Today, during a special ‘worksession’ Commissioners Whitty, Stufflebean and Main met with representatives of Oregon Resources Corporation and South Coast Development Council to try and finalize the mineral leases and begin mining chromite in Coos County. Hoping to clear off some deal breakers after working out terms on the leases they then turned to the road issues on West Beaver Hill Rd. Stufflebean had this to say
With the road everything is moving forward really well with what we are doing on W Beaverhill. If everyone has been aware and if you haven’t been watching the media there’s been quite a hype about some of the restructuring we’ve done in the road department. We have actually made those changes, we have moved forward with that. One of the reasons it was essential we do some of those is everybody who has read the URS report that was provided by Oregon Resources Corporation, Coos County needed to make a $450,000 investment of their share just to deal with maintenance of the road department itself on W Beaverhill. With the changes we made that was factored into that. We will now have the money to actually make that investment. We are moving forward with the new roadmaster, John Rowe, down here we are going to be bringing in a consultant to train and cross train staff on paving. That was one of the things that we definitely knew that we had to do but we also know that we needed the money to make that initial investment of the county’s fair share of W Beaverhill too. So we dealt with those, those restructuring portions have been done we anticipate that as early as June we can start making the $450,000 investment we need to make into W Beaverhill. Because one of the reasons we did that we strongly believe in Oregon Resource Corporation and too we wanted to make sure that we were able to meet the commitments that Coos County needed to make on this project as well. And uh, so we know now that we can make those commitments and keep the development moving forward also.
An Oregon Resources funded study, completed by URS Corp., found the county would have to make $450,000 in road repairs for existing wear and tear.
There is more but now you know why they laid off all these people
Seems as though someone set it up to lose 22 road worker jobs, just when they would be needed the most, when the Chromite mining company, Oregon Resources Corp. mining operation could fund them. Then appearing from thin air is $450,000 for asphalt overlay for the miners to use Beaver Hill Road. A saving from firing the 22 COUNTY, road employees? Oh, not quite that way, just that Stufflebean; factored that into the road department reorganization.
Where was South Coast Development Council, the champion of jobs, when our own Coos County residents, lost them, Same place they were when the airport Horizon jobs were lost, batting for out of County corporations to come in here and bring jobs and personnel. Wise up folks, who is SCDC batting for.
If this mining deal could be worked out, with reforestation tree planting, may need some fertilizer to get everything going. If they could, up the County cut to 4 Percent and follow through with Beaver Hill Road maintenance payments?
The County can borrow the $450,000 out of the County forest fund, where there now sets, 5 million cool ones. Reinstate those 22 road worker employees, because they will be needed if this mining operation SPANS over 8,000 acres. The County needs them, even without the mining operation
Sounds like Stufflebean UNDER factored by the reorganization of the road department. This size operation needs oversight, controls, and ongoing maintenance of County roads where ingress and egress of the ore hauling vehicles will be operating. Stufflebean shot himself in the foot too soon.
I call for a “public hearing†for the Citizens of Coos County to be called and scheduled by the Coos County Commissioner for the two following subjects of reorganization of the road department and the Oregon Resources Corp. conducting mining operation in Coos County.
These two areas have and will affect the quality of life for our County Citizens and require County Citizen input through the Public Hearing Process.
http://www.theworldlink.com/articles/2009/02/04/news/doc4989d814336b9557903559.txt#blogcomments