City Mgr: Historical Records Not "Relevant"

By Sarah Owens and Michael Livingston

City Mgr 6 Feb 2019 Update

The City "turned off" its (our) old website on February 6, 2019.  Access to those documents is now by public records request only. 

That means, if you're not sure what you're looking for, it might cost more than you want to pay for research.

Some may recall being told -- back in 2015, when plans for a new website were being discussed -- that documents on the old site would be migrated gradually, as staff time permitted, over to the new website.  Unfortunately, this can't be confirmed, as the website is "turned off", and a search by the City Recorder would be cost-prohibitive.    

City Mrg 13 Mar 2019 Update

The current City Manager, Steve Powers, joined City staff in August 2015.  In February, he told the City Council the information on the old website was no longer relevant.  To anything.

Powers's view suggests a certain lack of imagination.  Or, what Salem Breakfast on Bikes calls "a bias for recency."  See "Church Street and SAIF, Winter-Maple Greenway, City Archiving - Bits":

"A great problem with this bias for recency is it then reinforces a kind of preferment for insider, special knowledge, in particular the kind of knowledge a professional lobbyist or staff person might have. This approach to public records supports regulatory capture, and in fact makes it more difficult for citizens to develop an equivalent depth of knowledge on local government and local issues.

Making it more difficult for citizens - or journalists - to get older information just kinda stinks."  

The one saving grace of the new arrangement described in the Manager's March 13 Update (above) was the ability to obtain archived material by contacting the City Recorder without requiring a public records request.  Too bad that arrangement lasted only a week. 

Per the Manager's March 20 Update, a public records request is required.  And it may cost.

City Mgr 20 Mar 2019 Update

It's unclear what "as accessible to the public as possible" might mean, short of turning the old website on again so that the public could perform our own searches.  If the City were to share the costs of keeping the old site turned on, or putting the documents somewhere else that was searchable (like the Marion County Law Library), the public might at least appreciate the need for trade-offs.  But our appreciation, as this business shows, is not a concern.  Powers directs his updates to the City Council (which includes the mayor, by the way), not the public.  His office sends them directly to Council members and makes the public check the City Manager's page.  The public aren't even offered a "subscribe" button.  Obviously, we must not be "relevant", either.