Earlier this year, Coos County judge Michael Gillespie found that Lane County commissioners violated public meeting laws when they effectively polled one another outside of the public view. While the new advisory committees, including committees for governance and structure, are not voting on policy the appointed committees are subject to Oregon public meetings law none of their deliberations qualify for exemption from the public.
“The evidence did not show that any three commissioners were ever in the same room at the same time talking about this matter,” Gillespie wrote. “That does not mean that the continuing multiple conversations were not a deliberation. All involved knew that a quorum of the board was working toward a final decision outside of the public meeting context.
“In effect, the public meeting vote on December 9 was a sham,” the judge wrote. “It was orchestrated down to the timing and manner of the vote as as to avoid any public discussion,” The defendants’ purpose in that regard was clear – to avoid adverse public comment or criticism as that appears to be how a quorum of the Board viewed The Register-Guard’s reporting on the subject.”
The structure advisory committee appointed to try and make the county run more efficiently held its second meeting last Thursday. Members include Sheriff Craig Zanni, Daniela Kellum, Alan Pettit, Jon Barton, Timm Slater, JJ McLeod and Laird Bryan with Fred Messerle as commission liaison. The meeting is now available at Coos Media Center and can be viewed online.
After approving the minutes of the previous meeting Messerle at 1:56 minutes into the meeting begins by saying, “We have had a busy week, there has been a lot of discussion back and forth.” The “back and forth” discussion has obviously occurred outside of the public view and there also appears to be electronic file sharing taking place because Messerle continues by asking if everyone was able to access the ‘drop box’, a restricted electronic repository accessible only by password. Jon Barton rudely informed questioner Phil Thompson that only people with the password could view the contents of the drop box.
There are several instances during the meeting referencing shared files and spreadsheets including one on home rule and at 1:47:00 Messerle mentions that after the committee has disseminated the results of their research and it has been “boiled down” then they may want to make the chosen material being considered accessible to the general public.
Jon Barton,by the way, was terrible disrespectful to a community volunteer filming the proceedings, made it clear that he viewed the committee’s job as a fact finding and evaluating job which would later be shared with the public in the form of recommendations to the BOC and that they were not empaneled to answer questions from the public or share materials. To their credit other committee members, including Pettit and Slater appeared to be more willing to field questions and called for more transparency throughout the process.
Messerle’s appointment of Barton to the committee may be a conflict of interest. Barton is Sandy Messerle’s boss, Sandy is Fred Messerle’s spouse.
Bob Main has frequently claimed that he doesn’t want people with agendas on these committees, however, it is clear from this committee and especially from Messerle himself, the committee intends to reduce services to the minimum level mandated by the State. The topic of increasing revenues to fund services was never brought to the table. This committee, at least, has a typical, old school republican agenda to cut services to the public and make government smaller.
During the debt ceiling crisis, increasing tax revenue especially in the form of restoring Clinton era income tax rates to billionaires, despite being favored by 63% of Americans, was never on the table. Congressman John Boehner refers to tax equity as ‘job killing tax hikes’ and prefers to cut entitlements to seniors and veterans. When George Bush took office, January 2001 before he implemented the infamous Bush tax cuts the national unemployment rate was 4.2%. After eight years of “job stimulating” Bush tax cuts Obama inherited a 7.8% unemployment rate and since extending those cuts is now presiding over a 9.1% rate as of July. The evidence indicates that tax cuts actually kill jobs.
We have a similar problem in Coos County with property taxes because not everyone is taxed equally. The effective property tax rate for most us is 1.42% while companies like Northwest Natural and Plum Creek and Menasha are benefiting from a lower taxation rate average of .68%. The Bandon Dunes benefited from an extremely low .29% property tax rate in 2009-2010.
The worst part of this is that the timber companies like Weyerhaueser and Roseburg Forest Products have not chosen to reinvest their tax savings in Coos County to create jobs and instead have laid off hundreds of workers while at the same time exporting raw logs, chips and jobs to Asia. If the top ten property taxpayers in the spreadsheet were assessed the same as the rest of us it would provide an additional $4.5 million in property tax revenue annually. Just taxing the industrial timber land at a reasonable rate would bring an extra $1.8 million.
The county has known for ten years that the O&C federal timber payments would end and could, like all the non O&C counties do already, have increased property tax rates by 3% per year to prepare for this day or at the very least begun a process to properly tax industrial timber property which makes up 900,000 of the more than 1 million acres of Coos County land. Instead, Coos County property taxation appears to have gone in reverse.
The county share of property tax revenue is just 11% but 42% would go toward schools and isn’t education and investing in our kids future why we justify clear cutting the Elliott State Forest?
Another 5% or $3.1 million in 2010-2011 is allocated for urban renewal. Like the tax breaks to the timber companies urban renewal shows no positive return on investment for the taxpayer. Just abolishing urban renewal and fairly taxing commercial timberland would help solve our budgetary woes.
If Coos County can’t afford a juvenile detention facility then it surely cannot afford to provide enterprise zone tax exemptions especially since there is zero empirical evidence they create jobs.
Getting back to these committees, it appears that the commissioners have created a bureaucratic nightmare and are presently operating without any guidance from counsel. If they haven’t violated public meeting laws already, which I believe they have, they are clearly treading on very thin ice. Messerle has told the committee they may not meet together in groups greater than three but as the Gillespie ruling indicates, deliberations don’t have to be in person or occur simultaneously to constitute an illegal quorum. After the recent dust ups with Main and Parry violating Oregon statutes I would expect them to be extra judicious rather than this careless.
Well meaning or not, I am afraid these committees are a bureaucratic nightmare in the making.
Perhaps Alan or Jon Barton can abide by the law and release all financial reports from SCDC, you know, like the law REQUIRES them to do.
Sandy M? Sweetie, will you please answer the citizens’ who have been asking you to release your financial records as the law requires?
If you do NOT release them, please tell us why you are refusing to do so.
You could post them right here for all of us who pay your salary to read.Thanks.
Gene, the local chamber receives suggestions from on high and bragged that our local reps had voted with their legislative suggestions 100% of the time. Now I will wager many of those suggestions came from ALEC as wells as the national chamber and I will also wager that most of the local chamber people do not even realize that they are pawns in a grander scheme.
Alan, this statement has my attention. And if you’re insinuating that I have some sort of “agenda” because I’m a member of the Chamber of Commerce, then you had better be REAL clear about that accusation. File all the complaints you want (as long as you don’t do it on taxpayer time).
Fair enough about being just a member of BACC, there are probably many members not fully aware of the larger agenda their organization is involved in,(energy domination). My question to you is this. Are you a member of SCDC?
They do have an agenda. If your a member of that corrupt organization, then get ready to take your rocks. All members of SCDC sitting on these bogus committees are the true conspirators in this farce. If your SCDC, you’ve joined an organized crime family, that Al Capone would be proud of ,in my book, a gang of criminals.
These people see nothing wrong with stealing other peoples land to make a profit for themselves. That is not defend-able, and nothing else they say or do will undo that basic starting point. So if your SCDC then you should quit ASAP to avoid any conflict of interest, and dragging your business in the mud with them.
Alan, now I’ll remind you that YOU approached me after the camera was turned off. We did have a fairly lengthy discussion, and try as you might to convince me that the committee that you refer to as the “restructuring” committee is simply a group of concerned citizens with only good intentions, let me make it clear to you that the only thing we were truly able to agree on was that we disagree.
The title and purpose of this committee as described by the commissioners who created it are as follows: STRUCTURE ADVISORY COMMITTEE: This advisory committee composed of county citizens (including county employees) will “evaluate options and alternatives” regarding “departmental” process and function including administrative structure for the entire organization. As I stated, this committee is overloaded with members or regular attendees of the SCDC, Port, and Chamber of Commerce with an agenda (something Bob Main clearly said he did not want on these committees) I will reference the June 1, 2011 luncheon for the Bay Area Chamber of Commerce that you attended. The opening statements centered around the recent successes of legislation the BACC supports, then about eleven minutes into the meeting the speaker discusses the recent creation of the advisory committees proposed by non other than NEW commissioner Fred Messerle, husband of Sandy Messerle, brother of Ken Messerle, and he suggests that you all get as many members appointed to these committees as possible. Your own reference to the name of the committee as the “restructuring committee” just re-enforces my belief that you have already pre-determined that there will significant changes recommended. Before this group ever gained an understanding of current departmental process and function you all chose as your first assignment to research other counties forms of GOVERNANCE, including those in Washington, Idaho, and California. The physical documents that you all were in possession of, and Mr. Messerle’s own statement that you had all had a busy week between meetings was further proof that this committee was not acting transparently and was in fact sharing information privately, something Judge Gillespie directly address in his finding of guilt in the case of the Lane County Commissioners. Whether you are communicating verbally, in writing, or electronically, when you involve a quorum of your committee you are in violation of open meeting law.
The fact that this drop box is still not accessible to the public, and that you are only now agreeing to make information available on a “simple” website does not assure that we are going to see everything that this committee has collected, or discussed. And the fact that you don’t intend to make physical copies available for people without internet access shows a lack of concern for a significant number of citizens. You still intend to collect, review, and discuss information from surveys without agreeing to make that information public at the time you receive it. In my opinion this is also illegal. The proposed interviews of employees must also be done in public if held in a quorum of the committee.
The US Chamber of Commerce is unAmerican and accepts foreign donations and uses them to pay for political attack ads, mostly against Dems.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/22/us/politics/22chamber.html
“The chamber’s increasingly aggressive role — including record spending in the midterm elections that supports Republicans more than 90 percent of the time — has made it a target of critics, including a few local chamber affiliates who fear it has become too partisan and hard-nosed in its fund-raising.
The chamber is spending big in political races from California to New Hampshire, including nearly $1.5 million on television advertisements in New Hampshire attacking Representative Paul W. Hodes, a Democrat running for the United States Senate, accusing him of riding Nancy Pelosi’s “liberal express” down the road to financial ruin. “
“It’s obvious that you have a burr under your saddle about Messerle and Barton, but to claim that the committee members are not volunteers is simply foolish. And if you’re insinuating that I have some sort of “agenda” because I’m a member of the Chamber of Commerce, then you had better be REAL clear about that accusation.”
Alan? You don’t REALLY want to debate the loss of American jobs directly tied to the actions of the Chamber of Consorts do you?
Why don’t you tell me how many US jobs the Chamber took away and shipped to Asia. If you can’t, I can tell you. Don’t come on here and act like the Chamber of Consorts has any objective other than destroying the working class of US workers. My opinion only Alan.
Want numbers Alan?
Alan and Jon Barton and Fred and the rest of you Teabaggers? Stop acting like we don’t all know what you guys are up to, okay?
Why do you guys want to be a part of this government, when you obviously are intent on destroying it?
To you all —- you don’t want a functional government? Then take your arses to Haiti, a Teabaggers wet dream. Alan, how many Harleys you going to sell in a nation with no government whatsoever?
Don’t accuse me of over stating your mission here, you Teabaggers are a threat more to yourself now than you are to Democracy. The Teabaggers are on their way out.
Home rule has been around for thirty years, and Coos County NOW decides to jump onboard? Hah, typical, took you guys this long to organize the take over of local government?
Brilliant.
“I doubt that anyone is going to give a rat’s behind about a few citizens comparing similar county structures with our own.”
Oh really??????? Don’t bet on it Alan.
Alan, a civic minded citizen of Coos County who takes time out from his day to attend regular BOC meetings pointed out on Tuesday that many of the people appointed to the advisory committees never bother to attend regular meetings. Personally, I don’t ever recall seeing you at a regular BOC meeting and I try to stop in as much as possible. So consider that there are a lot of unpaid volunteers trying to make this county a better place.
You have been warned here twice already that regardless of what is put in that drop box, public domain information or not, no matter what it is it is a violation of Oregon statutes and may carry sanctions or fines. Ignore the warning at your own peril.
Randy – you and I discussed this issue at length after the meeting and I thought we had agreed that the problem was addressed appropriately and that everyone could move on. Apparently you have chosen to drag the volunteers through the mud a few times, which I do not appreciate or respect. And you should listen better: I said that the information in the dropbox is all public domain. Just because we pull some data from the State of Oregon’s public website and drop it in a dropbox doesn’t make it top secret. Nonetheless, to be absolutely certain that all the conspiracy theorists are appeased we’re going to drop the documents on a simple webpage that will be available for all to see. If someone doesn’t have a computer then I suggest they head on down to the nearest public library and use theirs. It’s obvious that you have a burr under your saddle about Messerle and Barton, but to claim that the committee members are not volunteers is simply foolish. And if you’re insinuating that I have some sort of “agenda” because I’m a member of the Chamber of Commerce, then you had better be REAL clear about that accusation. File all the complaints you want (as long as you don’t do it on taxpayer time) because contrary to your opinion I AM a volunteer, I don’t get paid, I’m not appointed, I don’t have decision making authority, I don’t determine budgets or spending, and I doubt that anyone is going to give a rat’s behind about a few citizens comparing similar county structures with our own.
you are right, all of these treacherous “volunteers” have something in common. They take a well founded, practical approach to fixing the economic hardships in this community. Tea Party? Hell yeah, just like every SUCCESSFUL economist. Sure you hear alot of professors or scholarly economists preaching the contrary, but talk to a real business person. A real successful free market inititive stems from finite prinicples. Principles that the tea party advocates. You guys gotta stop with the wikieducations
“Give Messerle credit for trying to address this problem, because it’s clear that no one else has had much interest in doing so.”
MESSERLE was HIRED to do so.
MESSERLE is being paid to do so.
Rubbish !!!!!
This is to hijack the existing government as we know it. Alan, this is the work of the tea party/John Birchers’ agenda. We DO come out of our caves occasionally Alan, and sometimes we stumble upon truthful information on the trail from our caves.
It’s obvious now what your agenda is. Let’s stop icing this cowpie, okay?
We’re all adults on here, so lets’ discuss it.
Firstly, I’d like to know the exact “source” of the materials your group is using, your charts, your questionairs? Please ? That would help the discussion don’t you think?
Alan, as Mr. Barton’s arrogant dismissal of a citizens attempt to ask a question at your last meeting shows you clearly are NOT open to any and all constructive input. If a person isn’t allowed to get clarification with regard to what you people called a “drop box” how will they be able to give you constructive input!
Further, this committee is NOT comprised of public volunteers. This committee is overloaded with active members and /or regular attendees of the SCDC, Port, and Bay Area Chamber of Commerce, appointed by the commissioner, who all share similar agendas. Appointed commissioner Fred Messerle is the liaison to this committee. He appointed Jon Barton to the committee. Jon Barton is Fred’s wife’s boss (Sandy Messerle). Jon Barton has endorsed some of the worst financial decisions in recent history in this county, and Fred has asked him to co-chair a committee that is going to give our commissioners financial advice!!
You should ensure that you, your liaison, and your co-chair are on the same page before you make the statement that this “drop box” is public domain, open to anyone, and from whatever source. At your last meeting it was stated that the information would only be immediately accessible to committee members, and at today’s board of commissioners meeting Fred stated that the committee would eventually publish the password. The only source that it will be accessible from is the internet, so for those of you who don’t have a computer, or know how to use one if given access, you are evidently not capable of constructive input.
At today’s BOC meeting several of us informed the commissioners that this, and all other committee’s, are governed by the same laws pertaining to open meetings as are the commissioners, but since you and most of your fellow committee members never attend these PUBLIC meetings you can read some of the statements made at the meeting hear on MGX, watch them in their entirety at http://coosmediacenter.pegcentral.com/ or view them on public access channel 14.
A report of the violations your committee has already made will be filed with the Oregon Government Ethics Commission, and any future violations will be reported as well.
Alan, the drop box could hold a copy of the Oxford Dictionary it is still a violation of Oregon statutes 192.610 et al. Be careful that you are not personally violating the law as OGEC can levy fines
Everything in the Dropbox is and will continue to be public domain information that can be pulled by anyone at anytime from whatever the source. I’ll be happy to disclose the contents of the Dropbox to you, Mary, at any time should you desire to review its contents. The committees are public volunteers who have one objective in mind: find a way to avoid the economic trainwrecks that are building unrestrained in neighboring counties. It is clear, in the short time that I’ve been involved, that this can of worms has been kicked down the road for much too long and we are now at the point where the budget challenges can no longer be ignored. The Federal Reserve has thrown in the towel on the next two years (at a minimum), timber revenues are going away, and because we continue to lose jobs our tax base continues to decline. Give Messerle credit for trying to address this problem, because it’s clear that no one else has had much interest in doing so. Our next meeting will be held in the evening so that any and all interested parties can attend. We do not profess to have all the answers, but collectively we hope to provide some options and alternatives to the Commissioners that will see us through the next five to ten years without having to destroy critical county services. We are open to any and all constructive input. – Alan Pettit
The chart made me sick. What can We The People do to raise these rates of taxation in Coos County?
Hey ! I’ve got it. Let us form a committee…………………………………..
Don’t they have classes for commissioners on public records and meeting laws? If so, all three need a crash course before they take their friends down a dark path of law breaking