Fund the records. Follow the money. Publish the proof.
Union County's own minutes and payment reports raise concrete questions about wolf grants, no-bid contracts, a golf course debt the county now denies, and a SWAT account the county says it has no records of. I verified 150 findings word-for-word against the county's own documents. This fund pays for the records that answer them -- and for enforcement when the county stonewalls. Anonymous by default. 501(c)(3) tax-deductible.
I spent the last months mirroring every document Union County publishes -- eighteen years of commissioner meeting minutes and every monthly expenditure report since 2020 -- and cross-checking them line by line. Every finding was verified word-for-word against the county's own records. Not rumors. Their paper.
Here is a sample of what their own documents show. Wolf-damage grants awarded in the minutes to a cattle company were paid to an individual -- the county's largest construction contractor -- and one award left $2,000 unexplained between what was recommended and what was paid. A million-dollar contract, grant seats, and the vote to sue the county's own voters over term limits all happened in one morning, in one meeting. The county told me it "does not possess" records of a SWAT team bank account while its own reports publish SWAT spending lines. And it told me "there was never a loan" behind the golf course -- while its own minutes record the debt, a $626,000 interest forgiveness, and years of lottery-money transfers to cover it.
None of that proves a crime. That is exactly the point: the records that would prove or put to rest every one of these questions exist, and the county is pricing and stonewalling them -- it quoted more than $5,000 for the productions, told me it "does not grant fee waivers," and demanded an $802.50 deposit reviewed by the same law firm whose bills I asked to see.
Read that policy again: "Union County does not grant fee waivers for public records requests." Oregon law says the opposite -- a county MUST consider waiving fees when disclosure primarily benefits the public, and an unreasonable refusal can be taken to court, where the judge reviews it fresh, the burden is on the county, and the case jumps the docket. I am taking it to court. Not to pay the fee -- to strike the policy, for Union County and for every Oregonian who gets told the same thing by their own government. If I win with counsel, the law makes the county pay the legal fees back -- your donation recycles into the next fight.
So this fund is a war chest with a specific job: file and win the fee-waiver case, pursue the focused records requests behind it, process and host every document I win so it is online for everyone, and publish the follow-up reporting that explains what the records show -- and what they don't.
Your donation is anonymous unless you say otherwise. Nobody -- including the county -- will know who funded this unless you choose to be named. Valor Investigates is an IRS-recognized 501(c)(3); gifts are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law, and no donor gets advance access, editorial approval, or control over findings.
The citizens of Union County paid for every page of these records once already. Help me make them public.
"We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented." -- Elie Wiesel