After hearing public testimony both critical of the reorganization of the Road Department and deriding the manner in which it was conducted, Commissioner Main offered a possible solution Wednesday. Excluded from the 11th hour decision to slash the road crew, newly elected Main motioned the Board –

“I would like to propose that the Board reconsider the subject of the Road Department layoffs and that we as the Board continue with the present road crew until the 30th of June. That would give us adequate time for review of the entire process… and that we would have one or several citizens’ groups participate with the Board to review the entire process so that we have a community involved process.”

Stufflebean, apparently steadfast that operating even six more months under the existing approved budget might cause the entire road department to implode, declined to second the motion. Whitty has acknowledged basing her decision solely upon the paperwork supplied to media and the road crew and without seeing any analysis assuring public safety. Nevertheless, Whitty ignored the knowledgeable testimony of her constituents and declined to second thereby killing the motion.

The room reacted with audible groans of disgust and for the second week in a row citizen comment was dominated by road restructuring concerns. Mary Knight of Myrtle Point Transportation and Susan Shepherd, Coquille Transportation Manager each expressed grave concern for school bus drivers, students and the increased cost to relating to wear and tear on busses.

Both Knight’s and Shepherd’s concerns are valid. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), 25% of Oregon’s bridges are “…structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.” Almost 40% of our major roadways are in poor condition and account for “$684 million a year in extra vehicle repairs and operating costs — $264 per motorist.” While the report does not address county roads it is clear that poorly maintained roads translate into added costs to vehicle owners.

Road worker Tim Godfrey related management policy refusing to provide official letters of recommendation from supervisors.

“Why is that,” asked Godfrey, “are you guys not willing to help us find jobs again?”

The Board citing pending litigation from an Unfair Labor Practice complaint filed by Teamsters 223, refused to comment. Language contained in the severance offer from the County, entitled Election of Severance and Release of All Claims may provide an answer.

“Absent a valid release signed by Employee, the County will provide a neutral reference in response to inquiries from Employee’s potential employers, consisting only of Employee’s dates of employment, position held, and last pay rate at the County.”

The County appears to be offering a week’s pay and an official letter of recommendation as a carrot to entice a waiver of all future job related claims.

Former Roadmaster, Larry Van Elsberg spoke for the second week in a row claiming the public trust had been violated and ultimately called for Stufflebean to resign.

“I ask that Commissioner Stufflebean resign from his position as a County Commissioner and if he declines, Commissioners Main and Whitty should vote to remove him as the Road Department Liaison. In less than 2 years he has destroyed employee relations at the Road Department, created a hostile work environment and cost the county thousands of dollars in legal fees over labor disputes.”

Once the applause died down, Stufflebean declined to resign and angrily responded by criticizing the former roadmaster as well as the prior Board of Commissioners who oversaw his department.

“I do feel the public trust has been violated. I think and I strongly believe that the failures that the road department has had over the last several years will lead to the successes in some of the restructuring that we are doing. I think that, I don’t necessarily want to talk about the employees because I don’t think the employees are at all the issue that we have had in the Road Department. I do greatly believe, uh, the way that things have been managed there for several years is a severe issue. There’s been no accountability to the public, there’s been no efficiency, I think there’s been no effectiveness…”

Van Elsberg responded to the outburst outside the meeting saying,

“Oh, I expected that from Kevin. Since I always worked with my employees and brought everything before the entire Board he is blaming the prior Board as well.”

Whitty was a member of that prior Board.

Stufflebean spread more blame Wednesday asserting that a long held practice of wrongly providing compensatory time off to salaried management personnel responsible for filling out their own work sheets and applying comp time was the fault of clerical staff.

“They actually shouldn’t be receiving comp time and we had the discussion very in depth at the Road Department and there was a misunderstanding on how they were calculating, not the managers but how the office was calculating.”

No reversal of the comp time aggregated has occurred to date.