Small-town government run amok (Part VII): county officials ask sheriff to investigate Oregon newspaper for calls, emails to county officials

Just when I thought nothing would surprise me, this story came across my Twitter feed last night, dateline Vale, Oregon.  The headline is, "Malheur County officials ask sheriff to assess whether Enterprise reporters broke laws." Here's an excerpt from Pat Caldwell's story for the Enterprise.

Malheur County officials have asked Sheriff Brian Wolfe to assess whether the Malheur Enterprise has engaged in criminal conduct in its reporting. 

County Counsel Stephanie Williams confirmed last week that she contacted Wolfe recently with allegations about emails and phone calls to the county’s economic development officials. 

Wolfe verified the contact and said he hasn’t decided whether to open a criminal investigation. 

Greg Smith, director of Malheur County Economic Development Department, told the Enterprise in an email last week that “we were instructed to turn over your emails to the Malheur County Sheriff’s Office.”

Smith said the newspaper was sending emails to personal email addresses of economic development officials. He said he has asked the newspaper to “limit your requests to office hours” and to a single county email address. 

“It is not appropriate that you are sending emails to employees using their personal email accounts on the weekends,” Smith wrote. 

Smith said the newspaper has been asked “to not have our employees contacted outside of their work place.” 

He said in a subsequent public statement that he and his staff have been subjected to emails “at all hours of the day.” 

Williams said in an interview that she sought the sheriff’s involvement to determine “if there is a violation to investigate when a county employee’s phone numbers and email addresses are being used when we’ve asked someone to stop calling or communicating on county business on a personal phone or email.” 

Williams said that “we are looking into whether or not there was a violation, especially when Mr. Smith previously asked it not be done and it was disregarded.” 

Smith is a private contractor and not a county employee. His Ontario aide, John Braese, works for Smith’s private company and also is not a county employee.

Smith uses two emails in his conduct of county business. At a government meeting last fall, he gave the public what he described as his “personal” cell phone number He told the audience: “At any time that anyone has any questions or concerns, please call me directly.” He said he was available “24/7.” 

He has listed that number on press releases from Malheur County and in his role as a state legislator. 

The suggested crime is telephonic harassment, though the definition stated of that crime seems hardly to fit:  “'a telephone caller commits the crime of telephonic harassment if the caller intentionally harasses or annoys another person' by calling a number they have been forbidden to use."

Caldwell also quotes Les Zaitz, the Enterprise's editor and publisher, who said "the newspaper staff were alarmed by the possible criminal investigation."

Our news staff has sought information from county officials concerning important public business using standard and professional methods.   

At no time has anyone from the Enterprise abused any personal cell number of a government official.

An earlier blog post about the Malheur Enterprise is here.