Before getting into what Deschutes County government has been working on to improve access to public records, let’s look back at how bad public access to public records can get.

We can tell many stories about how government and even elected officials delay or refuse public records requests.

Three of our favorites are:

It took over a year in 2015-2016 for the Central Oregon Intergovernmental Council to respond to a public records request for complaints about the Dial-A-Ride Service here. When a Bulletin reporter finally got the records, it turned out there were thousands of complaints. COIC did change its policies after that incident.

In 2018, then Bend City Councilor Nathan Boddie faced a host of allegations. We asked for text messages among councilors and the city manager during the time of the alleged incidents. Everybody responded except Boddie.

Also in 2018, the Oregon Department of Human Services failed to respond to our public records request about foster care by a 15-day deadline. It only responded after we made a second request for emails about our first public records request. That revealed internal DHS emails showing DHS staff didn’t want to release the records because of how they might look.

Deschutes County Commissioners discussed Monday a possible change in county policy that might avoid some such problems. The county could require volunteer members of county boards to use county email accounts when communicating about county business.

The county has a budget committee, an audit committee, a dog board, a fair board, a planning commission, a wolf committee and more. Elected commissioners have the final say in most matters but the committees formulate recommendations and hold debates about county policy. Volunteers appointed to those committees have a bit of real power.

If they use their personal email accounts to discuss county business, it can make it complicated for the county to respond to a public records request. The county doesn’t have the records. It has the responsibility for them. This change in policy would help that, as long as the volunteers do use it and not other email.

We checked in with some other local government entities being curious about what they do. The Bend-La Pine Schools provides its school board members with district email accounts. The City of Bend does it for the Bend City Council and the Planning Commission, not other committees. Maybe they should follow the county’s lead.