Jon Barton’s ears must have been burning today because more than one citizen stood up during the public comment period at today’s commission meeting to complain about his behavior at a recent committee meeting and the appearance of impropriety with his appointment. Barton is the boss of Commissioner Messerle’s spouse who works for SCDC. The primary topic of complaint, however, is with the committees’ firewall around public comments and access to the materials the members are using to formulate any recommendations.

Recap of today’s comments later this afternoon but many excellent points were made and Messerle’s statements today do not jive with his comments at the meeting.

Phil Thompson, Bob Arnold and Randy Sanne expressed the inappropriate manner in which the structure committee is collecting and evaluating information. Arnold brought up the appearance of impropriety related to the appointment of Barton by Fred Messerle. This was an interesting exchange because Arnold was at first confused believing that Barton worked for Sandy Messerle and when he asked the board if this was true they indicated that it was not but made no move to explain that Barton was Messerle’s boss. That little omission, of itself, has the appearance of impropriety.

Thompson reminded the board of the statements they had made to him in public comment a few meetings back and pointed out that they are already violating their commitment to keep all deliberations public.

Sanne broke it down for them by citing the specific ORS the committees are violating

This is NOT a private business, this is Coos County Government and you are REQUIRED to follow ALL county, state, and federal laws that govern you. However, once again you insist on violating, or threatening to violate Open Meeting Law ORS 192.610 thru ORS 192.690. A simple review of ORS 192.610(3) and (4) confirms that these new advisory committees are required to obey ALL open meeting rules. And once again, as he failed to do during the deliberation of the committee that selected Mr. Messerle for the vacant commissioner’s position, Mr. Lehman sits in on the last meeting of the structure committee and fails to instruct this committee of the law they are violating.
192.610¹
(3)”Governing body” means the members of any public body which consists of two or more members, with the authority to make decisions for or recommendations to a public body on policy or administration.
(4)”Public body” means the state, any regional council, county, city or district, or any municipal or public corporation, or any board, department, commission, council, bureau, committee or subcommittee or advisory group or any other agency thereof.

The disclosure at this meeting that the committee had had a busy week, that there had been a lot of discussion back and forth, is a public admission of the violation.

The creation of the “drop box” and the discussion during the last meeting of the Structure committee regarding what all will go in it, the fact that ALL of the committee members will be reviewing and using the information to form opinions and make recommendations to the commissioners, it also falls under the requirements of this statute. Are you prepared to make ALL information in this “drop box” available to the public in its original form?
192.620¹
Policy
The Oregon form of government requires an informed public aware of the deliberations and decisions of governing bodies and the information upon which such decisions were made. It is the intent of ORS 192.610 (Definitions for ORS 192.610 to 192.690) to 192.690(Exceptions to ORS 192.610 to 192.690) that decisions of governing bodies be arrived at openly. [1973 c.172 §1]

Under this statute the fact that you intend to use the information provided in the questionnaires to deliberate, establish, and recommend alternatives and/or changes, the information must be made available to the public, and ANY an ALL interviews MUST be open to the public as the interviews will be held with a quorum of the committee.

Since a number of you are members of, or regularly attend SCDC, Port, and Bay Area Chamber of Commerce meetings you could very easily violate the rules regarding quorums at these venues.

Dick Moore stood up and pointed out that no one appointed to the structure committee ever attends regular BOC meetings which is a very good point. These people may not be the most experienced about how the county works because of their prior lack of participation.

Don Gurney spoke today about his alternate plan for the Coos Bay Wagon Road lands and specifically asked each commissioner individually if they intended to transfer control over to the Coquille Tribe. They each claimed to be still undecided, however, I have learned that Main has been working toward tribal management of the CBWR since before the late Andy Jackson announced his candidacy.

Ethel Petrie, a local Coquille resident who also attended the structure committee asked the commissioners some pointed questions. “Why does it take eight people sitting around a table to come up with questions that the HR (Human Resources) department should already know the answers to?”, she asked. “Why not just ask the people directly?” When the board couldn’t provide a satisfactory answer, Petrie continued. “What is the point of this committee?”

Messerle tried to answer her commonsense questions by repeating that the members just want to make the county run more efficiently.