Immediately after The World published its account of Kevin Stufflebean’s email accusations, former roadmaster and commissioner candidate, Larry Van Elsberg, also received a late night rant, sent from the official Coos County email address flinging wild and incoherent accusations at Van Elsberg and several road department employees. The email even ends with accusations against me and I have nothing to do with any of this.
Van Elsberg turned the email over to the district attorney who in turn provided it to the Attorney General for evaluation in their investigation of Sheriff Andy Jackson. Many question how rational or fit Stufflebean is to hold office and manage public resources. The excerpts of the email below, the parts that do not name employees, speaks volumes and if this email is anything like the email sent to The World you will understand why I find their handling so questionable.
Your illegal executive sessions with commissioners that Nikki Whitty was never involved with and you provided the information to jody macafree so we have documentation.
You completely misappropriated gas tax revenue on work that was nor done in right of ways, that is illegal and you should be prosecuted for it. Don’t try to blame commissioners as you had the authority
delegates to you by commissioners…
Van Elsberg doesn’t know what Stufflebean is talking about here and his willingness to share this with AG supports his claims of innocence. It is also interesting how Kevin always defends Nikki but then she has pretty much been in lockstep with Kevin from the day they both failed to attend Commissioner Bob Main’s swearing in to the harmonious decision not to reinstate the road crew to rubber stamping road equipment purchases despite having no staff to run it.
Stufflebean names many current and former employees of the road department in this tirade so I am trying to share enough of the email to reveal the state of mind of the commissioner without sharing sections with names.
I have told the world that I am more then willing to set with you and
them to go over issues.The newspaper can question my integrity, and they have forgot to pull the article they printed with my wife in pic that her job was cut,
You Larry, have questioned my integrity and I have all the info to support me, and had you been interested in the best interest of coos
county you could have came with concerns and we could have looked at them, but instead you wanted to cover your ass and come after me.I let you you do it for 16 months, and no more. The truth is always glorious. My notebooks will be released for clarification.
Larry, you can put on the seat belt and enjoy the ride or you can start putting out the truth. It will be betterif you admit versus me
discrediting you.
The email is very lengthy, riddled with grammatical errors and an amazingly shocking thing to see coming from an elected official. It was sent at midnight, as mentioned, from Stufflebean’s official county email address.
Several people living on Stage Road, out along Coaledo and other areas have told me how badly their roads are being maintained since the layoffs. One truck driver lost a leaf spring because of gaping potholes. Perhaps, Stufflebean, by hurling accusations at others hopes to deflect attention from the bad decisions he has made.
This, in my opinion, is not a stable person.
That blows my mind. Private driveways were never in our budget plan when paving. I think the man in charge of the Road dept is trying to make a name for himself.I can tell you the Hours used with this new equipment is minimal.Everybody has a log book that we had to fill out in the morning, and then at the end of the day.If the log books were to be checked it is all on record. I can assure you the time used with the new equipment and hours are so low you wouldn’t believe it. They don’t have enough personnel left to run this equipment. They are using Management to fill the gap of the work force. Mary,if someone could call corruption, it is with Management at the Road Dept. I still have my log book, as I retired and did not turn it in when I left. My log book is mostly using the old equipment, but I did keep track. David Jennings of the road Dept has all the paper work on this, as we had double copies. This is not David Jennings from the courthouse.David Jennings of the road dept has a duplicate copy of every day use of the equipment used and the hours they were used. Its a joke. They just don’t have enough personnel to use this equipment. Take care
Nikki relies too heavily on others to make decisions for her. She was razzled and dazzled by Kevin’s bizarre budgetary explanations of the layoffs, for example, and fell for all that ‘making the department more efficient’ by firing 60% of the crew. Her road must be better kept than many of the others.
Has anyone logged how many hours of service the new equipment has seen?
Did the math on the Wallace Road Local Improvement District and it came to $90,000 and over 40% of that was private driveways. 40%!
I think Nikki is a yes woman. Go with the flow and not take responsibility for her actions. I distinctly remember Larry was ordered by the commissioners to keep the work going on the pipeline. Kevin now is passing the buck on Larry which he had no choice in the matter.Nikki is hiding in the corner and hoping this will all go away.I’m hoping she will lose her ass. I guess I should have said seat.(:
In Kevin’s email he blames Larry for the pipeline
“The pipeline is another issue, you had the sole ability to revoke the permit and failed.
You single handledly cost this county millions of dollars for your
inept ability to manage a department and a project like the pipeline. Some blame goes with the BOC in which I was not one but elected officials rely on professional staff.”
Nikki admitted in The World that legal counsel told the commissioners to keep letting Mastec ruin things to improve their legal case (a strategy which backfired by the way).
At a recent solid waste meeting some observers questioned whether Kevin was ‘medicated’. The email above makes me wonder if he was ‘medicated’ too.
Where is Nikki in all this? She hasn’t stood up to support the Sheriff or comment on the AG findings. Maybe she is counting all the votes she made in concert with Kevin and wondering if anyone will notice.
I still remember two days after she voted to layoff 22 road workers that she couldn’t answer my questions about why she voted the way she did. She just kept referring me to Kevin.
Sounds like Stufflebean might have been a little tooted up that evening. I worked with Larry Van Elsberg for years. His work ethics were in my opinion top notch. For Stufflebean to throw accusations like this is way out of line. I’ve known Larry for over 40 years,plus he is my ex-Brother-in-law.He ran a tight ship and always made sure the work was being done. I have great respect for Larry and he treated everyone equal. In fact he chewed my butt a couple times. LOL
I was part of the gas line fix, after the fact that it was a job not done well. Myself and another person ran backhoe for quite some time time on the road the contractors screwed up on old wagon road. It was a mess.The county Tax payers again had to pay for that extra work because of the knowledge of the Commissioners in control. I could release more Info. but it would be like a book that never ends. I would like to add that the roads are in such bad shape, that we have truck drivers Injuring their backs because the pot holes are so bad you can hardly drive over them to spread rock. I know this as fact. I have Injuries to my neck and right shoulder and had to retire because of the extra work load they put on us and having to drive over the craters in the roads. I didn’t want to further Injure myself so I decided to retire. The road Dept.has gone down hill Since Larry’s Retirement. Take care.
I did not know Larry when he worked for the county and met him for the first time during the Stufflebean recall campaign. Perhaps someone should request documentation of these illegal executive sessions that have occurred and exactly which Commissioners were involved because I would really like to see that information.
Besides requesting information on illegal Coos County executive sessions, we should also be asking why the same person who was hired in 2003/2004 to oversee environmental issues having to do with the 12-inch pipeline’s construction, now is being paid rather handsomely I might add, to fix all these environmental problems on that same 12-inch line? Wouldn’t this be a clear conflict of interest, particularly given the fact the county did not get the money it should have on the environmental degradation lawsuit of the 12-inch line, due to among other things, the judges ruling of improper oversight?
According to the Coos County Commission Agendas (I went back one year – from June of 2009 to June of 2010) PBS engineering sent invoices to the county during that time period for “noted” pipeline related expenses that totaled $237,188.61. This amount does not include other invoices not specifically “noted” as pipeline or road issues that PBS engineering also sent to the county during this same time frame. The pipeline was built in 2003/2004, so who knows what the complete cost has been to date.
I have tried to find out what exactly this 12-inch pipeline is costing us and if anyone is overseeing these expenses and issues. At a recent County worksession no one could tell me anything and Kevin insinuated it would be illegal for him to go back before he was Commissioner and get the information. Say what?
Before the Commissioners allow another larger and potentially more damaging pipeline, perhaps we should be finding these things out……
Again.
Nonsense MGX !!!
A stable is exactly where he should be, in company of the other horses’ asses. Just my opinion of course. Let him throw his shit around where it belongs, in the barnyard.
He owes Larry an apology ASAP. The other workers as well. Think he will finally be a man and step up to apologize to the persons directly affected by his slander, and the taxpayers of Oregon who have to pay for his baseless bullshit?
Naw, probably send the Mrs. out to do it.