The topic of whether the County hire an executive to run the day to day business of government and elect a board to oversee the executive, much like a city manager and city council, has been brought up quite a bit in the last four years. There could be advantages to a single executive running the County, not the least of which is that a loose cannon like Commissioner Stufflebean ripping up the road department and making budgets indecipherable would be less likely to happen.
On the other hand, as citizens of Coquille will attest or anyone paying attention to the Port commission, the council overseeing the executive must indeed be paying attention or these executives may run roughshod over their boards and pretty much do what they want. In the end, it all boils down to public participation and public participation is hugely dependent upon a real press doing their job to properly inform the public. Consequently, in Coos County, at least, it probably doesn’t matter what form of governance we use, the public is going to be left out of the process.
There is a meeting from 7 to 9PM this evening in the Coos Bay Council chambers.
The League of Women Voters of Coos County is responding to requests from Coos County residents to learn more about different ways to structure county government. “Citizens are looking for creative ways to address the problems facing Coos County, particularly in light of the looming reduction in timber payments,” says Kathy Metzger, Co-President of the League. “We need to see how other counties in Oregon are handling these issues, and how they are positioning themselves to effectively manage future growth.”
