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Jeb Bladine: The sun never sets on 'Sunshine Week'

This may be the end of “Sunshine Week,” but the sun never sets on the importance of retaining and expanding access to government public records.

Media organizations often join and lead others in helping to write and enforce laws requiring transparency in government. That’s a complicated mission in today’s world of massive databases and super-sensitivity to personal privacy, but that makes the mission all the more compelling.

Forty-some years ago, testifying in Salem about a bill related to public salaries, I was asked by one legislator, “How would you like us to make the pay of your employees public?” My quick answer was: “If you give us the power to levy taxes to pay all our costs, we would be OK with that.”

Sometimes the quest for public records can be a long, contentious, expensive but necessary process. In recent years, for example, we won court adjudication that one important Oregon sunshine law means exactly what is says.

First, a reminder that our most interesting public records request is for details of records requests by others. After all, sunshine laws are created for the public, not for media.

With that, here is one Oregon law declared enforceable by the Yamhill County Circuit Court:

“The record of an arrest or the report of a crime shall be disclosed unless and only for so long as there is a clear need to delay disclosure in the course of a specific investigation, including the need to protect the complaining party or the victim … the record of an arrest or the report of a crime includes, but is not limited to: “(a) The arrested person’s name, age, residence, employment, marital status and similar biographical information; (b) The offense with which the arrested person is charged; (c) The conditions of release pursuant to ORS 135.230 to 135.290; (d) The identity of and biographical information concerning both complaining party and victim; (e) The identity of the investigating and arresting agency and the length of the investigation; (f) The circumstances of arrest, including time, place, resistance, pursuit and weapons used; and (g) Such information as may be necessary to enlist public assistance in apprehending fugitives from justice.”

Just to emphasize, “shall be disclosed unless and only for so long as there is a clear need to delay disclosure in the course of a specific investigation.”

That law wasn’t created for the media; it was created for all of us.

News-Register publisher Jeb Bladine can be reached at jbladine@newsregister.com or 503-687-1223.

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