As usual someone’s behind the times writing an anonymous letter to the editor.
For the millionth time, we normally won’t print them. If you don’t have the courage to stand up publicly for what you believe, sit down and be quiet, especially when you don’t have the facts and cannot even be corrected regarding the facts.
Please come in and see me. I’ll tell you the same thing to your face.
This is about the only way such letters will ever be printed in any fashion. I do this to explain possible misinformation potentially being spread through the local grapevine by persons such as this anonymous letter writer.
Keeping our facts straight is one of the reasons we require our governments to be open about their activities, one of the reasons we require attribution in our stories and one of the reasons we require letter writers to include their names. This, ideally, helps keep the grapevine from distorting information.
The letter in question goes off about how the City of Sweet Home is spending its citizens’ tax dollars for lawyers and trying to cover up mistakes.
The letter says the Police Department and city administration are trying to keep this as quiet as possible because they made mistakes following their own policies.
It goes on to enlighten us about how the Police Department is being sued in federal court for defamation, false light and intentional infliction of emotional distress by a former employee. Of course the letter does not name the former employee, possibly Derik E. Ford (though The New Era cannot confirm this anyway — The letter writer does not include the name of the plaintiff or a return address).
It suggests these are the reasons that department is always understaffed and employees always leaving or getting fired.
At this point, the lawsuit is a list of allegations. A court will decide whether the department defamed Ford or put him in false light and inflicted emotional distress intentionally. Even if the allegations were proved true, the comment about the city’s inability to keep staff remain illogical.
In any case, the department has had a full force of police officers much of the year, including several returning officers. It is short on dispatchers at this time and has had turnover among them this year. Previously, dispatcher turnover was quite low. Ford’s allegations do not logically lead to such a conclusion.
Contrary to the points made in the letter, the City of Sweet Home and its department have not attempted to cover anything up and have been exemplary in disclosing information. They offer and provide information freely. Indeed, the city furnished a copy of the lawsuit quickly after it was filed. The anonymous letter writer is quick to criticize the city for keeping its citizens in the dark yet fails to even mention the name of the plaintiff.
The New Era immediately ran a story detailing the accusations against the department and Police Chief Bob Burford. After it was able to contact the city’s attorney in the case, the paper ran a story the following week where the attorney responded to the allegations.
The City of Sweet Home and Sweet Home Police Department provide an excellent example to other government agencies about their activities and providing records to the public. Other agencies should take special note.
In doing so, the City of Sweet Home creates an image of openness, honesty and integrity, and citizens can keep themselves properly informed. This fosters some level of trust, and everybody wins.
The city has consistently held to a doctrine of open records and answering questions even when an official is uncomfortable or done something wrong, alleged or real. This is one of our city’s strongest points.
It also is in contrast with School District 55, which provides records freely on subjects that are not sensitive. The minute a subject area gets touchy, District 55 clams up. Most recently, Principal Gloria Mittleman filed a complaint with the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI).
For simplicity’s sake more than anything else, The New Era verbally requested a copy of the complaint from the district. The district, after consulting with its attorney, denied the request and even suggested BOLI would deny any requests for the record because it was somehow “confidential.”
The same day The New Era requested a copy of the complaint in writing from the district, it was able to talk to the correct person at BOLI, which promptly faxed the document rendering the issue moot. All the district’s obstruction did was force the story to be written later in the week and make the district look unreasonable.
This doesn’t mean the district is dishonest; but if it could have stopped it, no doubt, that record would never have been seen in this newspaper. This would have been a travesty on the order of the letter writer’s accusation against the city.
In both cases, the public has a right to know. Both employees work or worked for agencies supported by the public.
The city did the right thing by immediately releasing its record. The district did wrong, and this letter writer is confused, most probably because he or she chooses to remain uninformed or check out the facts before espousing nonsense in a letter.
Signed, A Friend