The Coos County Road Department presented its annual budget projections last week and were ordered to hire back five employees laid off New Year’s Eve 2008, immediately. Sharon Shinnick, office manager for the road department began her buget presentation by mentioning they would be hiring three people after July 1, the beginning of the new fiscal year and the expiration of a standing union contract. Commissioner Main, said he wanted rehires effective Monday, March 21.
The road department budget has a $3.8 million ‘unappropriated contingency’ fund comprised of a “small reserve” of $2.3 million or better than 60% of the total. The fund was accumulated as a consequence of not doing the work the department is expected to do and that former commissioner, Kevin Stufflebean promised would continue when he cut the department. This has lead to a huge backlog in maintenance work that may ultimately prove more expensive to catch up on than if the work had continued. When factoring in public safety and the damage to local school buses and private vehicles, the public has been sorely served in this affair.
Main and Commissioner Parry told the department to take the money out of that account and to go to work repairing roads that are damaging school buses and private vehicles. Evidently, Parry has been inundated with complaints about the roads and Rowe has excused their condition by saying he was short handed.
At the time of the layoffs, the commission was warned that existing staff would be inadequate to maintain the 500 to 600 miles of county roads. Bob Main was consistently voted down by Whitty and Stufflebean when he moved to rescind the layoffs so the board could better assess the wisdom of the layoffs. Commissioner Nikki Whitty ignored the ‘vocal minority’ as she called them, because many of the most outspoken were the same people who had just lost their jobs. Unfortunately, those same people were also the most qualified to give her the information she needed to make an informed decision had she been interested in hearing it.
Today, The World newspaper, in an article about the rehiring makes a curious statement about the board’s decision to extend the call back time for the laid-off union workers. “Although that could have allowed the county to add skilled personnel, supporters of the laid-off employees argued that their years of experience were an asset to the county.” The employees who have been rehired all meet the definition of ‘skilled’.
Interestingly enough, many of the people working at the road department at the time of the layoffs had been hired from the timber industry and had to be trained to work at the department. Presumably, what the paper means by “skilled personnel” is that road master, John Rowe, might have been able to hire from Knife River, his previous employer. Remember, that John Rowe, did not know how to run the paving functions of the department when he was hired as road master.
Larry Van Elsberg doubts five people will be enough to catch up and maintain the roads unless they give up other services like paving. Van Elsberg will send me a statement later and I will update this post.
It is amazing how a lie can grow legs and propagate over time. Thank you, Randy, for helping to clear up this matter
It’s interesting that Mr. Halaman should use the word contradiction (inconsistency). I remember attending many Commissioners meetings and reading countless comments in the World News where people defended Kevin and Nikki’s actions as necessary. I personally heard Mr. Rowe address the board stating that he could meet all the counties needs with the reduced staff. I also recalled statements made by Nikki herself on Jan. 2, 2009.
The following is an excerpt from the article in the World News dated 1/3/2009 “County Employees Want Answers”;
“Why would you lay off 22 people based on a projected budget?” one employee asked. He was referring to an outline of future budgets Stufflebean provided to the board.
Many wondered why the board had not waited until Bob Main officially took office this month to consider layoffs. Whitty and Stufflebean have maintained they didn’t want to saddle Main with a decision in which he didn’t have all the information.
“It’s not fair to put that on Bob’s back,” Whitty said.
Main did not appreciate the favor.
“I was not involved with the executive session, but with the limited information I have, I don’t believe I would have made that decision,” he said.
Whitty also said the decision didn’t need commissioners votes, but Stufflebean decided to bring the issue to the board members to keep them informed.
“Terminations do not have to have board approval, “she said.
It is one thing to change your opinion about decisions that turned out to be very bad for our county. It is another to blame someone for that decision who was outspokenly against it, and who’s recent actions in fact show “consistency”.
Sounds to me, hank, like you have been getting your info from Kevin. Whitty told me herself, two days after the layoffs that she is the one who pushed to vote before Main took office. Further, no such conversation between Main, Stufflebean and Whitty ever took place prior to the layoff and even if they had waited until Bob took office he would have been out voted.
Not sure why you want to push this meme that Main had anything to do with gutting the department…
I have no fear of contradiction. Could that mean that the discussion was recorded? Only Stufflebean and Whitty and a few others know. Ask your friend Whitty if what I say now and I said before is correct. Thanks for correcting me but Main met with Stufflebean and Whitty one week before he took office and he was advised of the planned layoffs and he was asked if the vote should be delayed until he took office so he could influence the vote through discussion or new facts after he took office. He could have changed history but did nothing.
Hank, Main wasn’t in office then. Did you forget the year end, last minute vote with Griffith ? And the Sleazy stufflebean/whitty politics. It was griffith, stufflebean, and whitty.
Sorry, hank, that is incorrect. Main, took on Jan 2, 2009 two days after the layoffs.
Main made a motion twice at two separate BOC meetings to delay the layoffs and each time Whitty and Stufflebean refused to second.
Apparently you have forgotten that Main and Whitty agreed with Stufflebean and the layoffs. Main had an opportunity to delay the layoffs and he chose not to do that.
The paper steadfastly supported Stufflebean laying everyone off. Now that it is obvious it was a bad move, they still can’t resist throwing a barb at the road workers – instead of apologizing… not just to the workers but the people who have to drive on those roads
That is sweet! Probably Rowe is responsible for the ‘skilled worker’ phrase and she repeated it without thinking. It may be a pretty hot environment for those guys going back if Rowe wanted to hire his friends.