The Port spends up to $10,000 per month for the services of two consulting firms because “… it is not possible for Port staff to be in Salem or other locations throughout the entire legislative session…” (I know a few people who would be happy to live and work in Salem full time for half that price.)
Mary,
The reason the Port engages the services of Steve Marks/The Marks Network and Ken Messerle/Coast Consulting and Services LLC, among a variety of consultants the Port relies on, is that it is not possible for Port staff to be in Salem or other locations throughout the entire legislative session, or even during non legislative periods when interim committees are meeting in Salem or Portland. Many times legislative committees will call a hearing on short notice or Port staff has other commitments and cannot attend a hearing or meeting. Steve Marks and Ken Messerle have served as the Port’s representatives at hearings, public agency meetings and meetings with legislators. Mr. Marks and Mr. Messerle primarily have kept in phone contact with Port staff with updates and have received direction from staff by phone related to testimony on issues or discussion points at meetings.
I’ve looked into your request on Steve Marks/The Marks Network and Ken Messerle/Coast Consulting and Services LLC. Port staff has not required The Marks Network or Coast Consulting to provide “scope of work” reports since much of their work requires an immediate response pursuant to a specific event.
The Marks Network did provide one written Legislative update in 2009, coinciding with the Port’s efforts to acquire the Coos Bay rail line. Both firms provided an Oregon Government Ethics Commission Lobbying Registration Statement.
Port administrative staff does not keep a record of phone calls, nor do individual Port employees. It appears there have been no memos or meeting notes produced or compiled between Port staff and The Marks Network or Coast Consulting.
Throughout both firms’ contracts, Port CEO Jeff Bishop and Chief Commercial Officer Martin Callery received ongoing verbal updates and held verbal discussions with Mr. Marks and Mr. Messerle about legislation specifically addressing the Port of Coos Bay’s rail line efforts and other issues affecting Oregon’s ports in general.
Mr. Messerle has frequently attended Port Commission meetings. I only find a few meetings in which he’s addressed the commission. Those are reflected in meeting minutes available online as follows:
http://www.portofcoosbay.com/minutes/41609.pdf
http://www.portofcoosbay.com/minutes/janmins.pdf
The Port Commission twice has amended his contract in public session, which is reflected in the following meeting minutes.
http://www.portofcoosbay.com/minutes/decmins.pdf
http://portofcoosbay.com/minutes/012011mins.pdf
Mr. Marks has infrequently attended Port Commission meetings. Port CEO Jeff Bishop has verbally updated the Port Commission at times during public meetings on the work of Mr. Marks. The meeting minute links follow:
http://www.portofcoosbay.com/minutes/julymins.pdf
http://www.portofcoosbay.com/minutes/oct1807.pdf
http://www.portofcoosbay.com/minutes/032008.pdf
http://www.portofcoosbay.com/minutes/12110.pdf
http://www.portofcoosbay.com/minutes/12110.pdf
Public Records Charges
The Port can provide you with paper or electronic copies of public records, and we will post the records on the Port web site at no charge. To provide you personal copies, the cost would be:
The Marks Network statement of monthly invoices – 3 pages, $.75.
Coast Consulting statement of monthly invoices – 8 pages, $2.00
The Marks Network 2009 Legislative update – 1 page, $.25
The Marks Network Lobbying Registration Statement – 2 pages, $.50
Coast Consulting Lobbying Registration Statement – 1 page, $.25
Total cost: $3.75
There are no records requiring a review by the Port’s attorney.
Please let me know how you’d like us to proceed with these records.
Elise Hamner
Awesome letter, Gene. Let’s hope the Oregonian prints and more importantly investigates it.
Wow, this is a remarkable piece of writing Gene. Amazing to see it all laid out in one piece, even without knowing how many hundreds of millions of dollars these guys have funneled through this sad, out of work county and no one has stopped them. Now we have three Messerles at the trough, and Sandy is on the first commitee named. They slap us in the face every chance they get. Don’t forget the Airport Board member now sits in the Human Res. chair at the courthouse. You are soooo right, they got it all wrapped up.
Thank you Gene, I’m going to try to link to this.
letter to the Oregonian, sent tonight, will send to other papers tomorrow.
Yes, you could call me a Hillbilly, an Oregon Hillbilly, and I won’t take offense. Some of my best friends are also Hillbillies. That does not make us stupid, just country folk that like to live very rural, far away from the big cities. That’s been a way of life here along the Oregon coast for generations. That’s all about to change if Governor Kitzhaber and his chief of staff get what they want.
Here’s their plan, Appoint a group of like minded business leaders to the Port of Coos Bay, park your chief of staff there with a tax paid salary of $7,500.00 a month, give him no duties to perform, no results of his work are expected or required while he is working for the government to lobby the government. He needs help so lets hire the former Senator Messerle to assist him with no performance required, and pay him $2,500.00 a month. While we’re at it lets get the Senator’s brother appointed to a Coos County Commissioners position, (not elected). Might as well give that guys wife the top position on a local development council (SCDC), who’s only job is to sell the proposed Jordan Cove Liquefied Natural Gas Terminal, to the local populace. The SCDC collects dues from its members and gets tax dollars as a non-profit. Lets put our people at every local position we can think of. The North Bend Airport is right across the bay from the proposed LNG terminal, so lets get our people elected there, to make sure no objections come from the Airport. The top airport board member (Jon Barton), was an appointed commissioner of the port of Coos bay, and is the only other paid employee of the tax collecting SCDC.but now he is more useful as the top airport board member, His buddy and former Coos Bay mayor is the other airport board member. Now absolutely no objections will be coming from the airport for safety reasons. Two elected county commissioners died, so now we get to have two appointed county commissioners, lets change the rules of this county and privatize as much of the county government as we can get away with, lets make a bunch of committees and staff them with our chamber of commerce and SCDC buddies, then we will hire a county administrator, and rule by committee. We need to buy the broken down railroad to ship the tanks of by-product gas that we can’t release in the air ( propane,butane, ect.) to Eugene where it can get shipped elsewhere. Lets buy the railroad, and get the tax payers to pay for it, ( Congressman Defazio’s job at the federal level ) and to fix it, Lets get their state representative ( Arnie Roblan) to work tirelessly at acquiring millions of state tax dollars to fix the railroad.Lets tell the public its to ship logs, lumber, and wood chips to market. Lets keep it a class 1 railroad, that will only be approved for 10 miles an hour, that way the federal government won’t look at us or require any up-grades, and no passengers will be allowed or want to ride it. We will pass legislation that gives the port of Coos Bay complete control of our railroad and give them the power to make their own rules, and increase their tax base along the entire 133 mile track to Eugene. Its OK that the top port commissioner (Jeffery Bishop) is allowed to give no-bid contracts for any repairs he feels are necessary, just tell people you have a customer that’s needs it right away, then when it is exposed that there is no order for Roseburg Lumber’s chips, we say we thought there was. Lets get senator Joanne Verger to procure 60 million dollars to dredge the bay so the deep draft LNG ships can get into the too small Coos Bay, lets tell the people its for a container terminal that Oregon doesn’t need. lets make sure the local democratic party only backs incumbents, that way we don’t have to bring in any new players. We need a new land use law that will allow anyone to get a dredge and fill permit to cross private land owners property without their knowledge or permission. We will sell it as a jobs bill, everyone will want it. Lets see 16.5 million to buy the railroad (tax dollars), 6 million and counting to make repairs,(reports of 1/4″ steel that looks like Swiss cheese on the bridges over three lakes), tracks that were slated for demo by the previous owner, tunnels that need more repairs. Total these millions and you will find we have the most expensive logs and wood chips in the world. Astoria just got done with their fight against LNG, and won. It has been said that the plan was to put forward 3 LNG terminals and one would surely get built, the one in Coos Bay. Don’t forget we need to use eminent domain land seizure laws to build a 200 plus mile pipeline across the state of Oregon to send the gas to California, with no tap for Oregon. California won’t let LNG come ashore for safety reasons. It only has to stay an import terminal to use the eminent domain laws, then we can change it to an export terminal and sell America’s 100 year gas supply overseas. Lets give the developers a tax free status, we don’t want to tax our Canadian friends.
Am I convinced that fraud and corruption are rampant in Coos County, absolutely. Is the governor and his staff involved, absolutely. Will the rest of the state pay for their plans, absolutely.
what they should be doing is scrap the old rails, and get on board with the Obama plan to build high speed rail from northern Washington state to Eugene, and make a connecting spur to Coos Bay, people and freight could get here, our economy would boom, we could transform our economy and energy needs to renewable, and not spend the next 100 years in a gas fueled economy, which is their plan. Even in the city, you will be paying for this plan of theirs right along side us. if we get the two 40 million gallon LNG tanks and the 39 full time jobs they promise, I doubt any of you would want to come here as a tourist, twice.
Not one elected official of ours has stood up and said no to LNG.
Now you know their plan. We didn’t have to worry about the Republicans, These elected Reps are all democrats.
Gene Jennings
Coos Bay, Oregon
I look forward to reading your letter, Gene, very much. You have hit the nail on the proverbial head – the Democrats just keep backing their incumbents and now the lines between the parties are so blurred it is hard to tell them apart.
We’re going to find out how the people that read the Oregonian feel about Kitzhaber parking his thief of staff in coos bay for 7,500.00 a month, until he regained power and set their plans in motion for a railroad for tanks of gas. Tax payer paid. The only way to stop the madness is to make the voters aware of the mess these Democrats have been developing with this Corporation. Roblan gets the train money, Verger gets the dredging money, Defazio tries to get the glory for perceived jobs and does nothing but help the developers move forward. The democratic party does nothing, but back its incumbents.The elected reps from other districts trade their votes for votes when the time comes. The voters get the shaft.
If you total the millions of tax dollars spent on this complete plan, and divide it by the amount of logs and wood chips they say they will ship, thats some very expensive wood we’re paying to transport. The truth is the rail is just for the tankers of gas they will need to get to market. They cannot admit in public that that is their plan, they’re trying very hard to convince the public its about wood and jobs.
I think I will even have a line or two about a former senator and his brother, and sister in-law getting themselves on the public dole with no accountability or performance results.
There are a lot of other players on the field as well, we all know their names. Every time they get pushed back a step, they move two steps forward.
I’m sure others have been writing their elected reps, only to discover they were likely in on it from the get go.
The Oregonian will print well written letters, and that is Kitzhabers front yard, We need to take the fight there. There are only two people that might investigate the governors office, thats the state Attorney General and Eric Holder the U.S. Attorney General. It will take a lot of public pressure to get these two guys to take him on. The good news is that when other LNG plans fail, ours moves closer to the spot light and exposure. They’re not worried about us because they think they’re right, and they have expensive lawyers on their side, and they will write whatever laws they need to protect themselves, so even if they lose the fight, none of what they’re doing will be found illegal, just immoral, and they will start a new scheme. Its their nature.