Salem, Ore. – The Oregon Government Ethics Commission voted unanimously on Friday to initiate a full and formal investigation following a preliminary review into two Crook County Cemetery District officials over reported violations of public meetings laws last summer.
The vote also came during the same session that the commission decided to further investigate potential ethics violations by Gov. Tina Kotek’s office which were outlined in a state auditors’ report released earlier this month. More on that story from the Oregon Capital Chronicle.
The OGEC began the preliminary review investigation of the cemetery district in October, following a complaint by the Prineville Review tied to two separate public meetings grievances involving current Board Chair Jamie Wood and now former Director Velda Jones. Jones resigned amid several controversies last summer involving the cemetery district and had been serving as board chair.
The issues initially centered on frustrations by citizens involving handling of personal effects at gravesites and the condition of cemetery grounds last spring, but quickly expanded to additional allegations of public meetings violations and financial mismanagement that several citizens had claimed was ongoing for years, prompting a look by the Prineville Review, a look which allegedly caused additional (and intentional) violations of Oregon’s public meetings law.
The CCCD failed to respond to one of the public meeting’s grievances which centered on its holding of illegal private meetings around July 18th that involved its decision to fire the district’s head official. The district not only failed to provide notice to the public but failed to provide notice and permit attendance by the Prineville Review. The July meetings took place after having been provided legal notice it was required to give this publication specific notice of all public meetings and executive sessions.
The initial scrutiny surrounding the district resulted in a historic attendance to its meeting last June, further escalated during its July 11th, 2024, meeting when the Prineville Review attended the meeting (after some pressure from multiple citizens) where both Wood and Jones then repeatedly claimed we were not legally allowed to record, and statements after the meeting that we may be “arrested the next time”.
That prompted this reporter to file a complaint in Crook County Circuit Court seeking an injunction to prevent the district from restricting access and recording at future meetings, citing both the public meetings law and protections provided under the U.S. and Oregon constitutions.
The illegal meeting(s) on or about July 18th also failed to provide the required written notice to the district’s former manager, Cory Nelson, providing him an opportunity for a public hearing before his termination as the district’s manager.
Email advertising@prinevillereview.com
The situation is similar to a recent controversy and admitted violations by the Crook County School Board involving its Athletic Director Rob Bonner.
Even then, Nelson was not even provided an opportunity for a hearing in a proper executive session should he have declined to require a public hearing. The Prineville Review and other news media representatives would then have been required to be informed and allowed to attend any such executive session, which the district failed to do.
Nelson has since sued the district over his termination. The complaint filed by Nelson’s attorney alleged many of the violations the district has since admitted to and which the OGEC is now formally investigating. It also alleged the board knew of the requirements under the public meetings law.
“At all relevant times, the CCCD Board was aware of the legal requirements imposed by ORS 192.610 to ORS 192.690, which provide the statutory requirements for Public Meetings of a Special District,” the complaint stated.
Former board member Roxanne Cummings-Basey also resigned less than a week following her appointment by Wood and Jones. Her resignation letter gave a scathing review of the board’s conduct.
Cummings-Basey told the Prineville Review following her resignation that she expressed serious concerns with Wood over what she believed was intentional disregard for the public meetings laws requirements. She also stated that between the public meeting on July 11th and her resignation (which her resignation letter said would be effective July 18th at 5pm), Wood facilitated multiple discussions with her and Jones, which would have constituted a quorum and violated meeting laws. Those discussions she said involved multiple topics that were not about terminating Nelson, although the OGEC is only apparently investigating the discussion and decision related to Nelson’s firing.
We were unable to confirm if the OGEC had spoken directly with Cummings-Basey as part of its preliminary review. The formal investigation now allows the commission’s investigators to compel testimony and issue subpoenas as part of its deeper investigation.
Cummings-Basey previously claimed she was also not included in or made aware of the illegal meeting on or about July 18th, which also took place before her resignation was effective. Past attempts seeking comment from Jones and Wood on why she was also excluded from such notice as a board member were unsuccessful.
Her resignation letter, which was provided to the Crook County Clerk and Board of Commissioners, was scathing of the conduct by Wood and Jones in their operation of the district, suggesting that the County commissioners should even consider taking over the operation of the special taxing district that is currently separate from county government.
“Jamie Wood and I are the remaining board members and Jamie has made it clear that she will not work with me on any issues and has threatened to resign if all future decisions do not go her way,” wrote Cummings-Basey.
“The board meeting on July 11th was extremely contentious. A prolonged yelling match between Jamie Wood and a citizen was unethical and unprofessional. Velda Jones was chair of this meeting, but it became clear that she was not capable. Shockingly, they provided no agenda. The meeting was an embarrassment and entirely inappropriate. My attempts to deal with these glaring board errors were rejected and met with lame excuses, cover-ups, denial and manipulation. Within two more business days I realized this situation was untenable.”
“But surely there is a more competent means of oversight,” Cummings-Basey wrote in ending her resignation letter.
Jones herself had also resigned before Roxanne-Basey but rescinded it within the statutory allowed three business days after Cummings-Basey announced her resignation, avoiding a situation that would have required the Crook County Board of Commissioners to appoint individuals to the two of three vacant seats or look into dissolving the special district into the county government.
Jones promptly resigned again after she and Wood appointed Gary Bedortha to the board in late August.
During Friday’s OGEC meeting, the agency’s investigator outlined there were numerous violations under law that the district’s board had admitted to.
“As the Board admits to violating ORS 192.630, ORS 192.640, and ORS 192.650 related to discharging the District’s Manager on or about July 18, 2024, there appears to be a substantial objective basis to believe that Crook County Cemetery District Board Member Jamie Wood may have violated Oregon Public Meetings Law,” the OGEC investigator’s report stated.
The investigator went on to recommend the case for a formal investigation: “The Commission should vote to investigate possible violations of ORS 192.630, ORS 192.640, and ORS 192.650.”
An identical statement was contained in the report related to Jones.
Wood appeared remotely and off-camera to provide a brief statement to the commission during its executive session on the preliminary review. Jones did not appear.
“The only thing I would add to what the investigator said is that Ms. Jones and I proceeded with termination of Mr. Nelson because of all kinds of — I will say mayhem — that resulted from things that Mr. Nelson did,” Jones told the commission.
“The month prior we had a public meeting that resulted in board members receiving death threats because of Mr. Nelson’s actions, and when Ms. Jones and I proceeded to terminate Mr. Nelson, we did not know that we needed to do so at a public meeting — his was an at-will employment — and we just felt that considering what he had done with approving a $20,000 expenditure without board approval and breaching a contract with another paving company, that we needed to terminate him before he got the district sued.”
Neither Jones nor Wood had previously provided any evidence supporting the claims of “death threats”, and records provided as part of our public records requests did not reveal any email communications despite Wood specifically stating early on that she had received threats by email.
The allegations of such threats were cited in multiple calls with police, audio of which was obtained from the Prineville Police Department where Jones, as well as an SDAO representative, requested police presence at multiple meetings between June and August.
This publication had previously confirmed that since at least the summer of 2023, the district had also been working with the Special District’s Association of Oregon. SDAO was formed in 1979 and provides training, education, and legal support for over 900 member special districts.
According to Oregon law, while Wood was correct the board had to hold a public meeting to finalize a decision to terminate Mr. Nelson, the requirement to hold an executive session to discuss the termination or disciplinary action itself only had to provide Mr. Nelson with the option to decide if he wanted it to take place publically instead of in the executive session.
“The governing body of a public body may hold an executive session… (b) To consider the dismissal or disciplining of, or to hear complaints or charges brought against, a public officer, employee, staff member or individual agent who does not request an open hearing.” – ORS 192.660
Even had Nelson not exercised the option to require Jones and Wood to hold a public session had he been given written notice (allowing for the executive session), the board still would have been required to publically provide notice of the executive session and allow attendance by members of the news media.
“The governing body of a public body may hold an executive session… (b) To consider the dismissal or disciplining of, or to hear complaints or charges brought against, a public officer, employee, staff member or individual agent who does not request an open hearing.”
Wood’s statement also for the first time publically revealed the nature of the allegations brought by Jones and Wood against Nelson, at least in part, which had only been discussed during subsequent executive sessions with legal counsel that the Prineville Review attended but is still not permitted to reveal.
The board has yet to provide any minutes for its illegal meeting(s) on or about July 18th as required by the meetings law.
Nelson had previously explained to the Prineville Review that the board was trying to use him as a “scapegoat” for his firing, revealing that the board had not set any policies or directives as the district’s Manager regarding certain expenditures and that he was acting in good faith in those decisions.
He also said he would have required the board to hold a public hearing considering his termination.
Local resident Jack Rabenburg, who has been an outspoken critic of the cemetery district’s board, said the entire situation is “shameful”.
“They’ve had SDAO as a resource for years, and since 2022 I’ve been attending meetings and raising concerns over their financials and public transparency. Claiming they didn’t know the requirements, especially after you guys [the Prineville Review] gave notice and explained their obligations, is disingenuous at best,” said Rabenberg.
The district also delayed providing financial records last year for months as part of a public records request by this publication, only producing the records after it obtained legal counsel after this publication indicated it was preparing to file suit seeking a court order for their release and having completely ignored multiple deadlines required by law. The district had not only avoided production of the records but intentionally avoided even providing an acknowledgment of the request as required within five business days.
It was later uncovered that despite ignoring this publication’s records request, Wood both acknowledged and produced other records to another citizen’s public records request within a matter of days in late July.
“I didn’t really know Roxanne [Cummings-Basey], but while we do share different views, I do commend her integrity in calling out the board immediately upon her appointment and trying to be open with the public. These were issues that I have been trying to raise attention to for a couple of years now,” he said.
Rabenberg reaffirmed past statements made to the Prineville Review of his intention to run for a seat on the district’s board in the upcoming district election in May.
“Yes, I am still likely to seek a seat on the cemetery board. The entire situation is very unfortunate, and I also intend to push for meetings to be held at a time that the public can actually attend. When the controversy blew up, they moved the meetings to be earlier in the day, which is why they are at 1 pm instead of 4 pm in the afternoon,” said Rabenberg.
“That’s another thing Roxanne should get credit for — my understanding is she tried to move the meetings to 5 or 6 pm in the midst of the issues so people could actually express themselves, but Ms. Wood apparently didn’t like that idea.”
All three seats will be up for election as all three current board members were appointed and not elected by Crook County voters, although those elected may only be serving the remainder of set terms for the position depending on the seat. Crook County Clerk Cheryl Seely confirmed to the Prineville Review the day after publication that two of the seats (currently held by Bedortha and Wood) would be for a full 4-year term, while the seat that Hermreck was appointed to would be for the 2-years that remain on the term which Jones had originally be elected to in 2023.
The seat currently occupied by Bedortha, which is the same seat to which Cummings-Basey had been appointed, had a term that would expire this year. Crook County Commissioner Susan Hermreck was also recently appointed (albeit questionably) by Wood and Bedortha to the seat vacated by Jones.
We did not reach out to Jones or Wood for comment, as both have declined all and repeated past efforts seeking comment. We have repeatedly informed Ms. Wood following numerous meetings since August of an open door for an opportunity to comment on the ongoing stories involving the cemetery district, but she has either ignored the requests or stated “no comment”.
No response to our request for comment from Nelson or his attorney has been received.
According to the OGEC, its formal investigation into Jones and Wood could take up to 180 days to be completed, though the law provides some scenarios where that timeline could be extended.
This is a developing story you can count on us to keep you updated on. You can view all of our reporting on the Crook County Cemetery District by clicking here.
Join the discussion on Facebook or X (formally Twitter)
