Jackson County, Oregon raises the question:
What is "media" anymore?
Jackson County is drawing attention to county commissioner "salary creep."
It is the un-intended consequence of trying to obstruct the charter-change group from getting the information they requested. The county says the charter-change group isn't "media."
Jackson County commissioners are paid about $143,000 a year, making them by far the highest paid county commissioners of the 36 Oregon counties. The county is putting up roadblocks for documenting that salary creep, which sends a message that the county wants to hide something.
A local citizen group is circulating a petition to make the elected county commissioner job nonpartisan, to raise the number from three to five, and to cut their salaries in about half. They have over 5,500 signatures so far.The current commissioners are on record opposing the changes. The county slow-walked its response to the group's request for the salaries of commissioners going back to 1975. After a week the county responded, but not with the requested information. Instead, they sent an invoice for $284.64, saying it needed to be paid before they would provide the information. The county used the excuse that freely giving the information to the charter-change group is not in "the public interest." The county's counsel, Joel Benton, argued in a long correspondence exchange:
[T]he County has typically only granted fee reductions or waivers to requesters who have demonstrated the ability to disseminate the records or information to wide audiences, such as requesters who represent established newspapers and media outlets.
While the public may have expressed an interest in the subject of your records request, you have not demonstrated an ability to meaningfully disseminate the information. As such, the disclosure will not primarily benefit the public and the request for a fee waiver or reduction is denied.
This is a case study of foolish, self-destructive messaging. I am disappointed to see such boneheaded cluelessness. The county faces important problems, including the inadequate jail and homeless encampments on county land. I want the county to be good at governing, which means being good at communicating important things to county residents. I want them to have a reputation for earnest helpfulness in the public interest. Alas, no.
The county is being as un-cooperative as it is legally possible to be, at the worst possible time, on the worst subject. The overall question raised by the charter change group is whether the current commissioner structure offers good value in providing representation and communication. Yet the county's response is bureaucratic and non-transparent. The charter-change message is that the county structure is stuck in the past and needs an update. Yet the county's own excuse for obstruction is mired in the past, arguing that "established newspapers and media outlets" constitute the way local residents get their news.
Are they joking?
The "established newspapers" went broke and closed in Ashland and Medford. The Mail Tribune shut down earlier this year. Have they forgotten already?
Forty years ago, when I was a commissioner, eight local radio stations had reporters on the county beat. Now there are zero.
An "established media outlet," local TV station KTVL, closed its news department in May. The TV stations that remain direct resources to their web pages, which are now an integrated part of their news presentations.
People get their news from Facebook, Apple News, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, podcasts, a local on-line newspapers like Ashland.news and local hybrid newspapers like the Rogue Valley Times and Daily Courier, web pages from organizations, mass email services like Mail Chimp, and blogs like this one. "Established newspapers" are dying off and print/online hybrids like the Rogue Valley Times are normalizing getting news on line.
I don't take at face value the argument by Jackson County's counsel that "established media" is how local people would get news about commissioner salary creep. Of course he knows better. He isn't an idiot. The county is obstructing by playing dumb. People interested in the charter change and commissioners' salaries will get that information passed along from the leadership of the charter change group, whose voices are amplified, spread, posted, and through the channels of formal and informal media. Between the multiple social media sites, their own website, non-established media -- and, yes, the new versions of "established media" -- the word would get out.
This blog is a tiny part of that network of communication. This blog is, alas, small potatoes. It has never really caught on. But even this blog got a measured 10,503 readers last month on the blogspot site plus another 30,064 via the substack site that comes by email. More views surely happen when people forward email versions of the blog, or if people read more than one story in a single visit. This is the new media landscape. It isn't established, but it is real.
The county is not so blind to reality to think that the charter change group couldn't spread the word about commissioner salary creep. That was pretext. The real reason is the opposite. People would indeed learn of it and the county thought the public might not like what they learned. So make thing slow and hard for the charter-change group. The county strategy is to pretend that media is stuck in the 1980's. It isn't.
And the longer the county delays and comes up with excuses, the more curious people will be about that salary creep problem. The county can fix this mess. Quit delaying. Quit acting like it has something to hide. Quit being a bureaucratic bully. Be the open, transparent, helpful government people want.
Clearly the County is concerned that these initiatives are going to succeed at the ballot and are playing a foolish head-in-the-sand game of denying the petitioners access to public information simply because they can. The City of Ashland tried this with the on-line Ashland Chronicle and it played out exactly as anyone with any sense would have expected... the city looked as if it had something to hide.
If Jackson County won't release this information at n/c, then the RV Times should request it and publish their results on the front page. Above the fold
I am glad you shared this issue.
Jackson County looks like they want to make public information hard to get. I would hope the Rogue Valley Times would share this story as well.