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Oregon Government Ethics Commission resolves open meetings complaint against Lane County leaders

The Board of Lane County Commissioners sitting at the dais.
Nathan Wilk
/
KLCC
FILE: The Board of Lane County Commissioners at a meeting in October, 2024.

The Oregon Government Ethics Commission has voted to resolve an ethics complaint against Lane County.

In September, a group of garbage haulers accused Lane County Commissioners of holding two illegal executive sessions.

An executive session is one of the few times elected officials can exclude the public from their meetings – usually to discuss legal issues. The executive sessions were about a recycling diversion facility the garbage haulers opposed.

The Oregon Ethics Commission found county commissioners' efforts to provide public notice fell short of Oregon public meeting law requirements.

The County Commissioners and their legal team said they’d done things that way for years, not realizing it was illegal, and promised to change their practices.

On Friday, the ethics panel voted to resolve the matter by sending a letter of education to each Lane County commissioner instead of a fine.

Rebecca Hansen-White joined the KLCC News Department in November, 2023. Her journalism career has included stops at Spokane Public Radio, The Spokesman-Review, and The Columbia Basin Herald.
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