Investigations

After some much needed sunlight on its operations, Travel Oregon is looking for a new chief executive—at a significantly lower salary.

The Ochoco West Water & Sanitary Authority (OWWSA) board is expected to consider a matter involving the Ochoco West Horse Coop at its meeting tonight, a development that again places attention on unresolved legal and governance questions surrounding the public body.

The Prineville Review has been investigating for a couple of weeks following numerous tips from Central Oregon residents who say their TDS internet bills unexpectedly increased despite being enrolled in so-called “Price for Life” or similar long-term promotional plans.

A local contractor with longstanding government ties and a history of ethics concerns involving federal contracts, used taxpayer funds to attend conferences at luxury resorts and to pay for meals for its governing board members.

A Crook County Circuit Court judge has entered a default judgment and injunction against the Ochoco West Water and Sanitary Authority (OWWSA), ordering the district to release public records after it failed to respond to a lawsuit filed last fall by the Prineville Review.

The Crook County Board of Commissioners voted last week to temporarily shift responsibility for administering public records requests away from the county’s legal department and into county administration, adopting an interim structure while a comprehensive rewrite of the county’s public records policy is underway.

The Ochoco West Water and Sanitary Authority (OWWSA) continues to face allegations of violating Oregon’s public meetings laws, even as a formal investigation by the Oregon Government Ethics Commission (OGEC) remains underway into the district’s governance and transparency practices.

The Alfalfa Fire District has now filed its long-overdue 2022 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR) with the Oregon Secretary of State, just days after reporting by the Prineville Review and KTVZ brought renewed attention to years of missing financial filings that had placed the district at risk of dissolution.

Newly-released state ethics documents show that a longtime former manager — and now board secretary and treasurer — of the Three Sisters Irrigation District engaged in a series of undisclosed conflicts of interest and prohibited uses of office

A Crook County Sheriff’s Office deputy has been placed on the District Attorney’s Tier 1 Brady List, the most severe designation under Brady disclosure standards, effectively barring him from being called as a witness in criminal cases prosecuted by the county.