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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (April 5, 2016)
Page 4A NORTHWEST East Oregonian Tuesday, April 5, 2016 Brown, lawmakers have done little to boost transparency By HILLARY BORRUD and PARIS ACHEN Capital Bureau SALEM — A year after Gov. John Kitzhaber resigned under the cloud of a federal criminal investi- gation, there is waning momentum for government transparency re- forms in the state capital. Federal prosecutors launched the investigation after news reports revealed Kitzhaber¶s ¿ancpe &ylvia Hayes since 2011 worked as a paid consultant for groups that wanted to inÀuence state policies. The news also prompted some people to call for government to operate more openly. After succeeding Kitzhaber as governor, Kate Brown pledged to spearhead legislation to strengthen government ethics and public re- cords laws. “It was clear that transparency was not a priority in the prior ad- ministration,” Brown said in No- vember. “I changed that my ¿rst day on the job and every day since. Since I was sworn in, my team and I have worked to increase the level of transparency in state government.” Yet 13 months later, Brown and lawmakers have done little to in- crease transparency. Lawmakers have twice failed to pass legislation that would set lim- its on the time and fees for respond- ing to public records requests. And groups that shape state policies and laws, including political party cau- cuses and work groups that advise the governor and Legislature, rou- tinely meet in secret. Jim Moore, a political science professor and director of the Tom Mc&all &enter for 3olicy Innova- tion at 3aci¿c 8niversity, said the situation was not surprising, given the trend in Oregon over the last 40 years has been to whittle away at the state’s open meetings and public records laws, effectively reducing transparency. “Occasionally, there will be a blip kind of the other way,” Moore said. “You would think that the Kitzhaber thing would cause that reaction, but it really didn’t.” Journalists’ inquiries late in 2014 into Hayes’ clients and the extent of her inÀuence on state policies caused a backlog of public records requests at the Governor’s Of¿ce. It took months for Kitzhaber’s staff to release some of the records, and other requests remained unful¿lled Mateusz Perkowski/EO Media Group Members of Oregon’s House of Representatives are shown on March 3. Neither the Legislature or Gov. Kate Brown did much in the recent session to bolster government transparency. when Kitzhaber resigned in Febru- ary 2015. There is no deadline to release records under Oregon law. The public records backlog prompted proposals to improve the state’s public records law. Brown introduced three bills in 2015 as part of her ethics reform and transparency agenda. The bills, all of which passed the Legislature, were narrowly targeted at some of the issues in the Kitzhaber and Hayes scandal and did not make any sweeping changes to govern- ment transparency. One bill required an audit of how state agencies handled public records requests. At the same time, a broad public records bill introduced by Rep. Julie 3arrish, R-:est Linn, died due to lack of support. 3arrish’s bill would have required government of¿cials who conducted public business us- ing private email accounts, as well as social media and cell phone texts, to hand over a copy of those records to the government for archiving within 30 days. Top state of¿cials, including Kitzhaber and his staff, Hayes and former Gov. Ted Kulongoski all used private email accounts to dis- cuss state business in recent years. The legislation also would have required governments to respond to public records requests within sev- en days and to waive all fees if em- ployees were unable to release the record within three weeks. Rep. Val Hoyle, D-Eugene, who at the time was House Democratic Leader and chair of the committee where the bill died, said it stalled because city and county govern- ments opposed the deadlines and fee limits in the bill. Hoyle said she and other lawmakers still want- ed public records reform, but they decided they needed more time to reach consensus with local govern- ments. Hoyle formed a bipartisan work group in May to discuss ideas for 2016. Those meetings, like other legislative work groups, were closed to the public and required no pub- lic notice. Hoyle’s group proposed House Bill 4130, which would have required governments to ful¿ll pub- lic records requests within 30 days or provide an explanation for why the records are delayed. Even with compromises and bi- partisan support, the proposal ulti- mately died in committee. As law- makers prepared to wrap up work at the end of February, the state Senate already had a backlog of 80 bills it was trying to consider before the end of the session March 3, said Robin Maxey, Senate 3resident 3e- ter &ourtney’s spokesman. Brown had also planned to in- troduce reforms in the 2016 short session, based in part on the audit of state agencies’ handling of public records requests. The Secretary of State’s Of¿ce released the audit in November. Auditors found that the nine state agencies they examined general- ly furnished records in two weeks or less for routine requests, while more complicated requests could take more than 265 days and result in high and inconsistent fees. Brown ordered state agencies to develop standardized public records fees and procedures, and said she planned to offer legislation in 2016 “to establish a neutral third party entity to mediate disputes regarding public records between requesters and state agencies.” Brown’s com- munications director described the job as an ombudsman. Brown did not follow through on that plan. Instead, she asked law- makers to approve two temporary positions at the Department of Ad- ministrative Services to help pro- cess public records requests. Nei- ther position has duties involving helping the public when an agency denies a public records request. Kristen Grainger, Brown’s spokeswoman, said the Governor’s Of¿ce determined “there was a more pressing need for technical assistance helping agencies respond to requests for electronic records.” Brown plans to propose legislation for a public records ombudsman in 2017, Grainger said. Brown has also committed to increasing day-to-day transparency in the Governor’s Of¿ce, for exam- ple by ordering her staff not to use private email accounts to conduct public business. At the same time, Brown’s of¿ce has adopted unwritten policies that preclude the media from speaking to her advisers and limit the public’s ability to observe policymaking. Grainger, Brown’s communi- cations director, recently told the EO Media Group3amplin Media Group &apital Bureau that only she and the governor’s press secretaries are authorized to speak to the me- dia. Since 2015, several of Brown’s advisers have declined to discuss their work on issues ranging from transportation to energy with the bureau. Brown also has a number of work groups and advisory commit- tees that meet shrouded from public view. Brown’s legal counsel ad- vised her that a group that will make recommendations to the governor, unlike a legislative committee or city council, is exempt from public meetings law, according to &hris 3air, a press secretary in Brown’s of¿ce. As a result, the governor has chosen to have most of these groups meet in private. The Legislature employs similar practices, with lawmakers making critical decisions about legislation in closed-door party caucus meet- ings. As a result, the discussions that take place in committees and on the chamber Àoors are often pre- determined. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a Re- publican Legislature or a Demo- cratic Legislature, that pattern is the same,” said Moore. “That’s one reason I don’t go to the Legis- lature anymore, because the major things they do are decided in cau- cus. I don’t get to go to the caucus, so what’s the point? In fact, many of the committee hearings are pre- rigged in the caucuses.” — The Capital Bureau is a collaboration between EO Media Group and Pamplin Media Group. NATION Tuesday, April 5, 2016 East Oregonian Page 5A In :est, region of guns and suicide, outreach to curb deaths “In the past, people shut up about this issue because ... they thought it meant gun control.” Associated Press MONTROSE, &olorado — Keith &arey is a gunsmith in Montrose, a town with a frontier Àavor set amid the mesas of western &olora- do. He’s a staunch, though soft-spoken, defender of the right to bear arms. Yet now he’s a willing recruit in a Àedgling effort to see if the gun communi- ty itself — sellers and own- ers of ¿rearms, operators of shooting ranges — can help &olorado and other :estern states reduce their highest-in- the-nation suicide rates. “Suicide is a tragedy no matter how it’s done,” said &arey, whose adult daughter killed herself with a mix of alcohol and antidepressants a few years ago on the East &oast. However, he sees the logic in trying gun-specif- ic prevention strategies in towns like Montrose, where guns are an integral part of daily life. “It’s very expedient for people to commit suicide by a ¿rearm, without too much forethought,” &arey said. “8nfortunately, it’s generally effective.” At the urging of a local police commander, &arey agreed last year to partici- pate in the Gun Shop 3roject, a state-funded program in which gun sellers and range operators in ¿ve western &ol- orado counties were invited to help raise awareness about suicide. It’s a tentative but promising bid to open up a conversation on a topic that’s been virtually taboo in these :estern states the intersec- tion of guns and suicide. &arey’s shop counter now displays wallet-sized cards with information about a suicide hotline. A poster by the door offers advice about ways to keep guns away from friends or relatives at risk of killing themselves. &arey says some custom- ers take materials home, or ask a few questions. The con- versations tend to be brief. “Suicide is one of those morose subjects that a lot of us don’t want to talk about,” — Catherine Barber, Suicide prevention expert, Harvard AP Photo/Brennan Linsley In this Feb. 23, photo, Police Commander Keith Caddy, right, sits with Gun Depot shop manager Bobby Gray in Montrose Colo, where suicide rates are among the highest in the nation. Caddy has been around guns since childhood as a hunter, lawman, firearms instructor and licensed gun seller. Now he’s doing outreach for the Gun Shop Project, and most of the businesses he has visited agreed to display the suicide-awareness materials once they were assured it wasn’t a gun-takeaway program in disguise. he said. “But it’s all too com- mon. I believe any method of suicide prevention is worth a good hard try.” ——— Across the 8.S., suicides account for nearly two-thirds of all gun deaths — far out- numbering gun homicides. In 2014, according to federal data, there were 33,5 ¿re- arm deaths; 21,334 of them were suicides. That ¿gure represents about half of all suicides that year; but in sev- eral western &olorado coun- ties, and in some other Rocky Mountain states with high gun-ownership rates, more than 60 percent of suicides involve ¿rearms. Along with Alaska, the states with the highest rates form a contiguous bloc — Montana, Idaho, :yoming, Nevada, &olorado, 8tah and New Mexico. All have age-adjusted suicide rates at least 50 percent higher than the national rate of 12.93 sui- cides per 100,000 people. Between 2000 and 2014, gun suicides increased by more than 51 percent in those states, while rising by less than 30 percent nationwide. Theories abound as to why such high rates. &om- monly cited factors include the isolation and economic hard times in rural areas of these states. There’s also be- lief that a self-reliant frontier mindset deters some :est- erners from seeking help when depression sinks in. “:e embrace the cowboy mentality,” says Jarrod Hind- man, director of &olorado’s Of¿ce of Suicide 3revention. “If you’re suffering, suck it up, pick yourself up by your boot straps. But that doesn’t work very well if you’re sui- cidal.” 8nderlying all these ex- planations is the fact that ¿re- arms are more ubiquitous in the :est than in most other parts of the country. &atherine Barber, a sui- cide prevention expert at the Harvard School of 3ub- lic Health, says residents of gun-owning homes are at higher risk of suicide than other people — simply be- cause a suicide attempt is more likely to involve a gun. According to federal estimates, suicide attempts involving ¿rearms succeed 85 percent of the time, com- pared to less than 10 percent of attempts involving drug overdoses and several other methods. “It’s not that gun owners are more suicidal,” Barber ar- gues. “It’s that they’re more likely to die in the event that they become suicidal, be- cause they are using a gun.” &olorado’s Gun Shop 3roject is modeled after a program pioneered in New Hampshire. Barber helped design the initiative and hopes collaboration on ¿re- arm suicide prevention can spread nationwide. “In the past, people shut up about this issue because they thought raising it meant raising the issue of gun con- trol,” she said. “It makes so much more sense to look at gun owners as part of the solution.” Hindman said that when he joined the state health department in 2004, talking about the role of ¿rearms in suicide was discouraged. It’s still a sensitive topic, he said, but there is some funding for gun-speci¿c initiatives. In Montrose, 3olice &om- mander Keith &addy has been around guns since childhood. Now he’s doing outreach for the Gun Shop 3roject — and most of the businesses he has visited agreed to display suicide-awareness materials once they were assured it wasn’t a gun-takeaway pro- gram in disguise. “It’s my duty to protect the community I serve,” &ad- dy said. “If I can go out there and spend a little time talking to the gun shops, maybe the reward will be saving some- one’s life.” ——— Suicide presents a distinc- tive challenge for shooting ranges Occasionally, some- one will rent a gun, then use it to commit suicide. At the Family Shooting &enter in Denver, there have been three such incidents, including two since Doug Hamilton began managing the range in 2004. Hamilton is open to letting his staff get suicide-prevention training, though he’s unsure it would help. Those who killed them- selves at his range exhibited no signs of stress beforehand. “Suicide prevention bro- chures aren’t something that anyone’s going to pick up who has come out to our range to kill themselves,” he said. Such challenges are fa- miliar to Dr. Michael Victo- roff, a Denver-area physician whose leisure-time passion is competitive shooting. He was at the Family Shooting &enter in Denver when one suicide occurred there. Victo- roff belongs to the American Medical Association and the National RiÀe Association, and has qualms about both. “The medical community has been content not to know anything about gun culture and gun safety,” said Victo- roff. As for the NRA, he’d like to see suicide prevention highlighted in its training materials. Over the years, ¿re- arm suicide has not been a high-pro¿le issue for the NRA; it worries that the top- ic might be used to advance a gun-control agenda. Though the NRA has no position on &olorado’s Gun Shop 3roj- ect, it has endorsed a bill in :ashington state encourag- ing gun dealers to participate in suicide prevention efforts, said spokeswoman Jennifer Baker. ——— Throughout &olorado, prevention efforts are fueled to a large degree by peo- ple who’ve lost friends and loved ones to suicide. &indy Haerle, a teacher and board member of the Grand Junction-based :est- ern &olorado Suicide 3re- vention Foundation, grew up in “a real gun family” in Sal- ida, &olorado, and had her own gun by the time she was 5. But she gave up shooting after her brother John killed himself with a pistol in 1980 at age 29. “Nothing is as ¿nal as a gunshot,” said Haerle, who was 13 at the time. In the northwest counties of Routt and Moffatt, the Gun Shop 3roject is coordi- nated by Meghan Francone, who constantly reassures gun owners and sellers that the outreach program poses no threat. She got involved after her 15-year-old brother- in-law fatally shot himself in 2010. “Keep your guns. Keep a dozen. I don’t care. But please make sure they are locked and out of the reach of someone who’s in crisis,” she said. “I’m not asking any gun shop owner to be a psy- chologist. I’m asking them to be their brother’s keeper.” Spring Cleaning? Recycle at “The Blues and Beyond” Pendleton Book Co. New photography by Debbie McIntosh through April 125 S. Main St., Pendleton, OR 97801 (541) 276-9292 • penbkco@eonet.net 36 SW Court Ave, Pendleton • 541-276-3617 Mon - Fri 10 am - 5 pm, Sat 10 am -2 pm Safeco Insurance • Allstate Mutual of Enumclaw • Chubb • Travelers 121 S. 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