A Multnomah County judge has ordered Mayor Ted Wheeler to release public records about the city's plan to open a homeless shelter in the Foster-Powell neighborhood.

Tyler Bechtel, an Oregon State Police trooper who lives in that neighborhood, filed a records request in December 2017 to get more information about the city's decision to site the shelter near his home. Bechtel asked for emails and documents about the proposed Foster Road shelter in the inboxes of Wheeler, Multnomah County Chair Deborah Kafoury, County Commissioner Jessica Vega Pederson and Marc Jolin, who runs the city-county homeless services office.

The city released 16 pages of records but withheld two documents. Bechtel, who has actively opposed the Foster-Powell shelter plan, petitioned District Attorney Rod Underhill to order the records release, the typical procedure for public records disputes.

But Bechtel was forced to sue to get the records after the city invoked a portion of state law allowing elected officials to personally intervene to withhold documents. Tracy Reeve, the city attorney, said Wednesday that Portland elected officials have previously asserted that part of state law.

In an opinion released Tuesday, Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Ben Souede said most of the records Bechtel sought must be released because legal exemptions the city tried to assert do not apply and because there is a public interest in their disclosure.

"Indeed, the public interest in having disclosed the ways in which city leadership views the current circumstances of the city's shelter system is very strong," Souede wrote.

One record Bechtel sought is a city "market analysis" of properties that could be used as a homeless shelter. City lawyers argued release of that document would hurt the city in future property negotiations. Souede agreed and ordered parts of the document kept private, saying its full disclosure would "severely harm the public's interest by making it more difficult and more expensive" for the city to negotiate property acquisitions.

Because it lost the suit, the city will almost certainly have to pay Bechtel's legal fees.

-- Gordon R. Friedman

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