A plea against expanding Oregon’s bicycle helmet law to riders up through age 18: The last thing we need is yet another law related to biking. ——————— Bob Thomas: Hasso, I agree with you 100%. Great editoral or statement. One thing to ponder is if this helmet law is bad for bicycles, shouldn’t the same […]
Oregon has a public meetings law, but whenever things might get interesting, the public can be kept out. The law says public bodies like the city council must meet in public when deliberating or making decisions. But there are exceptions. For instance, the public may be kept out when governing boards hire or discipline public officers. […]
After 12 years of effort, Oregon state officials are taking another stab at establishing some kind of road mileage tax for vehicles that burn little or no fuel. Many questions remain, and lawmakers now may try to answer them. On Wednesday, the House Transportation Committee is planning to act on House Bill 2453, which would […]
Egads! Coal trains though Albany? What a horrible prospect! That’s the sentiment of a group that managed to get a proposed resolution against coal trains on the Albany City Council’s agenda for Wednesday night. It is part of the campaign to stop the use of coal worldwide in the interest of slowing down global warming. […]
Commuting on North Albany Road may become easier after 2014, when the city of Albany plans to widen the section from Quarry Road south to the railroad tracks. The project, estimated to cost $2.98 million, calls for, among other things, sidewalks, a center turn lane, raising the bridge across Thornton Lake by two feet, building a separate pedestrian […]
It took a while — a month, actually — but Congressman Kurt Schrader has given me a response to questions about what kind of gun control measures he would support. In short, he seems to agree with Congressman Peter DeFazio, who said in a letter in February he doubted the U.S. House would consider bans on […]
Closed meetings and the “media”
Oregon’s public meetings law, adopted 40 years ago, allows some meetings of public bodies to be closed to the public. But it has a weird provision requiring that news media representatives must be allowed in, with only two exceptions. The law does not, however, say what it means by news media. Forty years ago the […]
Tags: executive sessions, Oregon public meetings