PUBLIC NOTICE
ORS 192.640 Public notice required; special notice for executive sessions, special or emergency meetings. (1) The governing body of a public body shall provide for and give public notice, reasonably calculated to give actual notice to interested persons including news media which have requested notice, of the time and place for holding regular meetings.
Now, that shouldn’t make anyone’s brain hurt.
The good folks of Bandon understand it very well. Little Bandon, with a population of fewer than 3,000, posts notices of city council, planning and other committee meetings in the daily Coffee Break, and at the public library, the post office, the city hall, in the city newsletter that’s mailed out monthly with the utility bills, on line at the city website, and by e-mail to people who subscribe to the city’s mailing list server. Hot button items are announced in the weekly Bandon Western World.
And what does the county do?
The county posts its meeting notices on a bulletin board inside the county courthouse. To see the notices, people from as far away as Lakeside, Powers, Charleston or Remote would have to make a daily drive to Coquille, and they’d have to arrive during business hours because you can’t read the bulletin board from outside the courthouse.
What makes this even more ridiculous is that the commissioners get all offended and defensive when people suspect they’re trying to hide something.
@pcomyhrt it appears that White not only turns a blind eye she fully participates in their shenanigans.
Mary,
The bulletin board is not the only place where agendas and meeting notices are posted. They are sent to the media and to each city once a week, as well as being posted on the county’s website. We have no control over the media to make sure that all the meeting make it in the paper, nor can we tell each city that they must post these notices at the libraries or at city hall. We hope that they will do this for us, but we cannot control this.
Meeting notices are put together once a week because the schedules can, and do, change quickly. Occasionally we have had a glitch in the system and those notices were not received by some. I have asked everyone on the list serve to contact me if they don’t receive a notice by Friday afternoon (if they don’t tell me that there was a problem with the reception, I have no way of knowing).
Any citizen, media member or public entity can ask to be added to the list serve to receive these notices and agendas by email. Send an email to bbrooks@co.coos.or.us and say that you want to be added to the list to receive notices. I ask that everyone send an email so that there are no mistakes made in retyping the address. I will be out of the office this Thursday and Friday, but when I return on Monday I will start adding to the list.
Bobbi Brooks, Administrative Aide to the Coos County Board of Commissioners
I’m glad more people can see through the web of deceit the BOC has been hiding under. They do what they want, when they want, with no input from anyone knowledgeable. Now, they’ve chosen Oubohn as lead counsel because she’ll turn a blind eye to what’s going on.
Didn’t Fred tell us they chose White “because of her track record”?
Her track record ain’t so great in advising them of the law has it?
Or perhaps THAT is why they wanted her anyway?
Hum…….
They’re doing exactly what they want to do, the public be damned.
Thank you, Bob, for writing this. It is timely because the commissioners formed another committee last July to develop a proposal to turn over management of the CBWR lands to the tribe and have been meeting amongst themselves outside of the public view.
The six person committee includes Parry and county counsel, Oubonh White. So even after all the debate over how these committees should conduct themselves, this one has operated independently.