This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Oregon is famous for its “public records” law.  Properly so in the name of good government.

I am very familiar with the law based on my days as a State of Oregon employee, as a state lobbyist, and, now, as a member of an Oregon commission.

The notion of the law is simple:  Every record is public unless you can fit it into one of the exemptions built into the law.

As much as I am a believer in public records, including the law, it creates a puzzle for me. 

This:

What I often do to create a document on my own laptop — not state government property – as one way to help me think through issues more completely than would be the case without words on paper.

As a one-time newspaper reporter and as a person who enjoys writing, I often think that writing results, at least for me, in better thinking about a particular issue or situation.

Then, is what I create a “public record?”

Some friends, attorneys, have told me that the answer might be “yes.”  If it is, I disagree.  Strongly.

That’s because the document I have created is only for me.  No one else.

But, of course, if I send it on to a someone in government, yes, I have created a public record.

Public records law is well covered in the Oregon Revised Statutes.  The emphasis, as stated above, is that every record created by government is public unless the information can fit one of several exemptions in law.  Such as trade secret information submitted to government by businesses, information about the exact status of collective bargaining negotiations, the estimated value of property the state may be intent on selling or acquiring, information on the status of criminal investigations, and others.

So, with this emphasis – everything is public unless specifically exempt – leave my laptop scribbles to me unless I do something formal with them.  Please.