Salem councilors support law change so they can talk outside of public view
Salem city councilors are supporting legislation that relaxes state public meetings law that last year ensnared five councilors and Mayor Julie Hoy in an ethics violation.
The council approved its legislative priorities on Monday, Feb. 23, including House Bill 4177 now being considered by legislators. The legislation would change existing prohibitions against serial communications. The law is meant to keep public matters in the open and not allow public officials to use a chain of calls, emails or texts to address government business.
In October, the Oregon Government Ethics Commission found that Hoy, Council President Linda Nishioka and Councilors Deanna Gwyn, Vanessa Nordyke, Paul Tigan and Micki Varney broke the law when they spoke with each other outside of the public view leading up to then-City Manager Keith Stahley’s resignation roughly a year ago.
Nishioka and all four city councilors conceded the ethics violation and accepted a letter of education from the commission. Hoy did not.
The legislative priorities and bills to support were recommended by the city’s Legislative Committee which includes Hoy, Gwyn, Nordyke and Councilor Irvin Brown.
The committee justified its support of the bill arguing in a written explanation that interpretations of the current law by the ethics commission “have had a chilling effect on local government officials and the ability of public bodies to do their work.”
Over the summer, councilors avoided public appearances and didn’t speak with the press fearing they might violate Oregon public meetings law following an ethics commission training on new state rules.
Those new rules concerned jurisdictions across the state, leading the League of Oregon Cities to seek clarity on the restrictions. State Rep. Kevin Mannix, R-Salem, called on the commission to defer enforcement of the new requirements until after legislators could clarify the law.
The committee also said in its explanation it supported the bill because it clarifies the law does not apply to communications that are done for information gathering, are procedural, factual or educational in nature, or are made to the media, constituents, or the public.
“This would serve to give protections to public officials who engage in conversations not intending to violate the public meetings law,” the council statement said.
Legislators held a public hearing on the bill on Feb. 17, and 35 people testified. The majority opposed the bill, including journalists who advocated for government transparency.
Two Salem residents submitted testimony challenging the bill. Susan Myers, the ethics commission executive director, raised concerns with the bill as well.
The Rules Committee approved the bill and sent it on to the Joint Committee on Ways and Means on Monday, Feb. 23.
Contact reporter Joe Siess: [email protected].
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Joe Siess is a reporter for Salem Reporter. Joe joined Salem Reporter in 2024 and primarily covers city and county government but loves surprises. Joe previously reported for the Redmond Spokesman, the Bulletin in Bend, Klamath Falls Herald and News and the Malheur Enterprise. He was born in Independence, MO, where the Oregon Trail officially starts, and grew up in the Kansas City area.
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This bill sounds very vague. In addition, Salem city counselors got snagged for an ethics breach for good reason. It sounds like they want to change the law so they can continue working outside of the public view.. I’d be interested in hearing how other cities leaders are reacting.
To me, the Legislative Committee’s decision seems reasonable, given the information provided (which includes the hyperlinked, more detailed OregonLive article). What is not clear to me — and I’m all for government transparency — is any pragmatic basis for the journalists’ objections. It seems that the “brightline” in the existing law isn’t working as intended and has resulted in both broad and significant consequences.
An editorial in the Oregonian that’s critical of the proposed changes to the public meetings law says, “House Bill 4177 seeks to narrow that definition [of deliberation], allowing public officials to talk behind closed doors about ‘procedural matters’ or to gather information related to an issue they will deliberate on or decide.”
So it sounds to me that as long as a majority of the Salem city council, say, don’t actually “deliberate” on whether to ask a city manager to resign in private communications with each other, but only talk about how they feel about the city manager’s performance and other issues prior to the actual deliberation, that would be OK under the new bill.
Then at either an executive session or regular council meeting, they could do the “Do I hear a motion to…” thing without engaging in any public discussion of the issue, because they’d already done the discussing outside of the public eye. This isn’t how elected officials should be acting, making decisions outside of the public’s view.