County Counsel, Jackie Haggerty announced during a packed Coos County Board of Commissioners meeting, Wednesday, Teamsters Local 223 had filed an Unfair Labor Practices complaint with the Oregon Employment Relations Board. A consequence of the ULP filing was a prohibition on the advice of counsel of the commissioners responding to speakers regarding the Road Department layoffs due to pending litigation.
Rightly anticipating the high attendance related to the recent Road Department reorganization the Board agreed to move citizen participation forward on the agenda to accommodate Commissioner Stufflebean. Stufflebean, perhaps rightly anticipating a high attendance similar to last week’s swearing in ceremony wherein Commission Whitty was left alone to face intense questioning, scheduled a meeting in Roseburg necessitating his early departure.
Stufflebean was able to stay long enough to hear multiple testimonies expressing grave concerns about the handling of the Road Department as well as the lack of public participation and the perceived secrecy surrounding the decision. All spoke passionately about the risk to public safety, the preservation of safety being a primary function of any government.
Don Beebe, a former County road foreman emphasized the risk to public safety and suggested the board look for creative ways to work within budgetary constraints without massive layoffs. Beebe further reminded the Board the County’s ‘greatest resource’ is its employees and their many accumulated years of experience.
Larry Van Elsberg, former roadmaster agreed and was disturbed that experienced road workers were not part of the reorganization planning. “Two of the management team have minimal management experience and are new to their jobs and two with little or no road maintenance experience.†He went on to say, “New equipment is always nice, but if you don’t have the crew to run it, what good is it?â€
December 29, road crews trained to operate their equipment played a pivotal role in a technically complex, multi-agency rescue near Sitkum. Myrtle Point EMTs, Willy Burris and Joe Torres were en route in an ambulance to aid a woman suffering an acute illness when they encountered high water on the road.
Timber Deputy Ernie Mitchell and Cpl Will Coleman of the Sheriff’s Marine Division as well as members of the Dora Fire Department were unable to reach the patient stranded on the other side of fast rising water. Road crew operating a backhoe in the area heard the radio chatter. County road worker, Keith Lewis transported Burris with a backhoe to a point where he was able to wade through icy water and assess and provide aid to the patient.
The patient’s condition along with rising water warranted an airlift and the US Coast Guard, aided by Burris on the ground were able to safely airlift her, under difficult visual and weather conditions, to North Bend and Bay Area Hospital. Throughout this drama, Lewis aided by fellow workers, Sam Clark, Tony Messerle, Gary Mickelson and Doyle Fish, continued to work the backhoe towing Coleman’s boat to a safe access point enabling Coleman to bring out Burris and the patient’s husband, Billy Reid.
Both Coleman and Torres agree that without the county road crew and their skill with the equipment the USCG would have had no ground support in treacherous weather conditions thereby increasing the danger to both the rescuers and seriously threatening the outcome for the patient. The incident helps to illustrate Van Elsberg’s point about equipment and people to operate it.
Van Elsberg urged the Board to bring in an outside consultant to do a professional analysis of public safety, equipment and road maintenance and employee management and recommended Joe Strahl of Public Works Management, Inc. Strahl has a track record with the county and PWM lists ‘Infrastructure Mapping’ as one of the services provided.
Given the analysis Stufflebean and his management claim supports the need for unannounced layoffs was reportedly not committed to paper, it seems that an infrastructure map would be a good start toward legitimately determining what it takes to efficiently maintain 600 miles of county road. At the very least, it would go a long way toward assuring the public that their lives and roads are in good hands.
The lack of a written analysis prohibits the public from actively participating in its own governance.
A professional consultant might further critique the budget assumptions and cast a careful eye over the ‘savings’ projected with the layoff. For example, the total buyout projected by the Road Department for 26 weeks plus layoff pay is $367, 526.03 but as Beebe noted, there are no services rendered in return for that money.
This means that the ditches, already criticized by the Federal Highway Administration engineers three years ago, will not be improved for that money. Expensive equipment will sit idle. For every day a $75,000 mower sits idle in the yard, another mile of road is left un-mowed.
Every worker can apply for a 26-week unemployment extension and with jobs few and far between may be forced to resort to this. If so, the projected savings coupled with the continued erosion of the roads, the risk to public safety and the inevitable loss of commerce will quickly erase any perceived or projected savings.
The basis of the ULP complaint resides in part to Stufflebean’s media claims, including this reporter that emergency services could be let out to private contractors violating labor agreements not to contract out public jobs. Depending upon the work, private contractors must pay prevailing wages when performing public jobs and must add profit into their charges for services in order to continue to operate. These added costs are passed on to the taxpayer.
The flaws of this plan are so many and so glaring and so egregious the 11th hour vote by Commissioners Whitty, Griffith and Stufflebean terminating 22 jobs may venture into or at least border upon criminal negligence. At the very least it calls into question the very competence of those people entrusted with public money.
Finally, while obvious it should be highlighted that all the people, from each agency involved in the Sitkum rescue are public employees.
Photos courtesy of Joe Torres
