Crook County, Ore. – The Ochoco West Water & Sanitary Authority (OWWSA) briefly placed a “media screening policy” on the agenda for its rescheduled Aug. 19 meeting, triggering concerns it was targeting the press following extensive reporting on its illegal meetings. Over the weekend, officials quietly removed that item from an amended agenda.
It then also added an item regarding “electronic access to meetings.” The original agenda is no longer accessible on the OWWSA’s website, but it can be viewed by clicking here.
State law requires remote access to be provided for public meetings. Yet OWWSA has systematically allowed remote participation only for board members, while the public and press have been repeatedly denied that access. The issue also comes following a 2024 public meetings grievance in which the OWWSA responded saying it was not “reasonable” for the district to provide remote access despite later providing select access.
The recent discovery, alongside a slew of other concerning public meetings failures involving noticing meetings that involved discussion on ongoing controversy, prompted the Prineville Review last month to submit a public meetings grievance.
The OWWSA failed to respond to that July 21st grievance within the required 21 days, which has now escalated to a formal complaint with the Oregon Government Ethics Commission. A separate pending July 31st grievance is still pending over allegations from this publication that it held a meeting with only hours’ notice. The OWWSA Board has until Thursday to respond, although it did not list any agenda item for its meeting seeking to discuss a response.
The OWWSA also failed to address a public records request submitted by the Prineville Review the same day, and as of now has not even acknowledged the request, let alone provided any production of records. Under Oregon law, the OWWSA was supposed to provide a simple acknowledgment of the request by July 28th.
The request sought records related to its agreements with a reported illegal horse co-op, as well as communications between officials related to when they were provided notice of meeting agendas and sought to be provided with remote attendance.
The failure has also prompted this publication to petition the Crook County District Attorney last week to review the matter and enjoin the OWWSA from ignoring the request and request that it be ordered to comply with the law. The petition is part of a process under the Oregon Public Records Law when a requester believes a request has received an improper denial or the public body has failed to provide timely responses.
After initial publication, Crook County District Attorney Kari Hathorn ordered the OWWSA to release the records to the Prineville Review outlined in our July 21st records request. The OWWSA now has seven days to provide the records or challenge the order in circuit court, according to Oregon law.
While delays are common with records requests, and often part of the claims in petitions seen by DAs and the Attorney General, the lack of acknowledgement by a public body entirely is far rarer.
The heightened media attention involving the OWWSA and the small Ochoco West subdivision community comes after a long-running investigation by the Prineville Review and years of internal turmoil that continues to come to light amid numerous allegations from local homeowners and former officials. That also included the discovery regarding the OWWSA’s contract with an illegal horse “co-op” that provides boarding services to its associated property owners’ association members.
The consideration of such a media policy is not the first time a public body has looked to take such action in the wake of news media reporting in Oregon, including locally.
Following public scrutiny as well as its attempt to prevent the Prineville Review from recording public meetings, the Crook County Cemetery District worked for months to pass such a policy. While not referencing the Prineville Review by name, the district’s board members had repeatedly insinuated an interest in preventing this publication from accessing its executive sessions.
Generally, such policies focus on creating hoops to jump through for representatives of the news media in order to be provided access to executive sessions. Still, such policies must be very narrowly tailored to avoid running afoul of Oregon law that requires reporters to be allowed into executive sessions with few exceptions, according to a 2016 Oregon Department of Justice opinion.
“To the extent that enforcing a policy would result in the exclusion of a person statutorily entitled to attend an executive session, the policy is inconsistent with ORS 192.660(4). In evaluating allegations that an individual was wrongly excluded from executive session, the commission must assess compliance with the statute regardless of a governing body’s policies,” the 2016 opinion noted.
Early last year, this reporter filed for a injunction in Marion County Circuit Court against the Oregon State Fair after it passed a similar policy, but in that case the policy went as far as to dictate that as a condition of “accredidation” as news media, the OSF reserved the right to correct reporting that it deemed unfair or inaccurate about its events and facilities, along with requirements mandating the OSF be tagged on social media if our news articles were shared on those respective platforms.
The court did not proceed with considering the injunction, as days following the filing, the OSF appeared to fire its private attorney and retained an Oregon DOJ trial attorney, who stated that the policy had been rescinded and that the issue was “moot.”
It was not yet clear what the scope of a potential “media screening policy” from the OWWSA would have included, and who within the district may have pushed for the agenda item after the district cancelled and rescheduled its Aug 12th meeting, admitting it failed to comply with public meetings law.
The OWWSA Board is set to discuss several other important items impacting residents and the public at tonight’s meeting, including issues concerning ownership questions involving Grizzly Road, which provides access to the Joe Fisher Reservoir, a topic of debate for many years.
We reached out to the OWWSA for comment shortly before publication, and an official said she could not comment, but that its manager would be able to contact us shortly. We will update this story should we receive a response from any OWWSA officials this afternoon.
The OWWSA’s rescheduled public meeting is set to take place tonight (Aug 19th) at 6 pm at the Ochoco West Community Hall building at 5488 NW Prine Rd, Prineville, OR 97754. The meetings of the OWWSA are open to the public (only meetings of the OWPOA are restricted to residents), and an opportunity for public comment is being provided, according to its notice.
The OWWSA Board could face another public meeting violation, as tonight’s meeting again did not provide notice or means for the public to attend remotely as required by Oregon law.
Note: This story was updated to provide additional context of material from a 2016 Oregon DOJ opinion related to media access policies that attempt to limit press access. It was also updated to include a development regarding an order on a petition related to public records.
Mr. Alderman is an investigative journalist specializing in government transparency, non-profit accountability, consumer protection, and is a subject mater expert on Oregon’s public records and meetings laws. As a former U.S. Army Military Police Officer, he brings a disciplined investigative approach to his reporting that has frequently exposed ethics violations, financial mismanagement, and transparency failures by public officials and agencies.
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