Citing a letter written by Al Pettit characterizing public workers as “living off the backs of others”, county employee and community volunteer Randy Sanne asked the structure advisory committee to expel Pettit. Pettit didn’t attend last night’s meeting and no action was taken to formally remove him but other topics revolved around the significance of open meetings law.
To circumvent the complications of possibly forming a quorum outside of public view only two members, Jon Barton and JJ McLeod will be conducting department head interviews to learn what each department does. Imagine if the people chosen for these committees ever attended regular board meetings how much easier this might because they would already have a fair idea and not need to waste everyone’s time.
Attendees explained, “All they did in the one-hour meeting is list which departments are mandated by the State, which ones pay for themselves (forests, the fair, mental health, OSU extension, solid waste, and CCAT) and which ones receive State funding. That was the whole thing.”
Sanne reminded the committee that the results of these interviews as wells as results from staff questionnaires must be made available to the public. Structure committee liaison Fred Messerle informed the meeting that the Oregon Association of Counties is sending a spokesperson to lecture staff on public meeting laws on September 28 from 3 to 5PM at the Owen Building. Hopefully all the commissioners and county counsel will attend.
Getting back to Pettit for a minute, his obvious contempt for public workers is probably localized around union labor as he doesn’t appear to extend his feelings toward the Messerle family for example, Ken, Fred and Sandy who all receive public funds in the form of salaries and consulting fees yet never account for their time. Pettit’s anti-labor view is all too common, unfortunately, and is probably shared by many of the other committee members.
Firemen, law enforcement and public safety personnel are all public employees and often represented by a union to help protect their rights. My son was a public employee when he was an infantry assaultman serving in the Anbar Province where he survived dozens if not hundreds of firefights and five separate direct IED hits to his hummer. Does Pettit believe my boy and his fellow Marines were “comfortably living off the backs of others”?
I find it courious that these political leaders and Chamber of Commerce types go after union members and public employees at every opportunity extolling the virtues of free enterprise and then turn around to seek State and Federal money for “jobs” Whose job? They have been given $350 Million in less than 10 years and unemployment is up 5%???? If that was private enterprise they would have all been fired $300 million ago.
Am I the only one that thought that interview the dept. heads go through, sounds like it may be a loyalty test, performed by Barton. be careful, personnel replacement might be a part of this scheme. They will be much safer if all Dept. heads are loyalists.
All Fred has to do is talk to the department heads. How many months will that take him? This is absolute rubbish. And we all know it. I’m sorry but I do not agree, Fred is not doing anything to learn except put unpaid “volunteers” in charge of doing what he’s paid to do.
a poorly advertised work session is underway at the Owen Bldg. From the window, I had my dog with me, I observed Parry, Main and several other bodies and possibly Eric Farm of Menasha indicating the work session is forestry related or Coos Bay Wagon Road related.
LOL, the only thing Main knows is what he tries to manipulate. Otherwise he is clueless
At least Fred, who’s only worked for the county for a few months, is trying to find out what the departments do – Bob Main has worked for the county 30 plus years and has no clue what goes on.
That is true, coos bayb, people with like educations and degrees make more in the private sector than in the public sector
Goes to show how dumb those government employees are! I meant to say private, Al. People in the private sector are typically paid substantially more than the public sector.
Fred Messerle informed the meeting that the Oregon Association of Counties is sending a spokesperson to lecture staff on public meeting laws on September 28 from 3 to 5PM at the Owen Building. Hopefully all the commissioners and county counsel will attend.
Really! Hopefully! With all the scrutiny that these commissioners have received, the best they can offer the public is that hopefully they and counsel will attend. One would think that this would be mandatory.
It is also enlightening that we have an advisory committee interviewing department heads to learn what each department does??? You mean our enlightened commissioners don’t know what their county departments do. If this insulting exercise were to inform the committee perhaps it would make more sense for the department heads to make a presentation to the committee. Leaving the interpretation to two committee members, one that we know has his own agenda, is frankly, less than satisfying.
Oh, and food for thought for Mr. Pettit. I feed at the public trough for 15 out of a 25 year career. It never occurred to me that I was comfortably living off the backs of others. Scientists in the public sector made 25-30% more than I did. i performed my duties, often working more than my 40 hours a week, without extra pay because i thought I was making a difference! Wow Mr. Pettit, you got me…how dumb was that!!!
I hear you, Pirate, what gives me heartburn is that the commissioners are listening to this gaggle of volunteers instead of the general electorate.
I still have heartburn about a “volunteer” committee trying to learn what our Commissioners need to know about their County operations.
Since our Commissioners formed this committee we can only assume they don’t know how the County works. The County department heads should brief and answer directly to our Commissioners not a gaggle of volunteers.
Our County needs Commissioners that will take enough of an interest in the County to learn how the County works. Two volunteers will dissect the County department heads information and share it with the rest of the gaggle of volunteers. Then this multi-discussed information will be redone again as an accurate view of the department heads interview of how our County works.
This convoluted process is fraught with room for error or inaccurate interpretation. County Commissioners need to talk and question County Department Heads directly. Forget using a gaggle of volunteers that may muddle the information.
$60,000 a year plus benefits and Fred M cannot understand open meeting laws? Hell, the Messerles’ are Coos Countys’ Kennedy Family, without the class or charm. Fred has to have someone ELSE explain it to him? Come on Bob Main, why do you stack the BOC with people who don’t have a basic grasp of public meeting laws?
Geesh, I cannot believe these people actually suck hundreds of thousands every year from this county, and they don’t know jack squat about running it.
And I’m also getting really tired of unpaid local citizens doing the news reporting in this county. Come on Clark, just pretend to be a newsman for a while, please? M is tired, and you are paid to do a job of reporting, not taking short-hand from Jonnnie Boy Barton, and joining the Reach Around at the Port.