Blogtown, PDX

Monday, June 2, 2008

News City Opts To Obey Law Over Secret Racial Profiling Meeting—But Only After The Mercury Calls Its Lawyers

Posted by Matt Davis on Mon, Jun 2 at 10:55 AM

The city backed down this morning over efforts to hold a secret “retreat” meeting of the mayor’s racial profiling committee on June 10 and 11 at the Doubletree Hotel.

On May 19, I emailed the mayor’s public safety policy director Maria Rubio asking for a copy of the agenda for the June 10-11 “retreat” meeting of the committee and confirmation that the meeting would be open to the public. On May 21, Rubio responded: “We don’t have an agenda yet. The meeting will be a closed planning retreat.” I responded, asking, “Is it closed, or an ‘executive session,’ and if so, which part of Oregon’s open meetings law are you using to make this decision?”

I never received a response to my inquiry.

So on May 29, we had our attorney, Jessica Goldman, write a formal letter [download it here] to the city attorney and Bowman, and to her co-chair, Police Chief Rosie Sizer, asking them to justify the decision under the law. This morning, city attorney Linda Meng responded:

Ms. Goldman,
Although we had thought there was a basis for considering the up-coming meeting of the Racial Profiling Committee to be outside of the requirements of the Public Meetings Law, I have concluded that law likely applies to the meeting and I have so advised my client. Of course, the Public Meetings Law does not apply if a quorum of the committee is not present. Attorney General’s Public Records and Meetings Manual, (2008), p. 114.

In other words, they did a complete U-turn. Rubio says the mayor’s office is still unsure if a quorum will be present at the meeting. “Although we know what our desired outcomes are, we don’t have an agenda,” she adds, in a letter to Goldman. “Our desired outcomes are to develop a plan on how we will move the work forward. “

Recently the city’s Independent Police Review had a less than quorum meeting, in order to keep the public out. But it didn’t look good. And if this retreat suddenly becomes a small gathering, rather than a quorum, you can bet it’ll be remarkably suspicious timing.

The committee, which has been meeting since last January and is yet to formulate a cohesive plan to eliminate racial profiling, has struggled with the presence of the Mercury at its meetings from the beginning. In January I agreed, after being backed into a corner at short notice, to go off the record for forty minutes during a meeting of the committee. I can tell you that the conversation that took place was among the most politically explosive I have ever witnessed in this city, and that after having agreed to go off record, I felt I was sitting on information you really had a right to read. However, since my word is supposedly my bond as a reporter, I can’t betray the trust of the committee by telling you what happened, even though the meetings are public, and if you’d been sitting next to me at the meeting, you would have heard it too.

The committee’s co-chair, Jo Ann Bowman, has met with my boss, news editor Amy Ruiz, and asked her to respect the process by not sending me to scrutinize it so closely. But it’s our position that if something takes place amongst the committee members, it’s your right under the law to know what that is. Furthermore what does the committee expect to happen if we go off the record? For all the police in the room to suddenly don white hoods and admit that “they’ve been racist all along?” Going off the record disempowers the committee’s work and suggests distrust of and, arguably, contempt for, public opinion.

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Comments

Matt --
Exactly when and where is the meeting?

Posted by PD | June 2, 2008 11:14 AM

The meeting will take place at the Lloyd Center Double Tree Hotel on June 10 from 1-5PM and June 11 from 8:30-5PM.

Posted by Matt Davis | June 2, 2008 11:26 AM

Let me preface this by saying that I'm all for open government and deliberately limiting attendance to avoid a quorum and skirt the law is shady as hell.

But, I wouldn't necessarily disagree with Jo Ann's argument, that the process may be better served without wide spread public knowledge of the goings on at the meetings.

I haven't been paying enough attention to the topic to know how well the following applies to this situation...so you may take it with an appropriate amount of salt.

I work for a decent size software development organization. In the early stages of our planning process, LOTS of ideas are discussed, debated and ultimately discarded. In my experience, when some of these ideas/discussions get leaked down to the people who actually do the work, it can result in a fair amount of panic, which is ultimately unnecessary (and counter-productive) since the planning process filters out so many of them before plans are finalized.

Posted by DeepCerulean | June 2, 2008 11:39 AM

"that the process may be better served without wide spread public knowledge of the goings on at the meetings."

You develop software. They develop public safety policy. That's the difference.

However...I'd argue that the panic is a necessary part of good government and citizen involvement, but also, good software development, too.

If your "lower downs" are never involved in the decision making process, what does that say about your attitude to their importance? That you're better-qualified than they are? Not in the 21st century...surely...

Posted by Matt Davis | June 2, 2008 11:57 AM

In my experience, when some of these ideas/discussions get leaked down to the people who actually do the work, it can result in a fair amount of panic.

Which sounds to me like an argument for opening up processes to the public. Leaks and gossip might provoke panic, but clear information right from the transparent source usually does not.

Posted by Amy J. Ruiz | June 2, 2008 12:20 PM

DeepC us right. But the City isn't a software company and can't fire residents who don't like its policies.

The mayor made the mistake of setting up a committee, which created an expectation that the discussion would be "collaborative."

Some decisions don't need to be, should not be, or just can't be collaborative, but our mayor never seemed to figure that out...

Posted by Skinny City Girl | June 2, 2008 1:58 PM

The reality is committee work is seldom pretty. Take the DNC rules and By Laws committee meeting this weekend. Looked a lot like sausage making, but thats democracy folks.