The Deschutes County Clerk's office informed me today that a county government meeting notice published in the Nugget is not valid for Deschutes County government meetings because it is not a paper with county-wide distribution. Official county government notices must be published in The Bulletin, the only newspaper with Deschutes County-wide distribution. Our Commissioners are appointed Deschutes County officials. The attempted public notice in the Nugget was not sufficient notice to meet the legal notice publication requirement, rendering any action taken at the meeting invalid.
I am therefore objecting to any such un-noticed actions being further discussed or acted upon.Any actions discussed or intended to be further acted upon will need to be deferred until the Board and its counsel figure out how to correctly notice a county government meeting. It might also mean the Board should. publish the minutes of their meeting on last Thursday since all such meetings are open to the public.
Glenn Brown
17007 Buck Horn Drive
Sisters, OR. 97759
A possible clarification to the post above.
Glenn
As a follow up to your post I called the Deschutes County Clerk's office and this morning they informed me that while your statement is correct. The Nugget is not valid for Deschutes County government meetings because it is not a paper with county-wide distribution for county notices the Bend Bulletin is the require news media
However, they concluded that there must have been a misunderstanding in the interpretation of their response or the question asked. Once again they reiterated that the county does not offer legal advise.
They referred me to ORS 192.640.for explanation of the requirements.
We contacted Deschutes County about your concerns and they said they do not give legal advice about this question. We have contacted the Special Districts Association of Oregon (SDAO) and they stated that the notification to the Nugget Newspaper was appropriate for our organization. We also contacted our legal counsel, Karnopp Peterson, LLP about this question. Here is the response from them: There is no specific requirement under Oregon public meeting law for you to post it in the Bend Bulletin newspaper. The general guidance is that “if a meeting involves matters that affect a particular geographic area, press releases should be sent to the local media.” You are a special district based on a defined geographic area. The vast majority of the area within the County will not be affected by your decision; hence it is unlikely there are interested persons throughout all parts of the County. In any event, the Nugget is a paper of general circulation that is reasonably calculated to provide actual notice to interested persons. See ORS 192.640.