Revised: December 2018
By Sarah Owens and Michael Livingston
[Material originally posted under the titles, "Janet Carlson: Fact Check" (18 March 2017) and "Salem Weekly: Fact Check" (26 May 2017).]
For over a year, the Tuesday Willamette Wake Up team, then consisting of yours truly, Sara Cromwell and Sarah Rohrs, covered the Mid-Willamette Valley Homeless Initiative Task Force for KMUZ, 100.7 FM in Salem. We also reported on the Task Force here in the CANDO Archive.
However, it wasn't until January of 2017 that any of our reporting came to the attention of Marion County Commissioner Carlson, who took particular issue with the Willamette Wake Up report that aired January 17 (podcast here). Melanie Zermer and Bill Smaldone (President of KMUZ's Board of Directors and member of the Salem Weekly Editorial Board) both reviewed the podcast, and concluded "the research was thorough and makes a compelling argument for public concern." John Gear, legal counsel to the Board, also reviewed the podcast and approved the quality of the reporting as a "scoop."
About ten days after the report aired, the County asked KMUZ to "either remove the podcast from further distribution, or allow the county, and other task force conveners if they wish, the opportunity to respond in a follow up interview."
KMUZ's President responded to the request saying that, of course, there would be an opportunity for a response. Willamette Wake Up's Tuesday team arranged an interview date but had to cancel because of a power outage at the station. The County did not follow through on the offer to reschedule. The last communication from the County was a February 20 email saying they would "touch base with Michael next week", which they never did.
The same day the Salem Weekly published its story, "Gator" Gaynor interviewed Commissioner Carlson on his show, Gator's Radio Experience, on KYKN, 1430 AM in Keizer.
The show has since been canceled, and the show's podcasts are no longer available. However, three things about her interview are worth noting.
First, Carlson told "Gator" that she still wanted to do the interview with the Tuesday Willamette Wake Up team, she "just hasn't had the opportunity." The show aired Tuesdays from 8 to 9, and the team was willing to schedule as far out as necessary to accommodate the Commissioner's schedule.
The other two noteworthy bits were her comments about Polk County Commissioner Jennifer Wheeler's reasons for leaving the Task Force and her failure to respond directly to the report's very specific charges -- for example, the charge that she withheld Wheeler's October 18 memo from the Task Force and the public and that she was dishonest in telling the Task Force that Heidi Mackay and Sheriff Garton had not resigned.
Jennifer had some personal things going on in her life at that time, and she stepped away from the Task Force, uh, she, there was some confusion in how the letter was written, and so, when, when we got the letter, Anna, Cathy and myself, from Karen [sic], we needed to check in to find out whether it meant that Jennifer was stepping down, or whether Polk County was stepping away. And that took us a little while to, uh, Anna talked to Mike Ainsworth, I talked to Craig Pope, uh, we also talked with our legal counsel, they had not rescinded their charter, so we thought it would be best to clarify at the next meeting, that while Jennifer had resigned, that Polk County was still at the table. So it was the consensus of the co-chairs to come up with a statement, uh, to say that the four jurisdictions were still moving forward. When I talked with Craig, they were really not interested in trying to, you know, the other two commissioners had a lot of commitments, didn't want to step in, and only three meetings left at that point, so, uh, that was where we went. I sent you an email, I hope you got that, from Jennifer where, uh, she basically did not condone the, you know, kind of the blogs and the commentary that was going on about the Task Force and Polk County.
After hearing the interview with "Gator", we asked Commissioner Wheeler whether she in fact "stepped away" from participating further on the Task Force because she "had some personal things going on in her life at that time." This was her response, received March 23, 2017.
In closing the interview with "Gator", Carlson said,
The other point that we want to make is that in some of that innuendo or insinuations or speculations, there's a lot of discussion about transparency and whether we're being transparent or trying to mislead and all of that, you know everything was done appropriately under public meetings laws, you know, when a question came up, I contacted our county attorney, she sent me a statement, I sent that statement out, and I sent that statement to you [the interviewers], that, you know, what we were doing was within the bounds of the public meeting law. I'm the one in Marion County that actually started the training in public meetings law. It's a big deal to me, so it's interesting that somehow I'm getting tagged with the idea that I'm doing something inappropriate.
On May 25, 2017, Salem Weekly ran yet another story about the January 17 Willamette Wake Up report. In it, Carlson maintains that, contrary to the report, she was not a friend of Karen Ray, but a former colleague whose work she admired. Carlson told Weekly she did her doctoral dissertation on one of Ray's books. The report referred to Ray as "her friend, they had worked together in past years."
The Weekly incorrectly characterized the report as saying, "Ray's hiring...to do work a qualified volunteer could have done was contrary to the directive to co-chairs that they limit themselves to administrative actions." What the Willamette Wake Up report actually said was,
Carlson was unable to persuade Co-Chair Polk County Commissioner Jennifer Wheeler of the need to go out of state, or to pay $20,000 for services that Wheeler suspected very well were available in the community, and probably for free.and,
The County Counsel for Marion County, in responding to our request to attend and cover these co-chair meetings said they [the co-chairs] don't have any authority to make any substantive decisions, their authority is to schedule meetings...put items on the agenda, sort of ministerial, not to make any substantive decisions.
Carlson admitted to the Weekly that Wheeler had left "over her unhappiness with the hiring of Ray, but Carlson adds that the departure was also due also to personal matters unrelated to the task force." Wheeler has, as noted above, denied this.
Carlson told the Weekly she rejected the report's suggestion that "she misled assembled task force members at the November 7, 2016 meeting...where she stated that several Polk County members 'just couldn’t be here.' It is not accurate, she maintains, to say that she made that statement 'knowing' that Polk County had actually departed."
Carlson's exact words to the Task Force at the November meeting were, "If I could clarify. Jennifer resigned. Steve Bobb sent in his resignation recently. Heidi Mackay has not resigned. Sheriff Garton has not resigned. They just couldn't be here tonight." The report did not allege Carlson's comments were made, "'knowing' that Polk County had actually departed", but that she made them after she had received and replied to, that very morning, an email from Heidi Mackay. Mackay's email stated:
As already established by Commissioner Wheeler's letter dated October 18, 2016, Polk County is declining to participate in further meetings of the homeless task force. Accordingly, as one of Polk County's appointed task force members, I also decline to participate in ongoing task force business.
The Weekly stated that, "In fact, Carlson's documentation shows Polk County had not left the task force on November 7, and never did." We haven't seen Carlson's "documentation", but the issue raised by the Willamette Wake Up Tuesday team was not whether Polk County "left" (i.e., whether its Task Force Charter remained intact), but why Carlson misrepresented the situation to the Task Force and the public. The fact of Wheeler's memo is undisputed. The fact that Carlson withheld it from the larger Task Force is undisputed. The fact that Carlson received and replied to Heidi Mackay's email prior to the meeting is undisputed. And, the fact that she told the Task Force that Jennifer Wheeler and Steve Bobb had resigned but Heidi Mackay and Sheriff Garton had "not resigned, "[t]hey just couldn't be here tonight," is undisputed
The Weekly had no basis for saying that, "The January 17 program...was part of an ongoing conflict between [the show's] co-host Michael Livingston and his wife, Sarah Owens, -- and the task force." This is an ad hominem, circular argument that seeks to imply, but does not state, that the January report was somehow biased, and therefore lacking in credibility, because of critical CANDO Archive posts and emails linking to them that were sent to the Task Force once a week. The claim of "ongoing conflict" was not raised in Carlson's interview with Gator Gaynor on KYKN in January, or anywhere else we know of, and it is not true. Moreover, Carlson told her co-chairs in an email obtained through public records requests that "I don't read Sarah Owens' emails."
It's great to see KMUZ and Salem Weekly as well as Sarah reporting on this.
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