The Marion County Informer reported on Wednesday that Board of Supervisors President Calvin Newsom has refused to release a copy of the Marion County Development Partnership’s budget.

The Informer received a letter from MCDP President Jerry Frazier today asking that the article be corrected. Frazier said the MCDP is a private non-profit organization and does not submit its budget to the Board of Supervisors for approval.

Frazier asked that the Informer clarify and apologize for the article, saying the budget Newsom was refusing to release was likely for the Marion County Economic Development District.

Newsom said today that the budget he was refusing to release was for the Marion County Economic Development District, not the MCDP. The Wednesday Informer article also stated that the MCDP received $359,000 from Marion County, but Frazier said that is not true either. The Informer received that dollar figure from the county.

Prior to running the story, the Marion County Informer attempted to reach Frazier for comment, but he was out of the office.

When Newsom refused to release the budget, the Marion County Informer filed a public records request with County Attorney Joe Shepard for the document. The Informer will file a revised records request for the MCEDD budget.

In a Thursday Marion County Informer story about the Columbia School District budget it was reported that the county’s assessed value decreased by $359,000. Only the city School District’s portion of the assessed value decreased by $359,000. The assessed value for the county as a whole is down $2,286,844 for 2010-2011.

The Marion County Informer incorrectly reported in a recent post that an unusual fish was found in Columbia, when, in fact, the fish was found in the Columbia River Basin.