A small town newspaper prevailed in a dispute over its investigation of a tax break for a car wash after a county attorney asked the sheriff of Malheur County to mount its own investigation of a reporter who had e-mailed an official after hours. The sheriff closed his investigation saying no laws were broken. The reporter was trying to contact Greg Smith, the county director of development, for his comment on the story, but Smith claimed the reporter was harassing him. (Courthouse News Service, August 21, 2019, by Karina Brown)
The Malheur Enterprise was investigating why the car wash company did not receive a five-year exemption for property taxes supposedly promised to lure the company to build a $4.5 million car wash in the town of Ontario. In shelving the case, Sheriff Brian Wolfe said, “As an elected sheriff, we will always respect the constitutional rights of anybody and everybody. We do believe in freedom of the press and free speech that we believe are our rights given by the Constitution of the United States.” (CBS17.COM, August 21, 2019, by Andrew Selsky of The Associated Press)