Call Deschutes County Commissioner Mike Daly brave or foolish, or a mix of the two, for confronting head-on an old saying that’s well known by every government official: Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel.
But Daly said Friday he simply couldn’t stand by and let The Bulletin do what will be, to his view, a late, weak correction to an egregious error in an editorial published Tuesday, falsely claiming that he had reimbursed the county for a $600 pioneer cemetery headstone marking the grave of his great-grandfather, and only did so after his colleagues questioned the expenditure.
Daly said the reporter involved in the story that ran two days earlier, prompting the editorial, already knew that he had paid $600 for the grave marker at the same time a La Pine funeral home picked up the county’s lottery grant check of about $3,000 for restoring the pioneer cemetery southeast of Bend last year.
On Sunday, Nov. 21, The Bulletin ran a lengthy article by reporter Chris Barker that shed light on the 5-year-old system of Deschutes County commissioners divvying up state lottery funds into thirds and each being able to take applications for and agree to grant requests.
Nearly $1 million has been distributed in that fashion since 1999, and while the headline indicated the lottery funds were “spent without oversight,” the article indicated that fellow commissioners did approve the various grants, through weekly approval of all county expenditures, a single vote taken at commission meetings. The article prompted Commission Tom DeWolf to state Monday that he will seek to improve the system.
The Bulletin’s Tuesday editorial, which called for changes in the lottery grant process, indicated that some of the year-ago lottery grant in question had gone to the headstone for Daly’s relative, and that he “later paid that money back, but only after he and his commission colleagues discussed the issue.”
“That was certainly the right thing to do, but would the reimbursement have happened if the discussion hadn’t? We wonder,” the unsigned editorial stated.
On Friday, Daly distributed a press release to local media, including a string of e-mails between himself and Bulletin editors and the reporter involved. The first was one he sent to the paper Tuesday, calling the offending paragraph “totally untrue,” and saying Barker “knows the true story. None of the lottery money went to pay for my (great-)grandfather’s tombstone. I did not pay back any fund after the funds were expended.”
“To try to smear me with a totally untrue statement in your editorial is inexcusable,” Daly said in the e-mail to Editor in Chief John Costa, Barker, Editor of Editorials Erik Lukens, and Bulletin Publisher Gordon Black (as well as to his fellow commissioners, Administrator Mike Maier and city-county historic planner Pat Kliewer.)
“If we are talking abut ethics, I think you should clean out your own back yard before using those tactics to try to smear a sitting county commissioner,” Daly wrote.
Daly circulates paper’s responses
Daly’s release included a responding e-mail from Barker, who acknowledged “the editorial is wrong, and I apologize. I didn’t see it before it went to print. I think the reason the editorial is wrong is my story was unclear about the timing of your payment.”
A front-page graphic accompanying Sunday’s piece implied that a $6,000 grant was approved (or requested) on Oct. 9, 2003, while the article said Daly had “reimbursed” the funeral home with a $600 check on Nov. 12, according to the funeral home’s records.
In a letter to Costa Friday, Brad Baird of Baird Memorial Chapel said he’d received a personal check from Daly in the mail on Nov. 14, 2003, and that he picked up the county check 11 days later, the day he was notified it was available.
Daly said the check from the county apparently was for less than $3,000 and that Kliewer told him the rest of the grant remains in the account, as there were cash donations from families of the persons buried at the Rease Cemetery, and all of the labor was donated, as well as fencing material used by an Eagle Scout. “About the only thing the county paid for was the remaining gravestones, after I paid for mine,” Daly said.
Barker sent another e-mail Wednesday to Daly, indicating that the paper was “looking into the documentation” and would be in touch, prompting Daly to reply, “How do you fix the damage done to my reputation?”
Lukens wrote to Daly on Tuesday, indicating he was the editorial’s author and had talked to Barker about the matter. “If we write a clarification or correction on the story, it will certainly include the editorial,” Lukens added.
Costa also wrote an e-mail to Daly on Wednesday, promising that his note would be published in the paper, “alongside the complete paper record of this transaction, and the written remarks of your fellow commissioners on the subject. Then the readers can decide whether the story and editorial were fair, or, as you have characterized them, a smear.”
Daly, who had been considering his options, said he spoke Friday to Bulletin City Editor Richard Coe, who indicated a correction would run in Sunday’s paper, “on the lower left-hand or right-hand corner,” Daly said. “It’s not enough, as far as I’m concerned. I want them to do the true story. … I’m not a bit ashamed of anything and how we’ve done it.”
Coe declined comment Friday when asked about Daly’s allegations or the paper’s intentions.
While The Bulletin endorsed Daly’s opponent, Democrat Randy Gordon, in his unsuccessful bid to unseat the Republican incumbent, Daly said he did not believe that was connected to what had transpired.
“I don’t have any idea what their thoughts are,” he said. “I think it may be their supporting of (a) home rule (charter), and the fact that I don’t support it. It remains to be seen how they treat Tom and Dennis (Luke) at the next election.”
“My biggest thing was, Chris had all the facts. … The way they wrote that (editorial) really smeared me, when it’s out and out totally wrong and false.”
However, the commissioner indicated that he didn’t recall whether he had intended to pay for the relative’s tombstone, when the grant initially was requested.
“I don’t remember the actual day we talked about the grant, probably in (an) administrative liaison (meeting) early on,” Daly said. “When it came forward, the use of funds for that, then we had a discussion of whether I would pay for my grandfather’s tombstone. I volunteered, yeah, I would do that. It was strictly to alleviate any problem like we’re having now.”
“I know the discussion came up at the time, on how it would look, and we just talked about it a little bit, and I said, `No problem,’ and paid for it myself,” he said, “Six-hundred bucks is a lot to come out of your pocket, but I could see how someone down the line would look at that with a raised eyebrow. There was no question I would pay for it.”
Daly also indicated he doesn’t see a problem with the lottery grant system, or a need to make major changes. “I’m not a bit ashamed of anything, and how we’ve done it. There isn’t a lottery grant I’ve ever given out that I’m ashamed of.”
Asked about the lack of public notice regarding the availability of lottery grant funds, Daly said, “It’s never been a secret. It’s been going on for years. Quite frankly, I don’t know how many other groups would apply. I can’t think of any that have applied to me that I haven’t given them something, if they were a good organization and needed the funds.”
