Ethics law essential to open government

Most people, we'd wager, would feel a minor internal shiver if the government told them they had to fill out a form showing where they, and everyone who lives in their house who's 18 or older, get their money.

Except most people don't vote on whether a company can build a factory on your street.

Which is why, although we sympathize with the former members of Elgin's planning commission, we don't condone their decision to resign in protest of Oregon's revamped ethics law for public officials.

Here's the background:

Last year the Oregon Legislature changed a 34-year-old state law that sets ethical standards for certain public officials. That law requires, among other things, that those officials file a "statement of economic interest" — a document that lists the officials' sources of income and property they own.

The basic idea is that the public should know whether decision-makers could stand to gain from their position — for instance a planning commissioner whose property might appreciate if the commission of which he or she is a member rezones the land.

The law applies to a small minority of Oregon's public officials — elected city councilors and county commissioners, members of planning or zoning commissions (whether elected or appointed), and city or county managers/administrators. The law affects about 5,000 of the state's 200,000 public officials, according to Oregon's Government Ethics Commission.

But there's an unusual twist to this law.

The original version of the law was written in 1974 during the apex of the Watergate scandal, which focused the nation's attention on corrupt public officials. That original law was passed by Oregon voters as a ballot measure, rather than as a directive from the Legislature.

However, that law contained a rare provision, said Ron Bersin, executive director of the Government Ethics Commission. In cities and counties where a majority of voters opposed the ballot measure, the City Council or County Commission could choose to exempt themselves and other affected officials from the section of the law that required them to fill out a statement of economic interest. Those officials still had to comply with other provisions in the law, among them disclosing potential or actual conflicts of interest.

Altogether, 97 cities and six counties were eligible for that exemption, Bersin said. The list of exempt cities included Elgin, Cove, Unity, Enterprise, Imbler, Island City, North Powder and Joseph. Neither Baker City nor Baker County was exempt.

The Legislature decided in 2007 to cancel all the exemptions starting in 2008.

That decision prompted Elgin's planning commission to resign on March 20.

The problem with Oregon's ethics law isn't new, though. The problem dates to that original 1974 version.

The state should not have allowed officials from any city or county to avoid filing statements of economic interest.

That's a crucial part of the law because it forces officials to declare, on paper, financial interests that could compromise their ability to make impartial decisions.

Such conflicts can happen in any city or county, no matter its population or location.

In a guest opinion published in The (La Grande) Observer in March, Marc Stauffer, a member of the Enterprise Planning Commission, wrote: "I understand and even applaud the efforts of the Legislature to curb governmental corruption. But is it right to drive from office those uncompensated volunteers that give freely of themselves in an effort to better the communities they live in?"

The volunteer status of planning commissioners is not relevant.

What is relevant is that those volunteers make decisions, such as where a home or business can be built, that some of their fellow residents might argue do not, as Stauffer put it, "better" their town.

It's not only reasonable, but mandatory, that the government, which grants planning commissioners such widespread authority, also requires that they disclose any financial dealings that could, even in theory, influence their decisions.

Such disclosures epitomize the concept of open, transparent government that citizens ought to demand.

Sure it's onerous to fill out a form — and starting this year officials have to do so every three months, rather than once a year.

But the form doesn't constitute an invasion of privacy, nor does it make officials' vulnerable to identity theft.

For instance, officials must list their sources of income greater than $1,000, but they don't have to include the actual dollar amount.

Elgin city administrator Joe Garlitz, who must file a statement of economic interest, said he doesn't think the state should post the documents on the Internet, which the revamped law requires by 2010.

"If it was kept confidential with the Ethics Commission, that's one thing," Garlitz said. "But we don't want it on the Internet."

This is a specious argument.

The statements of economic interest are public records, not confidential ones, and the government has a legal duty to make those records available to the public.