The Columbia Development Authority Board of Directors met Monday, Jan. 8, to approve making a response to a complaint from a Port of Morrow commissioner.
Port Commissioner Kelly Doherty wrote CDA Chairman Kim Puzey on Dec. 19 expressing disappointment about a meeting that to Doherty signaled the CDA lacked openness or transparency.
Doherty told Puzey the CDA held a meeting “outside of the public meeting laws of the state of Oregon,” and “It saddens me that the public business of the CDA Board is not being held in the view of the public. It bothers me that our regional representation as economic developers would violate ethics laws.”
The CDA board meeting Jan. 8 resulted in a 5-0 vote to approve responding to Doherty.
CDA Executive Director Greg Smith signed the letter in response to Doherty and acknowledged he and the CDA’s attorney met with attorneys for the intergovernmental agreement parties on Nov. 29, and those attorneys “do not represent any individual associated with or appointed by their clients’ governing bodies to serve as board members for the CDA.”
Smith explained in the letter the purpose of the attorneys’ meeting was to discuss “the possible division of a CDA asset in a manner” the intergovernmental agreement parties would find acceptable.
“Any proposal regarding the division of assets would come before the CDA Board for CDA approval,” Smith stated in the letter. “No presentation to or deliberation by the CDA Board on this topic has yet to occur but, were it to occur, it will be during a regularly scheduled board meeting.”
Smith pulled a law dictionary from the shelf to express several definitions of terms regulating public meetings such as governing body, public body, convening, deliberation and meeting.
Smith observed, “The IGA Party attorneys lack any delegated authority to make decisions for or recommendations to the CDA on policy or administration, nor was any alleged.”
Attorneys for the individual IGA party governing bodies, Smith said, are not the attorneys for or representatives of individual Columbia Development Authority board members.
“For this reason,” Smith stated, “the CDA denies that the facts and circumstances set forth in the grievance accurately reflect the conduct of the CDA governing body.”
