A4
OPINION
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, September 18, 2019
A promising
start comes to
troubling end
G
an inherent, and unfortu-
ov. Kate Brown’s
decision to hire Or- nate, tension between gov-
ernment officials who hold
egon’s first public
records advocate in January these records, and members
of the public, including jour-
2018 was a promising step
nalists, who want to have a
toward addressing deficien-
look at those records as the
cies with how agencies, at
law prescribes.
both the state and local lev-
McCall cited short-
el, comply with the state’s
comings in how the law is
public records law.
applied in November 2018
It’s troubling,
with her first public
though, that the first
report about transpar-
person to have the
ency in Oregon. She
job, Ginger McCall,
noted, among other
last week announced
things, that the fees
her resignation, effec-
agencies charge to
tive Oct. 11. McCall
supply public records
Ginger
cited “meaningful
McCall
are “highly discretion-
pressure from the
ary” and “a perennial
Governor’s General Counsel source of animosity, confu-
to represent the Governor’s
sion, and frustration for pub-
Office’s interests on the Pub- lic bodies and requesters
lic Records Advisory Coun- alike.”
cil, even when those inter-
McCall also pointed
ests conflict with the will of
out that the law has “lit-
the Council and the mandate tle accountability” for agen-
of the Office of the Public
cies that fail to comply with
Records Advocate.”
records requests.
McCall said that during a
A potential model for
January 2019 meeting with
Oregon’s public records
Misha Isaak, the governor’s advocate is the position that
general counsel, Isaak told
was once relatively common
McCall she should be “less
in America’s larger newspa-
ambitious.”
pers but today, sadly, is rare
Worse yet, consider-
— an employee known as
ing the ostensible purpose
either the public editor or the
of McCall’s position is to
ombudsman.
ensure that the public —
The basic idea was that
which is to say, each of us
the public editor would hold
— has access to records to
the newspaper accountable
which we are legally enti-
for errors but also, and more
tled, McCall said she felt
importantly, to examine,
that Isaak had implied she
with the eye of a journal-
should not reveal, in par-
ist, potential lapses in ethical
ticular to journalists, that
standards.
she was expected to parrot
This concept was cred-
the governor’s office script
even if it conflicted with her ible, of course, only when
the newspaper published the
beliefs.
public editor’s findings, and
In other words, the state
official supposedly commit- opinions, without alteration
ted to transparency says she or influence.
Newspapers are private
was told to drape an opaque
cloak over crucial aspects of businesses. They are not
subject to the public records
her job.
Brown’s communications law. Yet they seem to value
director, Chris Pair, disputes the independence of an
McCall’s claims that she was ombudsman more than Ore-
gon state officials do.
pressured.
Gov. Brown said last
Pair said the Legislature,
week that she agrees with
in creating the Office of the
McCall that the records
Public Records Advocate,
advocate “should be truly
decided that the position
independent.” Brown also
would be under the gover-
said she planned to meet
nor’s authority.
This might well be part of with McCall to discuss ways
to “create a truly indepen-
the problem here.
dent position.”
If McCall’s successor is
That shouldn’t be diffi-
to truly serve as an advocate
cult. The governor should
for the public, rather than a
start by making sure her
mouthpiece for the govern-
ment, then he or she needs to general counsel supports the
be insulated from influence, independence of the public
records advocate rather than
whether direct or implied,
cajoles that person to defer
from state officials.
That’s because there is
to the governor’s office.
GUEST COMMENT
Issues with opioid data
By Steve Suo
I
edited The Oregonian/Ore-
gonLive article on opioids and
pharmacies that your publi-
cation critiqued on Aug. 23. Our
report was based on The Washing-
ton Post’s national ranking of phar-
macies by opioid pills purchased,
per county resident, per year. You
raised concerns about the analy-
sis, which put Howard’s Drugs, in
Lake County, and Len’s Drug, in
Grant County, in the top 0.1 per-
cent of 83,000 pharmacies in the
country.
There is a shortcoming to the
Post’s approach. Dividing every
store’s pill purchases by its county
population dilutes the rates for
urban stores, most of which serve
only a fraction of their urban
markets.
Prompted by your article, we
asked the Post about its methodol-
ogy. Investigative Editor Jeff Leen
said that the ideal measure would
have been a pharmacy’s pill orders
per actual opioid customer. That
information was not available from
the database, so the Post used an
imperfect measure that had sup-
port from experts. The choice was
made after consultation with math-
ematicians for the parties suing
opioid manufacturers. The Drug
Enforcement Administration has
used the same methodology to
identify pharmacies for scrutiny.
Speed and simplicity were also
factors in the Post’s decision to
publish the numbers while it con-
tinued to work on a more nuanced
ranking system.
Is there a fairer way to compare
urban and rural stores? Since pub-
lication, we’ve followed your sug-
gestion to divide each county’s
population by its number of stores.
Howard’s and Len’s would remain
outliers, but not as extreme as in
the Post’s rankings. They would be
in the top 11 percent and 8 percent
of stores nationally, but so would
dozens of other Oregon stores, and
thousands across the country.
Of course, this method has its
own issues. Some urban pharma-
cies presumably have a much big-
ger market share than others. Many
serve commuters from suburban
counties as well as local residents.
For another perspective, we
examined the Post’s rates for stores
in counties averaging less than 1.5
pharmacies in business from 2006
to 2012 (Grant County’s status
today). Out of 435 similarly situ-
ated, rural stores nationwide, How-
ard’s rate was higher than 430.
Len’s was higher than 400, and
it’s worth noting that one other
pharmacy served Grant County
throughout this period.
Much to their credit, the two
Oregon pharmacy owners gave us
lengthy interviews and provided
needed context that we included
in our article. The Lake County
owner noted that his was the lone
pharmacy for local residents, and
the Grant County owner noted the
higher rates of injury in rural jobs.
We very much appreciate the
Eagle’s reporting on this. We will
be publishing an editor’s note to
highlight the limitations you have
identified. In the end, the Post’s
ranking system identifies outliers,
but other methods put urban stores
at the very top. Our story lacked
important caveats acknowledging
the challenges of reaching a mean-
ingful common denominator. Your
story is leading us to rectify that
in print and online.
Steve Suo is the watchdog and
data editor for The Oregonian/
OregonLive.
FARMER’S FATE
Remembering those mental notes
H
onesty is the best pol-
icy, of course, but some-
times those little white lies
sneak in:
My water intake always
exceeds that of Gatorade.
I would never eat the whole
bowl of popcorn by myself.
Starting the day before the
rooster gets out of bed is exciting.
I need that new pair of shoes.
I know I’ll find it here again.
But the biggest lie I tell myself
is “I don’t need to write it down,
I’ll remember it.”
It’s not a lie I’ve used spar-
ingly either. That little lie has
seemed to play on repeat through-
out my life.
“That is such an easy phone
number to remember. I don’t need
to write it down.” Days later,
scrambling through the phone
book hoping to remember their
last name.
Biology class: “That concept is
so simple there is nothing to write
down at all.” Called on in class
later to explain the process, I
find myself stammering, flipping
through empty notebook pages,
hoping to remember at least one
key word.
Making a men-
tal grocery list
also seems like
a great idea —
until I come home
and realize that
the sale on milk
Brianna
Walker
or eggs had dis-
tracted me, and
I’d forgotten the two main ingre-
dients I was going after.
My kids will say or do some-
thing really funny, and I momen-
tarily think I should write it in
their baby books — but it’s so
funny that who could forget it?
Then that night, trying to repeat
the story to my husband, I find
I am lucky to even have a gen-
eral idea of what the incident was
about.
Or standing at the parts
counter wishing like crazy you
would have at least written the fil-
ter number in the dust on the side
of the pickup.
The worst for me is writing
material. Something funny will
happen, and immediately I’ll
think of a great anecdotal story.
Sometimes I’ll even share it with
my husband, and we’ll laugh and
brainstorm about where I could
go with it. Then days later, I will
pull out my laptop and my note-
book where I attempt keep my
day-to-day notes — and I will
discover that I never wrote those
thoughts down.
There is little point asking my
husband. His long-term memory
storage is filled with equipment
stats and commodity prices. His
short-term memory is basically
just to determine if it’s worthy of
being in long term before being
deleted. He probably couldn’t
recall the color of hat I wore yes-
terday, but he’ll never forget 14
years ago when I threw out the
new Fastline instead of the old
one.
Now I will sit in front of an
empty screen and empty baby
books — wishing I would have
taken more time to write down the
funny stories, the amusing quips,
the hilarious snapshots of our life.
Maybe I should pick up a bot-
tle of ginkgo biloba next time I’m
in town — that’s supposed to be
good for one’s memory. I think I’ll
make a mental note.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Lamenting the
loss of Raddue
Campground
To the Editor:
Our family has been camp-
ing and having family reunions
at Raddue Campground on
Beech Creek since at least the
1930s.
We were planning on having
Blue Mountain
EAGLE
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MEMBER OREGON NEWSPAPER PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION
Online: MyEagleNews.com
a family reunion at Raddue this
year with family coming from
Montana, Idaho, Washington,
Nevada and Oregon.
We couldn’t have our reunion
at Raddue because the picnic
table and outhouse were gone.
Our family has elders who need
these facilities.
Also, the road into Raddue had
a deep rut, making it hard to enter
without damaging your vehicle.
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POSTMASTER
send address changes to:
Blue Mountain Eagle
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I am sorry there is no Raddue
anymore. It was the last wishes
of three of our family members
before their death to camp in Rad-
due one last time. They loved it
that much.
Now there is only a sign that
says Road 131. This is a big part
of our family history that has
been taken away.
Arvilla Harris
Fox
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