>La Grande Observer | Union and Wallowa Counties' News Leader

Enterprise Planning Commission Chair Marc Stauffer gives the reasons why he is among the majority of commissioners who have resigned their posts in response to new state ethics requirements being imposed on small volunteer government bodies. - The Observer/GARY FLETCHER

Recently, the entire Elgin Planning Commission resigned in protest.

The Enterprise Planning Commission will no longer have a quorum effective 11:59 p.m. April 14, one minute before the new requirements go into effect, but the city council will retain a quorum.

It was pointed out that the state has not even provided the forms yet.

The three remaining planning commissioners remain undecided. One is Stacey Karvoski, whose husband, Paul, the municipal judge is also undecided whether he will bow to the requirement and submit the required Annual Verified Statement of Economic Interest (SEI), then submit quarterly updates.

“I can’t do without you (the planning commission). I need you,” Mayor Irv Nuss said about the group of seven he called “great people.”

At a 2 1/2-hour work session of the Enterprise City Council and planning commission Wednesday, Commission Chairman Marc Stauffer announced the resignation of the majority of the commission.

Then addressing the issue, if the city council should also resign, City Attorney Roland Johnson said, “If the council resigns, we won’t have a city.”

A poll of the five city councilors in attendance showed that four of them would submit the required SEI form. Undecided was Chuck Corak, who called the SEI an “invasion of privacy.”

Four city councilors constitute a quorum so that the city can do business.

At issue are new ethic requirements designed to help prevent government representatives from benefitting personally from their decisions.

But in a sometimes animated and emotional meeting, City Recorder Michele Young said, “We’re not like a big city. Here, everybody knows each other. They work all day and volunteer at night.”

Toward the end of the meeting Stauffer read his letter of resignation.

It echoed opinions expressed by others when it said that “ ... with a great sense of sadness and frustration ... I must tender my resignation ... under protest of the passing of Senate Bill 10 and portions of ORS 244, the new Oregon Ethics Reform Law.”

Stauffer protested that the law would cause abrogation of “personal and families’ rights to privacy in order to participate in a constitutional guaranteed right (of people) to represent themselves in government.

“Continuation at my post could potentially jeopardize my family’s safety,” his letter said.

Commissioner Susan Roberts said, “We have nothing to hide.” But she explained that the names of extended family members over the age of 18 are required on the SEI form, and that information submitted to the state would be available to the public on the Internet in 2010.

Stauffer’s resignation also reflected other commissioners’ views when it protested the “state’s taxation of the people of Enterprise without due representation; much like the protest made to the King of England in the Declaration of Independence.”

The city, county and other agencies would have to fund the Oregon Government Ethics Commission’s (OGEC’s) enforcement of the new rules, Stauffer said.

At issue is that the year after the 1973 formation of the OGEC, 97 smaller cities and six counties in Oregon were made exempt from such requirements, until now.

“It’s communistic,” councilor Margie Shaw said.

When told she could be fined up to $6,000 and be jailed if the fines weren’t paid, she responded, “They will just have to feed me in jail. Every one of us should protest.”

However, after a lengthy discussion and reminders that it is the law, and City Attorney Johnson’s recommendation that the forms be submitted, Shaw, like others, said she would submit the form.

But she said she would write comments on hers.

Stauffer predicted “the largest wholesale loss of leadership in this state’s history” because of this “step backwards in our democratic form of government.”

He asked the 15 people present and the public at large to write or call Gov. Ted Kulongowski to ask to have the law repealed.

According to Scott Winkels of the League of Oregon Cities, the decision of what information might be eventually posted to the OGEC website has not yet been made.