Following on the closing note here, GAO has filed suit under Oregon’s Public records law for correspondence containing the email domain of a group that appears to have been instrumental in the County punching its ticket in the climate litigation sweepstakes, @climateintegrity.org. For a walk-through of how this group works you can see an amicus brief here, or for an egregious case study with all the anatomy spread out, see here.
All the County is willing to release to GAO were some Zoom call scheduling emails. This denial of actual correspondence—indeed a blanket denial of all such records that exist—is rather odd on its face. But as GAO notes in its complaint, it is more so given GAO is aware of other, plainly non-exempt records that exist that the County has not released.
UPDATE: On April 23, 2024, Multnomah County released in heavily redacted form some of the records it had originally withheld in response to GAO’s request (counsel says the County is withholding “about two email chains”). It continues to withhold materials shared with the Center for Climate Integrity, as attorney work product and/or “compiled or acquired by the [County] for use in the litigation” (citing to a 1981 case).
Notice that these emails indicate it was the plaintiffs’ firm that brought the outside pressure group into the relationship with the plaintiff and, effectively by this, as part of its legal team.