These last few days when I can snatch a few spare minutes I have been grabbing video clips to demonstrate how our commissioners are behaving more like promoters for special interests than public administrators and I have to say that if the local news media had not forsaken the role of government watchdog in favor of free publicity agent for special interests, I would not bother. Today, The World has published an egregious example of bad journalistic practices and penned an editorial that assumes everything published within a nine page farcical “report”, more of a subjective summary actually, drafted by the so called structure advisory committee is accurate.
Not every department agrees with the summaries and some deny even providing information claimed in the report.
The paper is a chamber tool and the publisher, Clark Walworth is listed as a vice president of the Bay Area Chamber of Commerce board of officers. Several members of the structure advisory committee are active chamber members.
The paper states the “committee report is grimly clear”, all nine pages of it, and the “county needs an executive.” Gosh, I wonder who they would pick to be the new county executive…
The World lists three different editors on its masthead. One wonders if any of them have the time to read the paper before it is published. Are they all out working for the Chamber and associated exploitive industries which advertise? As one who reads the paper every day, I’ve seen the quality of the whole publication decline perceptively; with spelling, punctuation, syntax, and grammar errors on almost every page, as well as in its headlines.
This is what I consider to be a bad journalistic practice. Their editorial policy has always been prattle as far as I’m concerned. Just spell it correctly.
You should verify your information before spouting off.
As to to what type of representation you represent, and the visual signage displayed with this article, that insinuates the possibility of Shills, thereby the comparison, sorry if you feel the tread was being hijacked.
As county politics are nonpartisan, your remark is a complete non sequitur.
The term Democrat In Name Only has been applied to conservative Democrats by some on the left wing of the party.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_Democrat
The comparison to republicans is interesting.
By task force, do you mean the Governor’s report? If so, I agree; it’s a much better report. It also had far greater resources. This one was done by a group of volunteers. Fred Messerle was right to point out that a study like this could well have cost thousands of dollars. We are lucky to have gotten it done for free.
I’m sure you can find errors if you look hard enough. But how far down in the weeds are you willing to go to find them? I think you’ll have a difficult time arguing that the committee didn’t paint the big picture accurately. There are systemic problems in county government.
The question is: How do we fix them?
The report is farcical, it is elementary, it offers no citations, when you compare it to the task force report there is no comparison in quality, scope or depth. Further, knowing the report authors have made mistakes in several areas casts a cloud over the entire report, even those areas where it might be correct – like the commissioners micromanaging instead of dealing with policy matters and fixing problems
Well you should probably withhold the incendiary language until you post your findings about the three departments.
What about the assessment needs proof? It all seems perfectly reasonable to me. Why would the committee lie? Especially when its report makes the commissioners who commissioned it seemed incompetent?
Outdated IT? OK. Poor interdepartmental communication? Yes. Dysfunctional liaisons? Right. Micromanagement? God yes. Structural limitations? As a rule.
Room for improvement? Absolutely.
Seems right on target to me.
Seems right to you too, I think. You’re problem is with the World’s prescription. The committee hasn’t made any recommendations yet.
Maybe you’re right: All we need are three better commissioners. But it is entirely possible that our county’s problems are deeper than that.
Several concerned citizens including myself are compiling verifiable facts and cited data regarding three different departments. Why don’t you do something positive and PROVE that the assessments in the report are accurate. As for the county being broken, yes, when you have three commissioners who don’t know a thing about public administration there is bound to be a problem and one solution is to replace them with people who do.
“Not every department agrees with the summaries and some deny even providing information claimed in the report.”
Such as?
egregious? farcical? bad journalistic practices? so-called committee? All you need to do is add some verified information to these spouts and you might have a journalistic story yourself.
Seriously, Mary. This post does nothing to inform the conversation. What do you know that contradicts the committee’s findings? Or the World’s editorial?
You don’t think the county is broken?
Had a gnarly thought… assuming they do try to appoint an executive by the end of the year and they figure out how to pay for this person and the commissioners are willing to relinquish authority to this public administrator… a lot of ifs, what if they hire someone like Big Al or if Cam steps over to take over the new job. We may as well just dissolve the county now and get it over with
Already is.
I’m wondering if poor Clark has to change his tights and pom poms when he cheers for the Port, Chamber of Consorts, BOC, or Johnny Barton and the Mrs. Messerle, looks so cute on him.
No journalistic professionalism whatsoever. What do you expect from Rock Springs Wyoming.
He’s not even making an effort to ‘appear’ newsworthy or factually presenting news .
Ah yes, let us all gather about the model presented by the Port of Coos Bay, an administrator and a board of yes persons.
This is the model to be proposed for the whole County.
Then, let us wonder “Why?”
Ah yes, I see a recommendation coming by the private sector to place more of your tax dollars into use in the private sector.
It must be easier to lobby one administrator than three Commissioners.
Why waste tax dollars on the County, or, employees and benefits when the money can be put to more efficient use as private sector profits.