lltll!!tll*!]!l!.lPllllli:tl!..i IlL[ll.._.llalll]lll!llUlillttm.mllllIik!]lll ,lkl:'!ll .i]learr,2 J m EGJl ]J I!J.LIr!It).!.K.EF!m..'II L lJ!Lllli(.|,IllllllllJlll'lJl]II| - . . - -" ; . . .
Page 4 :lt, ,, ra - January 25, 2012
Al.olg/IB
birl. b 9- I(inll
|1
]:T TOD00
To BL)il.LD
A00To Z00BAS00?
IT
To 0000OVER
FIRE.
Our
Files
Looking back on more than 80 years of
coverage in east Linn County,,,
January 25, 1962
In the budget submitted to con-
gress last Thursday, $6.100.000 is
requested for Green Peter reservoir
construction for the fiscal year be-
ginning July 1. 1962.
Other civil works program
requests for this area included
$60.000 for advance engineering
and designing for channel improve-
ment. $600.000 of Willamette River
bank protection work. and $100.000
for general investigation in the Wil-
lamette River basin.
Bob Zike was installed as 1962
president of the Sweet Home-East
Linn Chamber of Commerce. Retir-
ing president is Osburn Shaw.
In attendance at the meeting
Monday night was approximately
430 persons. At the banquet Dan
Ashton and Gerry Sevems were
honored as Senior and Junior First
Citizens. and Mrs. Lenore Keeney
as Woman of the Year for 1961.
January 28, 1987
Picking the lock on his hand-
cuffs, a 16-year old juvenile boy
escaped out of the back door of the
Sweet Home Police Department
Thursday aftemoon after being
booked on a charge of robbery.
After being recaptured he stat-
ed he had been taught how to pick
the lock on handcuffs, by a friend.
with a safety pin. He was discovered
at his grandmothers house in Foster.
He was transported to the Juvenile
Detention Home in Salem.
The longest logs ever sold
by Barringer and Associates were
transported through Sweet Home
last •Wednesday en route to Bea-
verton, then a final destination of
LaPlata. Md.
Two of the logs were 150 feet
long. Three others were 120 feet
each. They were Douglas fir and
measured 36 inches at the butt and
12 inches at the top. The trees were
estimated to be about 130 years old.
Public information, meetings critical for citizens
Public access to most govern-
ment records and meetings is a le-
gal fight and a necessary right.
As taxpayers, we need to and
should know how our money is be-
ing spent. Government and school
officials at the city, county, state and
federal levels get paid by us, use our
money to build buildings and fund
programs that are supposed to pro-
vide services we need. The reason
state "and federal "sunshine" laws
give .us access to public records
is because sometimes we need to
scrutinize them to determine how
that money is being spent.
Most private citizens don't
have the wherewithal to do this.
That's one reason why you buy
newspapers. The press, historically,
has stood in for readers and ,iewers
when something smells. We check
out the numbers and we report what
we find if it is awry.
[__.DIT00:.)RIAL
i
, I
Though public records and ac-
cess to government meetings is a
long tradition in Oregon. it's not a
popular concept with many public
officials.
In recent years, public access
to records and meetings has come
under increasing attack. And in
some cases, especially on the local
level, the laws are simply ignored.
It is not uncommon for a newspaper
reporter, even from The New Era,
to feel the need to inform officials
about open meeting requirements
or laws pertaining to the release of
public records.
We hasten to add that. in recent
years, our local city and school of-
ficials have been relatively circum-
spect in this area, which is com-
A locally owned newspaper founded Sept. 27, 1929
Scott and Miriam Swanson, Co-Publishers
www.sweethomenewsicom
Office: 1313 MainSt., Sweet Home, Oregon
Mailing address: The New Era, Box 39,
Sweet Home, OR, 97386
Phone: (541) 367-2135 • Fax: (541) 367-2137
WHO WE ARE
Scott Swanson, Editor/Co-Publisher scott@sweethomenews.com
Sean C. Morgan, Staff Writer sean@sweethomenews.com
Miriam Swanson. Advertising Manager, Co-Publisher miriam@sweethomenews.com
Christy Keeney, Classified Ads classifieds@sweethomenews.com
Firiel Severns, Advertising Sales firiel@sweethomenews.com
The New Era (USPS 379-100)is published each Wednesday.
Periodical postage paid at the Sweet Home. Ore.. 97386 Post Office.
Postmaster: Please send address changes to
The New Era. Box 39, Sweet Home, Oregon 97386
SUBSCRIPTIONS
In Linn County: $32 Elsewhere: $40 Snowbird: $38
NEWS QUESTIONS/TIPS
Call (541) 367-2135or e-mail news@sweethomenews:com
mendable.
However. at higher levels of
government, threats to the public's
fight to know seem to continually
pop up.
Right now, in Salem, legisla-
tors are considering two bills that
would curtail that access. Neither
has a bill number yet. but both are
working their way through com-
mittee hearings in Salem.
One would close records list-
ing the names and pension amounts
paid to public employees through
PERS. Oregon's Public Employ-
ees Retirement System. The other
would loosen restrictions on mem-
bers of government bodies that are
legally required to limit discussions
of public business when a quorum
(voting majority) is present, to open
meetings. More on that shortly.
This PERS issue is not new.
After years of PERS records being
publicly available (without adverse
consequences), PERS officials in
2002 made an arbitrary, internal
decision to Close the records of
retirement benefits paid to public
employees. Then-Attorney General
Hardy Myers ruled in favor of the
agency after The Oregonian news-
paper protested - though numerous
court decisions across the country
have upheld public disclosure of
this type of information.
When current Attorney Gener-
al John Kroger took office ii 2008,
both The Oregonian and Salem's
Statesman-Journal asked him to
reverse Myers' ruling. Kroger did.
but PERS then hired an outside at-
torney, at public expense, to sue
the newspapers to keep the records
private.
A settlement was reached last
year and the records were released.
but PERS then sent a letter to all
110.000 of its retired members
telling them that "'court judgments
require PERS to disclose" the re-
cords, even though it agreed to the
settlement.
As Oregonian editor Peter
Bhatia noted. "Truth is. the settle-
ment ensued because there really
isn't a legal argument that public
pensions shouldn't be public, just
as the salaries of public employees
are public."
So now legislators are stepping
up to get those records cut off from
public purview. Retired public ser-
vants, perhaps not surprisingly, are
not happy to have their pension
payment amounts revealed to the
public. But there is a reason why
we should know if we have an in-
terest in such - we're paying those
pensions.
WRITE A LETTER
We encourage readers to express their opinions in letters to the editor
on matters of public interest. Letters should be typed and may be submitted
by mail, e-mail, fax or in person at The New Era office. E-mailed letters may
be sent to news@sweethomenews.com.
Please include a telephone number in case we need to contact you.
Also, we require that you include your name and city of residence or your
letter will not be published.
There is no length restriction, but letters may be edited •for lengbh and
all letters will be edited for libelous content. We discourage letters that attack
or complain about private citizens or businesses-on a personal level. Also,
letters containing comments on topics deemed by the editorial staff to have
been exhausted in previous letters will be edited accordingly
Without that information, tax-
payers have no way of knowing,
for instance, that a local school dis-
trict's top administrator, just hired
on a six-figure contract, recently
retired from that same job at 105
percent of salary. They dOn't know
that a secretary who worked three
days a week for 25 years and then
went full time for the next three
was able to retire on a PERS ben-
efit calculated as if he or she had
worked 28 years full time. Those
are real-life scenarios.
The Oregonian has discovered
that one individual on a Portland
fire disability was serving in Iraq.
Another was found taking a full
firefighter pension for years after
the city had paid to retrain him and
he was working full time as a res-
taurant owner and chef.
What if a reporter wanted to
determine how many police and
fire employees work hundreds of
hours m overtime their last few
years to goose their pension pay-
outs for life?
And What about PERS retirees
who move to Vancouver to avoid
Oregon income tax? Wouldn't it be
desirable, as a reader, to know that a
reporter working on a story on that
topic has the means to get their side
of the story, as to why they chose to
do so, to be able to provide a fair.
balanced report?
If this bill becomes law. that
would be impossible. We'd never
know that any of the above hap-
pened.
PERS is important for other
reasons. PERS obligations affect
all Oregonians. Higher PERS costs
mean less to spend on schools and
other services. The contributions
paid by cities, counties, school dis-
tricts and state agencies to cover
their employees' pension and health
care benefits more than doubled last
July. Collectively, that will gobble
• See Open, page 5
