From: "Peter B Gilkey"
Date: Nov 28, 2009 1:39:58 PST
To: Bill Harbaugh
Cc: "Tracy Bars" , mhenney@uoregon.edu , aemami@uoregon.edu , "Melinda Grier", "Gwen Steigelman", "Dave Hubin" , "Debra Eldredge" , "Nathan Tublitz" , "Paul van Donkelaar"
Subject: Concerning US09/10-7
Reply-To: "Peter B Gilkey"

Dear Bill.

Pursuant to your request, I have posted your email (and will presently post this reply) on the web
http://www.uoregon.edu/~uosenate/dirsen090/Harbaugh-28Nov09.html
and moved consideration of US09/10-7 to New Business at the February 2010 meeting of the UO Senate.

Dear Melinda.

If you can provide me with any additional supporting evidence for your Memo concerning US09/10-7 relatively easily, I would be grateful if you could so do with the understanding that I will post any information transmitted on the web. And please redact it appropriately as I have no desire to know nor have a need to know the names of the UO employees who made the public records requests involved. A caveat. My ancestors came from Scotland and subsequently to the Great Upper Penninsula of Michigan. They were a thrifty bunch (some have in fact called them "tight"). I have inherited this tendency. The Senate has no budget for such requests for information from your office. So if you think that it is likely to cost more than $50, please let me know in advance.

Respectfully submitted

Peter B Gilkey President 2009/10 UO Senate

Subject: Transparency motion and information on the cost of public records appeals
To: Peter Gilkey
Cc: Tracy Bars, mhenney@uoregon.edu, aemami@uoregon.edu, Melinda Grier, Gwen Steigelman, Dave Hubin, Debra Eldredge, doug park, Nathan Tublitz, Paul van Donkelaar
From: Bill Harbaugh
Date: Sat, 28 Nov 2009 12:48:24

Hi Peter -

I'm writing in regard to the fiscal implications of my Transparency Motion which proposes a faculty committee to review public records requests that have been delayed or denied by the UO General Counsel's office. The relevant part of the draft of the motion, which you read to the Senate in November, stated:

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS: Minor. Oregon law already requires that UO respond to public records requests. (See the Oregon Attorney General's Guide to Public Records and Meetings, available online at http://openuporegon.com .) At times the UO GC office clearly spends more time making estimates of the cost of providing documents than it would cost to just provide the documents. Appeals and petitions to the Oregon DOJ require further time and expense by the GC's office. By providing an intermediate step before DOJ appeals, this motion may well save the GC's office time, freeing their limited resources for more constructive pursuits.

In order to help the Senate Rules Committee prepare possible revisions to this Fiscal Implications section you requested information from UO General Counsel Melinda Grier about the costs of dealing with public records requests. The memo Ms Grier provided to you in response states that over the past 3.5 years UO has spent about $70,000 dealing with public records requests from UO faculty, about $36,000 of which is cost of billings from the Oregon Department of Justice to prepare responses to appeals of the handling of public records requests made by Ms Grier's office, or roughly $1,000 per petition. (online at http://www.uoregon.edu/~uosenate/dirsen090/MemorandumFinancialImpactUS0910-7Motion.pdf ).

I did not understand that the OR DOJ billed UO for these appeals rulings until I read Melinda's memo. As we discussed at the Rules Committee meeting, I think this substantially changes the likely fiscal implications of this motion since, by providing an intermediate step between Ms Grier's decisions about public records and the expensive DOJ appeals process, this motion is likely to save UO a fair amount of money.

I would appreciate it if you would ask Ms Grier to provide me with access to the itemized billing statements from the OR DOJ on these appeals, as well as any other relevant information her office used in preparing the summary cost calculations in her memo to you. I assume these are in the "stack of documents sitting on the table" you mentioned you had seen in the GC's office. I need this information so that I can appropriately modify the Fiscal Implications section of this motion, and provided detailed information about this argument during the Senate discussion.

Because it seems likely that there will not be time before the December 2 meeting for me to adequately review Ms Grier's documents, I also request that you postpone Senate consideration of my Transparency Motion until the February Senate meeting, as we also discussed.

I'd appreciate it if you would post this email on the Senate website in the section on this memo, and also if you would keep me posted on your discussions with Ms Grier about access to these documents.

Thanks,

Bill Harbaugh http://harbaugh.uoregon.edu

Dear Senate Rules Committee:

I am attaching to this email a PDF file I received earlier this morning from the Office of the General Counsel since the memo is "Re Fiscal Impact of Public Records Requests for US09/10-7" and since US09/10-7 is currently before the Senate Rules Committee. I shall be transmitting this memo to Bill Harbaugh and to the entire Senate membership a bit later today, but I wanted you to have an advance copy.

As always, I am grateful for your efforts in this regard. The SRC is essential for the smooth functioning of the UO Senate.

Subject: Information for Senate Rules Committee
To: "Debra Donning" greirm@uoregon.edu , tbars@uoregon.edu
From: "Peter B Gilkey"
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:54:54

Dear Debra and Melinda

This is to confirm in writing a conversation I had a few minutes ago with Debra. As President of the UO Senate, I would be most grateful if you could transmit copies of the documents that I saw yesterday (which relate to requests made recently under the Freedom of Information Act) to the Chair of the Senate Rules Committee Tracy Bars (AAA Dean's Office). I believe they would be very helpful to her as she works with the maker of US 09/10-7 (the Harbaugh motion). The information for Tracy is not for posting on the web but solely for the confidential use by her in her capacity as Chair of the Senate Rules COmmittee. She has a "need to know" -- in particular as it comes to dealing with the financial impact statement that is required for all UO Senate motions. So I should be most grateful if this information (and any related information you think might be reasonable and proper for her to have) could be transmitted as expeditiously as possible should you concur in this regard.

Respectfully submitted

Peter B Gilkey President 2009/10 UO Senate.