DAVE FROHNMA YER
ATTORNEY GENERAL
STATE OF OREGON @) . . .
.
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
Trish Neiworth
News Department-KPTV 12
735 sw 20th Place
P.O. Box 3401
Portland, Oregon 97208
Justice Building
Salem, Oregon 97310
Telephone: 15031 378-4400
March 4, 1988
Re: Request for Public Records Disclosure Order
Oregon corrections Department and/or Oregon Executive
Department
Dear Ms. Neiworth:
WILLIAM F. GARY
DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL
On February 26, 1988, this office recieved your February
25, 1988 petition for a public records disclosure order of the
Attorney General. Your petition asks the Attorney General:
• • • • to order the Oregon Corrections
Department and/or the Oregon Executive
Department and its employees to make available
for inspection the following records:
•1. Documents prepared in 1987 and 1988 by
the Oregon corrections Division for submission
to the Legislative Emergency Board. These
documents detail a plan or plans to expand the
number of beds and physical space in the Oregon
Correctional Division System and other systems,
as well as other methods of dealing with the
cor.rections crisis.
• . . . .• (Emphasis added.)
we conclude that your petition is moot. The Oregon
Executive Department voluntarily will make available for your
inspection final and draft documents, in its possession, which
were prepared by the Corrections Department for submission to
~he Legislative Emergency Board.
Trish Neiworth
March 4, 1988
Page 2
I acknowledge that in our phone conversation of March 4,
1988, you told me that you intended that your petition include
any documents prepared by the Corrections Department in 1987
and 1988 that relate to plans to expand correctional
facilities. Neither the corrections Department, the Executive
Department, nor I interpreted your petition so broadly. crpon
notification of the filing of your petition, the Executive
Department had in its possession certain documents that were
prepared by the Corrections Department for possible or actual
submission to the Legislative Emergency Board, and we
interpreted your petition as focusing on those documents.
Because the Executive Department voluntarily will disclose
those documents to you, we respectfully deny your petition as
moot. However, in light of your remarks in our March 4 phone
conversation, I make the following proposal.
Please review the final and draft documents that the
Executive Department will make available for your inspection.
we expect that your review reasonably will narrow the broad
disclosure request you communicated to me over the phone. Your
review of the disclosed material and your specification of
points for further inquiry will enable you and the corrections
Department to focus valuable time and resources on particular
issues and documents. Moreover, I am informed that Corrections
Department Director Michael Francke would be pleased to discuss
with you particular matters relating to the development of
correctional facilities plans which are being submitted to the
Emergency Board.
Please call me if you have any questions about this order
or my proposal.
JEM:cm
very truly yours,
JAMES E. MOUNTAIN, JR.
Special Counsel to the
Attorney General
cc: Michael Francke, Director, Department of Corrections
Dave Fiskum, Assistant to the Director for Communications,
Executive Department
Jefry VanValkenburg, Assistant Attorney General
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