New Oregon disclosure law drives small-town resignations

Interesting story by Karen McCowan, in the April 7th, 2008, Register-Guard, New disclosure law drives small-town resignations:

Excerpt:

“Coffee kiosk owner Scott Brooke doesn’t see what his fiancee’s out-of-town relatives have to do with his service on the Harrisburg Planning Commission.

For that reason and others, Brooke is resigning his volunteer post rather than comply with new financial disclosure requirements.

Brooke joins a statewide wave of small-town officials stepping down over what they see as onerous and unfair requirements adopted by the Oregon Legislature last year.

The entire planning commission of the Eastern Oregon city of Elgin has resigned, as have dozens of individual officials in cities from Rogue River in Southern Oregon to Gearhart on the Oregon Coast to Carlton in the Yamhill Valley.

The disclosure rules apply to paid city and county managers as well as to elected officials and those appointed to decision-making boards and commissions. Though an overwhelming majority of cities around the state have had the laws in place since the 1970s, several dozen that had been exempt from the rules now need to come into compliance….” [read the full story]