August 09, 2005
(Updated) Grudging Movement On The Tellam Documents?
PDC Apparently Receives Letter From District Attorney
Note: This post has been updated. Any and all updates appear at the end of the original post.
Two things we didn't do today that in retrospect it seems that we should have done: Gone to check our post office box, and checked our voicemail earlier than we did.
This afternoon, we missed a call from Melvin Oden-Orr, an attorney with the Portland Development Commission, who previously denied our public records request for documents from an independent investigation conducted by outside attorney Bradley F. Tellam.
His call today, it would appear, came as a result of our petition to the District Attorney to compel PDC to release the requested records.
Oden-Orr, via voicemail, told us that Tellam was out of his office on vacation all this week and won't be back until Monday. Why is this relevant? Because of this part: "So we would not be able to obtain any documents from him that ... are potentially responsive to your request."
According to Oden-Orr, PDC will be waiting until Tellam returns, at which point they will "follow up and respond to the DA's letter to us."
Which pretty clearly establishes that the DA did, in some fashion, act upon our petition. But since we did not make an errand run to our mail box today, we have not seen this letter from the DA (on which we are assuming, at this point, they copied us).
Oden-Orr said that he had talked to the DA about Tellam's current absence, and the DA directed him to contact us to make sure that we and the PDC had the understanding that any PDC action on the DA's lettter would have to wait until Tellam's return from vacation.
So, in the main, this is just to update where this process is at this particular moment. We'll have to go check our Communique mailbox tomorrow to see if we've been copied on the DA's letter to PDC, and to see what, exactly, it actually says.
We'll take this moment just to remind on some of what this is all about. First, as we've said repeatedly, it is of course entirely feasible that Tellam's determination, although reported only through his word without showing his work, was entirely accurate. But that's all the more reason why the utter lack of transparency and block-every-move approach of PDC on the matter makes no sense whatsoever, and only makes them look like they're hiding something, even if they aren't.
Also note this: While we have no idea what, if anything, we actually will receive in response to our original request as filtered through the DA's letter (which itself was in response to our petition to compel), Oden-Orr's voicemail makes reference to "any documents from [Tellam] that ... are potentially responsive to your request."
That suggestion that there may be "responsive" material is a far cry from PDC's original obstructionist claim of "attorney work-product doctrine" and "attorney-client privilege."
August 10th, 20005 Update
Some clarification as to what's going on, now that we've actually been to our mailbox, have read the DA's letter to PDC, and have spoken with Oden-Orr via telephone.
Right now, we're basically dealing with a normal procedural set of events. Under the law, once an agency receives a letter from the Distirct Attorney of this sort, they are required to respond to the DA, and required to provide copies of the requested material to the DA for their inspection.
Meaning, as we understand it at this point, the Oden-Orr's reference to material that may be responsive to our request in essence is neither here nor there at this point. Although, we should say, the fact that they must wait until Tellam returns from vacation to respond to the DA's letter suggests, perhaps, that the first time around, when we submitted our request, PDC didn't really even examine the material in question, but simply claimed a blanket exemption for it all.
In other words, if they have to wait until Tellam is back, PDC would appear not to even have all the material themselves, otherwise it would be possible to respond to the DA in some fashion.
So here's where things stand: Because PDC has told the DA that they need to wait until Tellam returns from vacation, PDC says they are unable to meet the timeframes and deadlines contained in the DA's letter (which we'll have posted later this afternoon). In that letter, PDC is instructed to respond to the DA within four working days or receipt of the letter, and the DA states that they will be making a decision by August 17.
What was preliminarily agreed to by the DA and PDC was that, in essence, Tellam's return on Monday would be treated as the effective date of PDC's receipt of the DA's letter, and so PDC will respond to the DA's office by Thursday, August 18 (within four days of that new "effective" receipt date).
We have agreed to that extension, and Oden-Orr, as per their discussions with the DA's office, is to put that agreement for an extension in writing for all parties.