UPDATED 3:26 p.m. Friday: U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer calls for Congress to investigate Douglas County’s ‘incredibly alarming’ travel expenses

In the last four years, leaders of a struggling Oregon timber county have repeatedly traveled to Washington, D.C., to lobby President Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and other top federal officials to increase timber harvests.

Douglas County commissioners spent at least $43,000 on their lobbying trips using federal money awarded to the county.

Yet after three formal requests and numerous questions from The Oregonian/OregonLive over the course of four months, the county has only accounted for how commissioners spent $579.57.

County officials want to charge the newsroom more than $1,900 and spend nearly a full week’s worth of clerical time to find 170 pages they say itemize the other $42,500.

The newsroom has appealed the costs to Douglas County district attorney Richard Wesenberg.

The county’s spending is of interest as members of Congress seek to make permanent the money’s source -- a federal safety net program intended to help counties transition away from their reliance on federal timber harvests. Douglas County commissioners have used the program to award themselves $30,000 a year to pay for lobbying trips. It’s unclear exactly how much has been spent.

The funds are part of the Secure Rural Schools program, which gives money to jurisdictions like Douglas County that suffered financially after endangered species listings curtailed federal logging in the 1990s. The county has struggled to adjust, however, closing its libraries in 2017. The national program has given $3 billion to Oregon counties since Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, co-authored legislation creating it in 2000.

While most dollars go straight to roads and schools, a smaller slice – still hundreds of millions nationwide – has been spent with more discretion and less oversight. A 2017 investigation by The Oregonian/OregonLive found Douglas County misusing the money. Two federal reviews have identified problems elsewhere. But little has been done by Congress or the U.S. Forest Service to ensure the money is spent correctly.

Few places provide a better example of how county officials have pushed the program’s boundaries than Douglas County.

Before 2008, the discretionary money could be spent for a small number of reasons including educational after-school programs. Douglas County commissioners say their Washington, D.C. lobbying trips to meet with Trump, congressional staffers and federal officials like Interior Secretary David Bernhardt meet that description. They aren’t lobbying, they have said, they’re educating. They also say they’re using pre-2008 grant money that was sitting unused, even though federal guidelines say counties must return money they failed to spend in previous years.

The few receipts Douglas County has released show Tim Freeman, chairman of the Douglas County commission, using the ride-sharing service Uber to travel around Washington, D.C., during separate lobbying trips in 2018 and 2019. He also spent $26 at a Portland airport bar without providing an itemized receipt showing whether he purchased alcohol. He bought a $6.99 bag of Peanut M&Ms, a Diet Coke and $9.99 worth of trail mix before a flight.

The receipts do not show how he paid for his airfare, hotel or other meals.

The Uber rides included one pickup in 2019 across the street from the Washington Nationals’ baseball stadium about two hours after a game ended against the St. Louis Cardinals. Freeman, in an interview, denied attending the game and said he did not like baseball. He said he had “perhaps” gone to dinner nearby. He then hung up on a reporter.

Douglas County commissioner Tim Freeman caught an Uber at about this location across the street from the Washington Nationals baseball stadium during a May 2019 visit. Freeman said he did not attend the game that ended two hours earlier but has not provided receipts that could show otherwise. (Google Street View)

In a subsequent email, Freeman said the “educational work” he and other commissioners had undertaken in Washington “is absolutely crucial to receiving funding for Douglas County.” Half of the county is federal forest.

“The most important issues facing our county are going to be solved in Washington, D.C.,” Freeman said.

Freeman acknowledged in his email that Douglas County paid his way on his trips to the nation’s capital. But county officials have been unable or unwilling to provide receipts. They released the Uber receipts in June, refused to answer subsequent questions about missing receipts and then ignored another request in August.

After the newsroom sent a third request in October and threatened a legal challenge, county officials said they had 170 pages of records.

But they have proposed exorbitant fees to produce them and refuse to waive the cost.

Tamara Howell, a Douglas County spokeswoman, told The Oregonian/OregonLive it would take a county staffer 35 hours to research, locate and prepare the travel expenses, billing an hourly rate of $34.37. At that pace, the staffer would find five pages every hour.

A department head will then need to review them, she said, which will take another five hours, billed at $96.21 per hour. Then an attorney will also need to review the records for three hours, billing $73.20 per hour.

Grand total: $1,926.50. That’s more than $11 per page.

Douglas County drew criticism in the past for its spending of the federal money. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Portland, said the county “blatantly” misspent it after the newsroom’s 2017 investigation revealed county officials awarded $250,000 to a nonprofit to create promotional videos meant to resurrect federal timber harvests.

But calls for an investigation from Blumenauer and a promise by Wyden to tighten oversight haven’t led to changes in Douglas County, where officials have continued spending the money on videos that environmental groups say are misleading.

“Senator Wyden told taxpayers this was a transition fund to help counties adapt to a world where we don’t log old growth anymore,” said Steve Pedery, conservation director at Oregon Wild. “Twenty years later, it’s turned into a slush fund for county politicians. Senator Wyden and the rest of Congress need to provide some oversight.”

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) speaking on the Senate floor Thursday, Oct. 17, 2019.

Wyden and Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley have proposed making the Secure Rural Schools program permanent. It has been extended on an annual basis, repeatedly leaving its fate in doubt. Bipartisan legislation, sponsored by Wyden, Merkley and Idaho Republican Sens. Mike Crapo and Jim Risch, would vastly expand how counties can spend the discretionary money without improving oversight -- something Wyden said he would pursue after the newsroom’s 2017 investigation.

The proposal would create a major endowment for counties that would be overseen by an independent nonprofit, while giving a financial incentive for rural counties to advocate for more logging on federal land.

Freeman lauded the new bill in a May news release Wyden’s office sent announcing its introduction.

“We are truly grateful to Senator Wyden for his continuing efforts to stabilize county funding for essential public services,” Freeman said in the release. “This bill will be a lifesaver.”

A spokesman for Wyden said making the program permanent will eliminate a reason the U.S. Forest Service hasn’t improved oversight -- because the future of Secure Rural Schools has always been uncertain.

“Senator Wyden is obviously concerned any time there are reports of resources not going where they’re intended,” said his spokesman, Hank Stern.

Stern said Wyden would press after the bill’s passage for the U.S. Forest Service to clarify its regulations “so that counties do not misuse these funds in any fashion.”

— Rob Davis

rdavis@oregonian.com

503.294.7657; @robwdavis

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