If the Port of Coos Bay and Coos County were literally run like a business I wager the shareholders would have risen up and fired the CEO for incompetence and dishonesty long before now. As a self professed economic development agency the Port has spent tens of millions of dollars in the name of job creation these last few years and provided no return on the taxpayer’s investment. The Coos County Commission has signed on an endorsed many of these development schemes, as it must for the scheme to secure funding, and sold them to the public with the promise of thousands of jobs.
A determined sales campaign was launched to convince the public that access to natural gas was the only thing standing between the county and brave new industry. Port officials and SCDC said they had companies waiting in the wings ready to locate here if we would just add natural gas to our energy mix. County commissioners, city officials and business leaders trumpeted the benefits of this publicly funded venture playing on our greed by painting pictures of streets paved with gold and tugging at our heart strings talking about millions in tax revenue that would flow to our schools. The 12″ pipeline, they promised, would create 2,900 jobs!
Only later, when Commissioner Nikki Whitty and Gary Bauer of NW Natural testified in Salem to relieve the company of paying taxes for its use did we learn that the $51 million pipeline was “never considered economic” and that from the beginning the project “did not meet the test” of being viable. In other words, if the county had looked at the pipeline as an investment back then and done some real due diligence, undertaken a real fiscal, economic and environmental impact analysis, it is very likely the pipeline would never have been built and we would not now be paying for all the associated environmental damage.
Did the previous commissions and councils in support of the pipeline do their own due diligence and analysis before pitching the use of public treasure or did they simply rely on the word of the project developer and applicant? More recently, has the Port failed in its fiduciary responsibility to the public by not undertaking thorough and proper due diligence before committing public funds? In my opinion, the answer is yes.
Now the county is embracing a proposal by the tribe which promises 1,600 jobs and $185 million in government revenue over ten years. This week I asked Commissioner Parry and the Coquille Tribe to “forward the metrics or formula employed to arrive at the jobs creation figures and the government revenue figures used in your summary proposal. Also, in trying to understand how all this works another question comes to mind. As I understand it the BLM lumps the CBWR lands together with the O&C lands for the purpose of computing the sustainable allowable timber harvest level for this district. Since the Tribe would manage these lands “subject to Interior Department review under all applicable environmental laws”, would the BLM continue to set the timing and amounts of timber harvest if the Tribe took over management?”
The tribe has graciously offered to speak with me about this and only my schedule has prevented this so far but on the face of the information to date it is difficult to see how the proposal differs from the existing structure with the BLM. So my primary question is, have the county commissioners conducted themselves like a corporate CEO should and done proper due diligence to vet this project before committing the county to a memorandum of understanding with the tribe? At first blush, it doesn’t look like it to me because like the Port the BOC haven’t shown the public evidence of any due diligence which is very disturbing but then I haven’t yet spoken with the tribe to get answers to the questions above.
There are typically three categories of thinkers. There are those who are able to suspend their core belief systems in the face of empirical evidence and form rational hypotheses based upon facts and experience even if the conclusions fall outside their usual comfort level. There are paradigmatic thinkers who must adhere to a dogma or belief system and select only the data that suits their theories, belief systems and comfort level. Finally we have wishful and or fearful thinkers who simply refuse to consider anything scary or uncomfortable and prefer not to get involved in the process at all.
My concern is that most of our elected and appointed officials fall into the paradigmatic category, or worse the wishful thinking category because I am not finding much evidence of thorough empirical and factual analysis at this time.
It is cultural and educational. If our youth fully understood the wonder of the forest and how it filters our clean water for us and offers shade and nourishment for young fish like salmon perhaps they might question their parents wisdom.
Local culture is scary to some, how seemingly reverse the younger blue collar work force feels about these issues that we care about for them and their kin , example:
Spotted owl stew is truly their formula on logging issues, their moms and dads had and held that attitude when “outsiders” started sticking their nose in where it don’t belong, GO home californian, “damn hippies”, that’s what they heard at the dinner table.
That’s still alive and well in coos county, except some of their kids have served outside this area and returned as vets, many with new doubts about the system they have been supporting, operating in such dubious manner.
Change is happening, its sometimes just hard to measure, day by day.
Studies, studies, studies. Coos Bay is bringing ANOTHER ‘expert’ in to tell them what to do with the city and waterfront. Since Sandy Messerle obviously didn’t like being told to include all citizens in her future plans, she turned right around and had “invitation only” meetings, these people have shown us time after time, they do not intend to give up their antiquated ideas in favor of moving the county forward. They simply won’t. What a shame. They lie with impunity now, they don’t even care, 2,900 jobs my old arse, over and over and over. I’ve lived in three states as an adult, and as I’ve said many times, I’ve never seen anything like this county. That the citizenry allows themselves to be so victimized by smooth operators decade after decade, it sometimes seems a waste of time and energy to try. Sometimes I get angry and say, to hell with these people, I just don’t understand the mentality.
Isn’t this why they are paid the big bucks? To do this type of analysis and look out for our interests?