheri Lerma presides over
the establishment, where you check
your ego at the door and settle in
for the news of the day.
“One of the reviews said there
were a bunch of ‘salty locals’ in
here,” author Peter Lindsey said.
Mike died suddenly at their
place near the Metolius River. He
suffered a heart attack while driv-
ing and drove into a tree. He was
59.
When Mike wasn’t fly-fishing,
working on his cabin or betting on
the horses, he made his living as a
house painter, his longtime friend
Rex Amos said.
“He must have painted most of
Cannon Beach,” Amos said. “He
was also a great cook. His scal-
loped potatoes were front and cen-
ter on Cheri’s food table. Everyone
loved Mike, especially Cheri.”
It was appropriate then, that I
cajoled Rex to put in a good word
for me with Barb Knop to gather a
few friends together at Cheri’s for
some informal memories. Amos
and his wife, Diane, were joined
by Lindsey, Marilyn and Cleve
Rooper, along with Barb and of
course Cheri, who was doing dou-
ble duty on a busy Friday afternoon
taking orders and sharing stories.
‘A Ph.D. in life’
Mike was a large man who
embraced life with abandon, Amos
said.
“Expert fly fisherman,
prize-winning beer brewer, avid
horse racing fan who packed
Cheri’s whenever the races were on
TV,” he wrote in a remembrance.
“He’d run the numbers and study
the horses then take up a collection
and place the bets. Sometimes the
gang got a few bucks, but for me it
was just a way to have one hell of a
good time losing a few bucks. Mike
was one of Cheri’s favorite custom-
ers. As she said, ‘and he was the
youngest of the group.’”
Mike came to Cheri’s every
night. “Since he’s not here, it’s
weird,” Lerma said. “We all inter-
act together. Most of them are old
locals who live here — I mean old
in the sense they’ve lived here quite
a while. We just had a good time
with each other as a group, from
work to play.”
“I could look out the window
and still expect to see him with his
baseball cap like he would do it
every night,” Lindsey said.
Topics of conversation ran the
gamut: horse racing, fishing, cigar
connoisseur and the merits of beers.
Mike was gifted at everything he
pursued, brewing the best home
R.J. Marx/The Daily Astorian
Rex Amos, Cheri Lerma, Marilyn Rooper (back) Peter Lindsey, Cleve
Rooper and Barb Knop, front, in Mike Knop’s bar chair.
Submitted Photo
Mike Knop
brew Lindsey had ever tasted. He
recalled a fussy friend who swore
he would only drink Budweiser.
Mike’s beer changed his mind,
Lindsey said. “He said, ‘This is
the first beer I really like besides
Budweiser.’”
As a fisherman, Knop could
effortlessly cast, either from the
Ecola Creek, Metolius River or
along the surf in Cannon Beach.
“It’s a bit of a cliché, but Mike
could read the water,” Amos said.
He was “strictly catch and
release,” Lindsey recalled. “We
told him, ‘That’s like shooting an
elk then taking it to the veterinarian
to get treated.”
“He wasn’t pretentious,” Amos
said. “With his fly-fishing, he didn’t
worry about getting thousands of
dollars worth of gear. He’d just go
out there and fish. He didn’t do all
this false casting or bring out all the
gear in the world. Mike would just
go out and cast out and there would
be the fish.”
“I always thought he had a
Ph.D. in life, because he knew
about everything,” Barb Knop said.
“He was an expert at everything he
did.”
Humor was his forte
Knop, described as “Mike the
Wheel” in his obituary, was born
in Detroit, Michigan, on May 3,
1958. After high school he started
his journey to the West Coast with
stops in Denver, Colorado, and
Kennewick, Washington. Knop met
his future wife in Denver in the
summer of 1982 when Barb was on
vacation and needed a golf partner.
The couple married on the beach
in Cannon Beach on June 1984.
“We came here for the summer
and we never left,” Barb said.
The only thing Mike never took
to, Barb said, was serving in local
government.
Though he served briefly on
the Public Works board when he
first arrived in Cannon Beach, he
spurned the public spotlight.
“His definition of ‘communist
activities’ were all the volunteer
things that I was involved with,”
Barb said with a smile.
After working as a bartender,
Mike launched a painting business.
He soon became “the” painter in
Cannon Beach.
Though he had the opportu-
nity, he didn’t want to become a big
business. That would’ve interfered
with his hobbies, Barb said.
He had something in common
with everybody, Amos said, and
humor was Mike’s forte.
“He always had something
funny to say,” Lerma said.
Cleve Rooper remembers Mike
playing practical jokes, swapping
habaneros for martini olives and
creating ice cream “sundaes” of
bear droppings.
The season Terry Porter starred
for the Portland Trail Blazers, Mike
immortalized him by brewing a
dark beer called “Terry Porter,”
Rooper said.
“When some hops fell off a
truck, Mike made beer out of it. He
called it ‘Roadkill Ale.’”
Mike loved parties: The Super
Bowl, Kentucky Derby, Christ-
mas and anything with his fishing
group.
“He lived to celebrate every
day he was alive,” Barb said. “If
it involved a party that was OK.
There weren’t too many occasions
that we missed.”
An empty chair
At Cheri’s, it’s not only the bar-
stool with his name on it that will
serve to remember Mike Knop.
“I always looked at him like
a growly bear that was a little bit
cuddly,” Lerma said. “He was soft
— crunchy on the outside and
chewy on the inside.”
“We miss him,” Marilyn Rooper
said.
“It’s not the same without him,”
Amos said.
“I’m thinking of closing early,”
Lerma said mournfully as the late-
lunch crowd settled down.
“I will make a rare appearance
and sit in his chair,” Barb said,
moving to the wooden chair with
“Mr. Knop” painted on the back.
A community event in his mem-
ory is planned for November, she
said. “I think if he were looking
down, he would say, ‘Just make
sure every day you tell the people
you love that you love them.”
R.J. Marx is The Daily Astori-
an’s South County reporter and edi-
tor of the Seaside Signal and Can-
non Beach Gazette.