- Oct 25, 2016
Delay, Delay, Delay. 100 days and counting after spending $4,000!
Since my last post about BOLI employees possibly working illegally for Brad Avakian's campaign, the story has exploded as it was picked up by Forbes columnist Adam Andrzejewski who wrote a story about how bad this looks and it became the top Google search yesterday. Since then, both Willamette Week''s Nigel Jaquiss and the Oregonian's Hillary Borrud have written news stories about the Forbes article and I have been contacted by a Portland Tribune reporter who is also interested.
DAS's Matt Shelby responded immediately and he passed our public records
requests to each public body. I was contacted by those agencies and over time was given costs estimates for all requests, amounting to nearly $4,000, which we paid (except $510 which was just billed to us last Friday by Legislative Counsel's office who represents Speaker Kotek)
100 days after our original request OCWF has still not received our public records requests from the Governor or the Speaker (though Legislative Counsel emailed saying they had the DVD ready to snail mail to me). Both BOLI and the Governor's office refused to begin processing our requests until they had received money from OCWF (we paid all on 9/1/16 as soon as we got the invoices) and the Governor's office has not yet produced the information. The Speakers office through Legislative Counsel said they would not charge us until they completed our requests.
During that time period, I received multiple emails from both organizations delaying several times their original completion date estimates. No real reasons were given to us for these delays and it seems to us that they have been slow walking fulfilling our already paid for requests.
Oregon law gives agencies and public bodies broad latitude on the timeline to fulfill our request and the right to charge whatever their costs are to fulfill records. That said, one has to wonder why it takes so long for the government to fulfill it's obligation after being paid for the information.
Government imposes monetary fines on us citizens on a per day basis in certain circumstances, yet they can take their time in fulfilling their legal obligation to us (even after being paid) with no monetary consequences to them.
Perhaps it's time for a citizens initiative to create a law that creates monetary consequences when they delay, delay, delay their legal obligations to the citizens.
Just a thought...
The answer is: we don't know.
Why? Because BOLI redacted (blacked out) an alarming number of employee activities during normal work hours, which we have never seen before.
They used the excuse "In the calendars, we have redacted personal information and meetings that are not BOLI-related public business, as per the AG’s Public Records Manual, page A-3, under ORS 192.502(2)." that these were activities unrelated to BOLI business and they could withhold them under a legally untested Attorney General's advisory opinion, if the information was of personal nature, such as going to the doctor.
So, we have asked BOLI to clarify that all these redactions were for truly personal business and not activities with a public interest, such as working for campaigns or other non BOLI activity. Here is the contents of our clarification email to Charlie Burr, BOLI communications director:
"Charlie, in all the years I have been receiving public employee schedules from public records requests, I have never received one with redactions. I was quite surprised when I saw them on the calendars you sent and I feel compelled to ask you for clarification regarding the large number of redactions.
Are you asserting that all of the redacted information amounted to “doctor’s appointments” (or other similar personal matters) that were scheduled during working hours?
The Attorney General advises public agencies that information about an employee contained in a public calendar is subject to public disclosure under Oregon Public Records laws with the caveat that calendar items “such as social activities outside of regular working hours or doctor’s appointments...likely can be redacted from disclosure, under the personal privacy exemption ORS 192.502(2).” (State of Oregon 2014 Attorney General’s Public Records and Meetings Manual, p. A-3 and A-4, emphasis added).
Please note that the AG’s Manual does not advise you to redact any item that you consider to be something other than “BOLI-related public business”. This is especially true for calendar activities that occur during working hours. The calendar records you have produced are filled with redactions occurring during regular working hours.
These public records requests were spurred in large part from the public concern that persons employed to work for the public were spending working hours doing tasks that were specifically not “BOLI-related public business” (such as assisting the BOLI Director with campaign or non-BOLI political activities).
Please confirm that your redactions did not contain public records that were not specifically exempted under Oregon Public Records laws or turn over any of the redacted information of calendar activities during work day hours that are not clearly of a private and personal nature from the following public employee calendars: • Brad Avakian• Christie Hammond, Deputy Director • Gerhard Taeubel, Wage and Hour (attached here)• Steve Simms, ATD• Amy Klare, Civil Rights• Jenn Gaddis, APU • Terry Bonebrake, Fiscal• Jennifer Germundson, Technical Assistance• Marcia Ohlemiller, Legal Policy Advisor• Charlie Burr• Paloma Sparks• Jesse Bontecou"
So how did we get here?
From time to time, OCWF receives tips about wasteful, fraudulent or illegal government spending which we sometimes pursue with an investigation, usually including expensive public records requests allowed under Oregon law. Such is the case when we received an anonymous tip that certain BOLI employees were engaging in illegal campaign activity during their normal, taxpayer funded work day.The tip centered around these employees helping their boss's campaign for Oregon Secretary of State (and other illegal activities) while on the clock working for BOLI.
While not all tips are deemed credible by us to warrant an intensive investigation, this one included certain specifics that met our criteria for digging deeper. So on July 20th, 2016 we initiated a Public Records Request through DAS that was passed to BOLI asking for employee schedules, timesheets, credit card statements and reimbursement vouchers.
These requests cost OCWF $1,355 and are available in PDF form to interested parties upon request, free of charge.
The large number of redacted time periods on the calendars are quite alarming and raise many questions. Additionally, so do some interesting agnecy employee expenditures such as many charges at the Guitar Center, Safeway and other businesses that raise red flags and deserve additional scrutiny.
We will update this story with new information as we continue to dig and investigate.
- Jul 28, 2016
The words of liberal Oregon economist Joe Cortright "Its like hiring the fox to vet designs for the henhouse" are all you need to know about the latest backroom deal in Salem that will hurt the middle class and the poor in the pocketbook and likely give more opportunities for ODOT to continue to waste tax dollars.
So once again, "the fix is in"!
This is the ruling political class of both parties stacking the deck so they can legitimize the next massive tax increase that will surely lead to more ODOT boondoggles like the CRC and the Eddyville/Pioneer Mountain by pass projects.
Any bets on how this review by a longtime ODOT consultant is going to turn out? I can guarantee this consultant will not bite the hand that feeds it, so you can expect a report that will exonerate the people and processes that have led to some of the most colossal wastes of tax dollars ever! In any state!
The fact that the Governor's long time aide made the decision to have the Transportation Commission oversee the review rather than the auditing professionals at the Secretary of State only reinforces the bad taste this process leaves in your mouth.
Adding insult to injury, they chose the consultant that will cost us taxpayers an extra $100,000, rather than an out of state consultant who would likely be far more independent in their analysis of past ODOT projects.
This proves our point that ODOT has little capacity to spend our tax dollars wisely, so why should we give them more?
Yep, once again the ODOT fix is in! Oh Goody!
