Larry Van Elsberg filed a petition with Coos County Clerk, Terri Turi this morning to recall Commissioner Kevin Stufflebean. The primary issue is the recent handling of the Road Department budget management and layoffs.
Turi must certify the petition before signatures can be legally collected, nevertheless, by 1:00 PM dozens of people signed volunteer sheets eager to help with the recall campaign today. The occasion was the ‘worksession’ put on by the County to explain to the public why they had made the decision to cut road crew on such short notice and without public input and attended by dozens of angry citizens.
Whitty tried to maintain control of the meeting but the crowd would not have it and fired off question after question, most evaded but some answered. 
My favorite, well, one of my favorites, was when G-Man, pictured here, was forced to acknowledge with the cameras rolling that his office, Human Resources, is often locked. The picture is included because information was leaked to me by a secret source that G-Man can sometimes be found after midnight shopping at Walmart in case someone needs to submit a FOIA and recognizes him in the parking lot. (This claim has not been confirmed)
Tomorrow, Bob Main will motion once again to rehire the road crew at least through June 30 so as to work out a program with the new Roadmaster, John Rowe. John Rowe, meanwhile, states that after his assessment of the roads and the department, “If we need more people, then we need more people”. Should Rowe determine more staff are required to maintain county roads it will certainly make for some awkward backpedaling for the Board.
