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City attorney and DLCD counsel: disclose ex parte site visits and avoid party conversations
Summary
DLCD and Astoria city attorney advised that ex parte contacts apply to quasi‑judicial matters, should be declared at hearings, and that site visits are acceptable if disclosed; direct conversations with applicants or parties are more problematic.
Estes introduced ex parte contact rules and invited City Attorney Blair Henningzgard to clarify legal practice. "An ex parte contact only applies to those quasi judicial decisions," Estes said, and he urged commissioners to declare site visits at the start of hearings.
Henningsgaard told participants that viewing a property is usually not problematic but that substantive conversations with parties should be disclosed because they can introduce bias. "The important thing in any ex parte contact is that you tell the parties at the beginning of the hearing, that you made the visit," he said, adding that disclosing what was seen lets all parties probe whether that information is material to the record.
