Should the Bureau of Land Management block information critical to the public’s understanding of a private home built on public land near Prineville? The BLM thinks so.

Once again it has declined to release crucial information. What a good example of government concealing how it does its job.

Chuck McGrath and Jennipher Grudzien, co-founders of Bend-based Grace Bio-Labs Inc., apparently discovered some of the land they thought they owned was owned, instead, by the BLM. It’s located roughly between Prineville and Post. There’s a 2,500-square foot home on the property as well as outbuildings, a buried water pipeline and an access road.

The BLM has not been at all forthcoming about what’s going on. When the BLM provided “notice” to the public about the issue, it declined to say who the people involved were. That’s critical for the public to know. Bulletin staff figured out it was McGrath and Grudzien. The BLM also didn’t put up a map on its website about the dispute until after The Bulletin complained. The location is also critical.

From there, things have not gotten better.

The Bulletin made a Freedom of Information Act request for the public comments about the BLM’s possible plans for the property. The BLM’s responded twice with different answers and again blocked critical information.

The local BLM office initially provided two public comments. They used a marker to scratch out the names of the people who wrote them and other information. Then we got a “final response” this week to the same request that came from the BLM’s Portland office. It provided the same comments. But it redacted different information and did not redact some of the information that the local office did redact. Does the BLM know what it is doing?

The BLM also provided a justification for its “final response.” It wrote it must balance the interests at stake. It said the only relevant public interest is the extent to which the information would shed light on the agency’s performance of its statutory duties. It determined that there would be an “unwarranted invasion of privacy” to disclose things such as the names of the individuals involved and other similar land disputes that have come up before.

Is the BLM cutting sweetheart deals with powerful individuals? With BLM employees? How would the public know?

We have requested more information. How else will the BLM hide what it does with public land?

The Freedom of Information Act is supposed to be the law that keeps citizens in the know about their government. It’s not working here.