Hmm. Is that legal, under Oregon's Open Meetings Law? It says even in executive sessions, the media may not be excluded.

Ah, thanks, Amanda! Scott was just looking up the relevant paragraph!

sounds like they dont like you Matt.
I would suggest you show up anyways, its an open meeting isn't it? maybe report back that they have closed you out of an open meeting.

A "closed, internal, committee membership meeting" WTF, I ‎thought this was a public issue. This isn't something ‎involving National Security or anything. So what's the ‎reasoning? Are they afraid the public might demand ‎something from their politicians or something? Afraid of ‎having to take some kind of action from a public outcry? Or ‎is it just pizza and beer night?‎

It took 23 minutes for them to back down. I'll be there.

23 mintues to crack them! Matt, maybe you should work at Gitmo.
(Okay, that was bad.)

It took 23 minutes for them to back down.

Good old Major Tom. Gets all uppity about the Feds doing nasty things, but tries to illegally close a meeting covered under Oregon's open meetings laws.

Tom is such a DUMBASS and today's episode
at City Hall proved it beyond all doubt.
Now, when we see him out 'n' about, rather
than waving to him, we should laugh, giggle and snicker as we point at him and
scream as loud as we can...there is TOM the DUMBASS!

For what it's worth, even if this were to be considered an "executive session" of the committee, they STILL could not legally bar the media from attending, except under very narrow and specifically-defined circumstances as spelled out in the law. They'd also, if it were somehow an "executive session", have to state under which provision of the law they are calling an executive session.

Holy shit. Who was the total dumbass that made this decision? Anyone with a passing familiarity with Oregon law would never try it.

Of course, why would Mayor McPublic even try it?

It's embarrassing.

I dunno, PDC gets away with "closed Commission sessions" all the time, and PDC is after all directly under the mayor's office.

So, maybe he was just trying to pull a PDC?

Typically those sessions at PDC are executive sessions, which are permitted. Public not allowed, but media is (except in a very small set of circumstances), although they are barred from reporting what occurs.

When I first got to Portland, I tried to report on some of the PDC stuff. But they have so many damn meetings, it's impossible to know which one you need to go to. It's like they barrage the public with "involvement," so as to prevent it from being involved. The only way to report on PDC is to have someone inside working for you, or to have worked for the organization before entering journalism, and understand its machinations.

Or to pick a single PDC issue and stick with it over time, rather than try to "cover PDC".

Suggestions welcome!

Give Jim Karlock a call and ask him to come with you and bring his video cam.

oh no! Jim Karlock is coming!

what was the outcome of all this? Did Tom
get his ass jacked and realigned properly
and as it ought to be? If so, tell us and
if not, decry him all the more for failure
to do what is RIGHT!