Mayor Ted Wheeler has ordered the Portland Police Bureau to release copies of police reports to crime victims free of charge, following through on a promise to do so.

Wheeler had made the commitment in December in response to a series published by The Oregonian/OregonLive called “On Hold.” The reports shed light on the long waits and high fees people – even crime victims – often faced when trying to get police reports, and the consequences of those delays.

For example, in 2017 it took the Police Bureau an average of 133 days to release a police report. Seattle, by contrast, provides most reports in less than a week. Seattle charges about $1 per report and waives fees for victims; Portland charges $30 up front plus additional copying costs.

In a Twitter post Friday, state Public Records Advocate Ginger McCall called the fee waivers for crime victims “a very positive development.”

Wheeler’s directive does not address head-on the long records backlog within the Police Bureau, a problem Chief Danielle Outlaw told The Oregonian/OregonLive is a “huge issue” that must be fixed with additional staffing.

Outlaw said at the time that she does not want her department to “re-victimize anyone again by making them wait for a long time” to access police reports.

Wheeler’s spokeswoman, Eileen Park, has said the mayor’s office is readying a 2019 Police Bureau budget that includes more funding for the records unit. And city commissioners Nick Fish and Amanda Fritz have said they would support more hiring to address the deep backlog.

The directive, which was signed Jan. 4 and provided to The Oregonian on Thursday, said Wheeler will continue to consider ways to make Portland’s public records process “cheaper and more efficient.”

“In the spirit of creating a culture of transparency and accountability for how records are handled, I want to encourage the release of public records whenever possible,” it states.

The memo also ordered the many bureaus Wheeler oversees to notify his office if officials intend to keep public records from members of the press.

It asked that officials carefully vet the legal justifications for keeping information from the news media. Such decisions should be made at the highest levels of city government, it stated.

It’s unclear whether any bureaus affected by the directive – which include the Police Bureau and departments in charge of housing, planning, economic development, permitting and administration – have notified the mayor that they withheld information from journalists.

The Police Bureau denied The Oregonian/OregonLive access to two arrest reports Thursday. Mayoral aide Sophia June said Friday no notices of that action or any other to withhold records from the press have been received by the mayor’s office. The mayor’s office was not notified about denial of The Oregonian/OregonLive’s request because the district attorney had asked for the police reports to be withheld, June said. A police spokeswoman did not return a request for comment.

-- Gordon R. Friedman

GFriedman@Oregonian.com

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