A8 The BulleTin • Thursday, april 21, 2022
EDITORIALS & OPINIONS
AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER
Heidi Wright
Gerry O’Brien
Richard Coe
Publisher
Editor
Editorial Page Editor
Unreasonable
burden on the
public in public
records requests
Groups
clash at
Pilot Butte
Neighbor-
hood Park
Oct. 3, 2020.
This inci-
dent was
the subject
of a pub-
lic records
request.
ryan Brennecke/
Bulletin file
T
My Nickel’s Worth
he city of Bend’s dispute with the Central Oregon
The high desert spirit
Peacekeepers over a records request raises questions
Bend has a park: First Street Rapids
Park. It’s not really a park with grass
and benches. It’s a parking space at
the end of a dead-end street.
I park, walk down to the Deschutes
River Trail, and see the rapids up
close. A bench had a sign that used to
say, “Love the River!” Upstream on
the water’s surface I see swans, gliding
confidently on the currents.
The stately swans share the slip-
streams on occasions with women
swimming southward against the wa-
ters headed for the Columbia River.
My walk from the rapids to a steep
hill is a puny workout compared to
the aquatic Amazons’ routine; but
I see the First Street Rapids Gang.
First is the senior citizen couple who
would be at home on Berkeley’s Tele-
graph Avenue. Then is the male part-
ner of the highly educated bioscien-
tists’ twosome who have the smartest
Lab in town. A debilitating illness
now precludes his wife’s companion-
ship on the walk.
A resident of First Street walks
daily, despite temperatures below 20
degrees and a severe wind chill on cer-
tain days. We wave and think, thank
goodness the “summer soldiers” are
gone — the rapids, the sky, the freez-
ing wind and the rock overhangs are
ours.
These gang members remind me of
Bend 20 years ago — unpretentious,
rugged and at one with their setting.
Each member is a personification of
the high desert, its river, its rocks and
its timeless and indomitable spirit.
— Tim Conlon, Bend
about Oregon’s public records law that are going to
come right back again.
The records dispute was about
many things. Size of the request. Ef-
fort needed by the city to fulfill it.
Whether the Peacekeepers should
be entitled to a waiver of fees. What’s
reasonable for the city to charge.
To sum up: It was about money.
Who pays for public records?
We feel the right argument ap-
pears to have won. The city ended up
supplying the records, it paid to pro-
vide them and will apparently pay
the court costs of the lawsuit.
What’s going to come back is the
challenge presented by Oregon’s
public records law. Any fee charged
can be a wall blocking the pub-
lic from information. And under
Oregon law, governments can charge
reasonable fees to recoup their costs.
The incentive is for government
agencies to charge what they feel is
reasonable, not to make public ac-
cess to public records the priority.
Remember what this Bend/Peace-
keepers dispute was about. Mike
Satcher of Central Oregon Peace-
keepers made a request for records
about a clash between supporters of
Black Lives Matter and those with
other views at Pilot Butte on Oct. 3,
2020. The request asked for docu-
ments from the Bend Police Depart-
ment and records related to orga-
nizations such as the Peacekeepers,
which advocates for racial justice.
The fee given by the city was
$4,777.62 for 62 hours of work.
There were a lot of emails. Some
needed to have things such as cell-
phone numbers redacted. Satcher
requested a public interest fee waiver.
The city didn’t dispute the docu-
ments were in the public interest. It
offered to reduce the cost by 25%, so
about $3,500. That fee is not a “no”
to the public records request. It can
be just like a “no.” Satcher appealed
to Deschutes County District Attor-
ney John Hummel.
Hummel granted a 100% fee
waiver and gave the city 30 days to
produce the records. The city dis-
agreed with Hummel’s ruling and
sued Satcher. That may sound odd,
but that is a legal option the city had
if it disagreed with Hummel’s rul-
ing. The city says the lawsuit was not
about the requestor. The city told us
it believed Hummel’s ruling “to pro-
vide thousands of records without
cost to the requestor was and still is
legally wrong.”
This week, the city and the Peace-
keepers filed a motion to dismiss all
the claims in that lawsuit. The city
would agree to pay $18,000 in legal
fees.
What did the city get?
It told us in an email: “While an
attorney fee payment of $18,000 is
not insignificant, it is likely much
less than what it would have cost the
City if the City continued to pursue
the lawsuit on the merits. With a ma-
jor issue in the litigation resolved, the
City decided staff and attorney time
were better spent on other matters.”
It also told us that it feels like Hum-
mel has since “acknowledged the
City’s public records fee structure is
authorized by Oregon law.”
What did the Peacekeepers get?
Peacekeepers got the records.
They didn’t have to pay for them.
They didn’t have to pay their le-
gal fees, though they sure did go
through much time and hassle. That
should be remembered, as well.
Reading through the 189 pages of
documents the city sent us about this
dispute — for free and very swiftly
— we were struck by one paragraph
in particular. The city called the
request for a fee waiver an unrea-
sonable burden in an argument it
supplied to Hummel. “To require
City staff to expend at least 65 hours
of time on a request where the re-
questor has refused to narrow or fo-
cus the scope would improperly dis-
count the City’s judgment that doing
the work without charging the fee
allowed by state law and City policy
would be an unreasonable burden.”
We understand what the city was
arguing. But the intent of Oregon’s
public records law is that the public
gets access to what are agreed to be
public records. What’s unreasonable
is to charge fees that keep the public
in the dark.
Where were the solutions?
As we finished reading the guest
column Wednesday, April 20, sug-
gesting a reset on the city of Bend’s
policies on homelessness, we
scratched our heads thinking, “So
what are your solutions?” There have
been and are so many grand ideas
presented, so many locations and yet
we always seem to be at an impasse.
Maybe we should start with simple
and basic. A place to relieve oneself
with dignity: portable toilets. A place
to get rid of trash and other items: a
dumpster. A way to clean up, have
better hygiene: portable showers. And
before we start with “but that’s en-
abling,” think about keeping it simple
and encouraging these folks with so-
cial services to help them help them-
selves. Let’s start by giving these folks
a chance to have some human dignity.
It’s hard to see so much human suf-
fering. This problem is our problem.
From Confessions of a Recovering
Engineer by Charles Marohn:
“1. Humbly observe where people
in the community struggle 2. Ask the
question, ‘what is the next smallest
thing we can do right now to address
that struggle?’ 3. Do that thing. Do it
right now. 4. Repeat.
— Barbara Smiley and Dave Howe
live in Bend; Howe is a member of The
Bulletin’s community advisory board.
Light pollution matters
I applaud the April 7 Bulletin edito-
rial raising awareness of light pollution
in Central Oregon. Artificial light at
night (ALAN) has adverse effects on
us, our ecosystem and our community
— including bird health (migrating
birds are thrown off by ALAN), insect
death and wasted energy. While many
of us don’t think much about insect
death, we should. Nothing good hap-
pens when pollinators and the bottom
of the food chain dies out.
As a physician and sleep specialist,
another key aspect of ALAN is human
health. A recent article in the Proceed-
ings of the National Academy of Sci-
ences demonstrated that even small
amounts of light at night produce
adverse physiological changes in hu-
mans. While most of the light we are
exposed to at night comes from within
our house, the light shining in from
outside, as from a streetlamp, also can
have an impact.
The best part of ALAN is that we
can reduce it quickly and easily. It
might be as simple as turning off your
porch light at night when you no lon-
ger need it, or putting your lights on
timers and security lights on motion
sensors. Make friends with a neigh-
bor who has too many lights and help
them understand why that’s a problem.
Reducing light pollution is something
we can all do.
The High Desert Museum is pre-
senting a wonderful educational op-
portunity: “Vanishing Night: Conserv-
ing Dark Skies in the High Desert,”
running April 16 through July 10,
2022.
— David Dedrick, Bend
About that eco-friendly house
While I applaud the May couple’s
desire to create a dwelling that is uber-
eco-friendly that was in The Bulle-
tin recently, I have to wonder at their
thought that this project will inspire
other Bend residents to do the same.
Are there that many folks here who
have that kind of money to do this?
And how many nice (kind of afford-
able) dwellings will be torn down to
accommodate these buildings? Why is
1,700 square feet of space needed for
two people? Seems kind of pie in the
sky to think they can get by with rain-
water. How much moisture have we
had lately?
But this is Bend after all, and it
seems that just about anything goes.
— Barbara “BJ” Thomas, Bend
Letters policy
Guest columns
How to submit
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be limited to one issue, contain no more
than 250 words and include the writer’s
phone number and address for verifica-
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Writers are limited to one letter or guest
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your submissions should be between
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please address your submission to either
My nickel’s Worth or Guest Column and
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submissions are preferred.
email: letters@bendbulletin.com
Write: My nickel’s Worth/Guest Column
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Bend, Or 97708
Fax:
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Moving forward with the Deschutes County libraries
BY RAY MIAO
L
ibraries are an important foun-
dation of any community. I love
libraries; that’s why I’ve served
on the Library Board for 23 years,
working to make our library system
the best it can be. Recent controversy
about the proposed central library is
a cause of great concern to me. I want
to share my vision and options for li-
braries that help to build more livable,
complete communities.
Imagine a community where you
can take a short car ride to your local
library, walk your kids to story time
or bike to the library to grab a book.
Community libraries connecting peo-
ple through programs and resources.
That’s my vision for libraries.
I also want to share what the library
bond measure requires.
According to the library’s bond at-
torney the board needs to do what
is stated in the Ballot Title, Question
and Summary (Measure 9-139). The
Bond Title says: “Bonds to Reno-
vate, Upgrade, Construct and Equip
Library Facilities.” The salient part of
the Summary states:
“If approved, this measure would
finance capital costs, including proj-
ects that:
Provide a new Central Library;
Provide a new Redmond Library
expected to significantly increase
square footage; and
Repair, modernize, and upgrade
Sisters, Sunriver, La Pine, Downtown
Bend and East Bend Libraries.”
Bond measures such as the library’s
purposely do not state size or location
of new facilities. This allows flexibil-
ity. That is why the size and location
of the central library were not defined
in the bond measure. Consequently,
it doesn’t have to be a 100,000-square-
GUEST COLUMN
foot facility on the north side outside
Bend city limits.
The current proposed central li-
brary is about equal to three down-
town Bend libraries and is only one
option. There are other alternatives
that fulfill all the requirements of the
bond and may actually cost less.
For example, we could build a per-
manent east Bend library. It would
be the central library housing central
operations including admin, IT and
materials handling, among others.
The leased library in east Bend could
then be incorporated into the central
library saving continuous rent money.
La Pine, Sunriver and Sisters are also
growing. We could enlarge as well
as remodel these libraries to provide
more actual floor space for children’s
discovery and community rooms.
With money saved, we could pos-
sibly build branch libraries in north
and/or west Bend. Two or three li-
braries for the price of one — and
they would be community libraries
that are accessible, easy to use, and
provide for a new central library.
These are just some alternatives that
would meet all the requirements of
the bond and could cost less than the
current plan. Any monies saved could
be used to prepay the interest on the
bond and reduce property taxes.
It’s clear the community is divided
over the board’s current plan. There
are creative, workable alternatives that
will serve the people of Deschutes
County. We need civil discourse that
leads us to a plan that reflects the
needs of the community and can be
supported unanimously by the board.
The board needs a professional medi-
ator to work with us to find common
ground. We need to have in-depth
discussion of the options and develop
a plan that also includes fresh com-
munity input and possible revitaliza-
tion of a community advisory panel.
The problems identified by the City
Council give us the opportunity to
re-examine the details of our plans
moving forward. And they give us a
chance to rethink and re-engage the
community in each city before spend-
ing any more of the taxpayers money.
A new plan, developed by a unified
board, can meet all the requirements
of the bond and bring together the
needs of the communities we serve.
It will be hard work, but the effort is
worth it.
Our communities and libraries de-
serve nothing less.
█
Ray Miao is a member of the Deschutes Public
Library Board.