Prineville, Ore. – Crook County District Attorney Kari Hathorn has ordered the Crook County Vector Control District to release public records sought by the Prineville Review after finding the district failed to respond to the original request — and then failed to respond when given an opportunity to address a subsequent public records petition.
The Sept. 15th order requires the district to disclose all nonexempt responsive records within seven business days. Hathorn also prohibited the district from charging the Prineville Review any costs to compile the records, imposing the fee prohibition as a sanction for the district’s failure to respond.
The order comes amid mounting scrutiny of the small taxpayer-funded special district, as the Crook County Board of Commissioners separately moves toward retaining a third party to investigate the district’s financial and administrative practices after months of its own difficulties obtaining information from Vector Control.
District ignored records request — then failed to respond to DA
The underlying public records request was submitted by the Prineville Review on July 23th.
It sought the district’s FY 2026-27 budget message, newspaper notices associated with its budget process, and all conflict-of-interest disclosures made by district officials since Jan. 1st, 2023, including disclosures involving contracted District Manager Cliff Kiser and any notices submitted to the Oregon Government Ethics Commission.
Among the issues being investigated are conflicts of interest over Kiser’s role as the district’s Budget Officer, which oversees his own company’s contract.
Oregon Government Ethics officials previously confirmed the appointment itself would not violate the law, but handling actions that involve or influence contracting with the person’s business would.
The Prineville Review specifically asked the district to confirm receipt of our records request under Oregon’s Public Records Law.
It never did.
By Sept. 8th — more than six weeks after the request was submitted — the district had provided no acknowledgment, clarification request, fee estimate, estimated production date, claimed exemption or responsive records, according to our public records petition subsequently filed as part of our records appeal petition with Hathorn.
Oregon law generally requires a public body to acknowledge a written public records request within five business days unless it completes the request during that period. Public bodies must then complete their response within another ten business days, or as soon as practicable and without unreasonable delay, with additional statutory requirements governing requests that remain in process.
The Sept. 8th petition from this publication argued that CCVCD’s complete silence amounted to a denial under Oregon law and asked Hathorn to order production of the records, waive any fees and impose a $200 statutory penalty for the district’s failure to respond.
But filing the petition still did not produce a response from the Crook County Vector Control District.
Hathorn’s order says the district and its attorney, Jered Reid, were copied on the Sept. 8th petition. That same day, Hathorn notified the parties that the district had until Friday, Sept. 11th, to respond.
The deadline came and went without a response from the district.
On Friday, Reid told Hathorn he had been unable to obtain direction from his own client.
“I haven’t heard back from the Vector Control District to help them on this matter,” Reid told Hathorn.
Reid is the same attorney currently representing the embattled Alfalfa Fire District, which is facing serious questions over hundreds of thousands of dollars of unaccounted-for grant money.
By Tuesday, Hathorn confirmed she had not received anything further from the district.
“The deadlines for compliance with the request have well passed,” Hathorn wrote. “Therefore, the failure to respond will be considered a denial of the request.”
Hathorn further noted that she had received no response from CCVCD by the time she decided the petition.
“Following a review of the Petition, (and having received no response from the District to date), I find the District has failed to respond to the public records request as required,” she wrote.
Hathorn ordered the district to disclose all nonexempt responsive records within seven business days.
While she declined the Prineville Review’s request for the additional $200 penalty available under Oregon law, Hathorn imposed another sanction: CCVCD may not charge the publication any costs to compile the requested records, effectively confirming a full waiver which we would have likely filed had the CCVCD not ignored the records request.
Third records petition involving Vector Control
The latest dispute is also not the first time the Prineville Review has sought intervention from the Crook County District Attorney over CCVCD’s handling of public records requests since late 2024.
Our petition identified it as the third such occasion and argued that two earlier disputes similarly involved failures to timely process records requests, including failures to acknowledge requests followed by continued silence until intervention from the District Attorney became necessary.
This publication sought the $200 penalty as provided under Oregon’s public records law in part because of that history, arguing that previous intervention had failed to ensure future compliance.
Hathorn ultimately declined to impose the monetary penalty, but granted the petition’s central requested relief by ordering disclosure and prohibiting the district from charging production costs.
County has faced its own problems getting answers
The records dispute closely parallels difficulties Crook County officials have faced while conducting their own review of Vector Control’s operations.
Those efforts date back to December 2025 and eventually resulted in a Feb. 18th joint meeting between the Board of Commissioners and Vector Control trustees after earlier county efforts to obtain information from the district went unanswered.
Commissioners continued seeking answers following that meeting.
In June, after the Vector Control officials failed to provide the request follow-up from February, commissioners directed County Manager Will Van Vactor to formally request detailed information concerning the district’s financial and administrative practices, including its use of district-issued credit cards, purchasing authority, reimbursement procedures, internal controls and oversight mechanisms.
Editors Note: Read our previous reporting on the Vector Control District here.
The county also sought additional information about the district’s contractor arrangement, along with written documentation from the district’s legal or accounting professionals addressing whether those arrangements complied with applicable legal, tax, employment and financial requirements. Commissioners additionally requested information concerning public meetings compliance and ethics training.
The district was given 30 days to provide the information.
Records provided by Crook County (which is a separate government body from Vector Control) show Vector Control Board Chair Ken Fahlgren acknowledged receiving the county’s June 24th request the following morning.
But the requested information did not follow.
By Aug. 7th, Van Vactor was again writing Fahlgren and Kiser, noting that the deadline had passed and the county had not received the requested information.
“The Board continues to consider this information important for its review of the matters to ensure compliance with ORS 452,” Van Vactor wrote, again requesting that Vector Control provide the information.
The county’s June request followed earlier reporting by the Prineville Review that raised questions about Vector Control’s financial practices and a management contract awarded to a company owned by Kiser, the former district employed manager who now manages the district as a contractor and employs members of his family.
Additional reporting found district funds had been used for luxury resort stays for Kiser and meals involving district officials, raising further questions about financial oversight, governance and potential conflicts of interest over the insider contract.
Commissioners turn toward outside investigation
After months of attempting to obtain information, county commissioners have increasingly turned toward an independent review.
During an Aug. 19th meeting, Commissioner Seth Crawford said he believed the county had reached the point where an outside party should examine Vector Control’s operations.
“I think it’s time to request a third party go in to just do a deep dive in all their stuff,” Crawford said.
Crawford said Vector Control does “a really good job” at its core responsibility of mosquito control, but said the district had substantial work to do with the “nuts and bolts” of its organization, including public records and its interactions with government, the press and public. Commissioner Susan Hermreck agreed with Crawford’s assessment.
Commissioners Hermreck and Barney echoed Crawford’s concerns. Hermreck also recently told the Prineville Review she remains very concerned about the District’s failures after the County’s own attempts over nearly 9 months.
The county subsequently began identifying potential third parties to conduct the review. By Aug. 26th, county staff reported that three potential firms had been identified and cost information was being gathered as officials worked toward selecting an outside investigator.
The overlap between the two matters is notable: while commissioners have repeatedly struggled to obtain information as part of their oversight of Vector Control, the Prineville Review has separately encountered repeated failures by the district to process public records requests.
Hathorn’s Sept. 15th order does not address those broader financial, contracting or governance questions. Her findings are limited to Vector Control’s failure to respond to the Prineville Review’s July 23rd public records request.
On that issue, however, the order was clear, with Vector Control having “failed to respond to the public records request as required”.
Check out our series of reporting on the Crook County Vector Control District by clicking here.
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Mr. Alderman is an investigative journalist specializing in government transparency, non-profit accountability, consumer protection, and is a subject matter 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.
