MGx readers will know that I have previously called into question conclusions reached by Al Pettit, an active member of the Bay Area Chamber of Commerce legislative action team that takes it upon itself to lobby Salem lawmakers on what the chamber regards to be business friendly legislation. At one time Pettit was giving public presentations implying that Coos County’s high unemployment, poverty and teen pregnancy rates were caused by Oregon’s low ranking in a list of the most business friendly states and that making Oregon friendlier to business would somehow cure these ills.
“Business friendly” loosely translates as the most deregulated states with the lowest corporate income tax rates. Citing readily available US census data and labor statistics I demonstrated that the top ten business friendly states had worse unemployment, higher poverty rates and just as many unwed pregnant teens as Oregon, and that there was no statistical support for his conclusions. As we have learned after ten years of Bush and now Obama tax cuts and deregulation, corporations do not automatically reinvest their tax savings into creating new jobs. Pettit did not disprove or even challenge my analysis but instead whined at a Port commission meeting, of all places, that I had “summarily crucified” him personally when it was only his bad assumptions on the cross.
Once a witness in a trial is discredited all testimony becomes suspect and it would be imprudent under any circumstances to accept the advisory committee’s findings without doing some proper due diligence. Through my work as well as my personal interests I read a lot of scientific, social and economic reports and the authors of professional, well written, peer reviewed studies provide ample citation as well as an extensive explanation of the methodology used to reach their conclusions in order to allow the reader to properly assess their work and possibly draw their own conclusions. Unfortunately, the nine page report compiled by the structure advisory committee is nothing more than subjective opinion rife with provably false statements.
Over the weekend I hope to post a couple of interviews to further illustrate my claim above but for now here are a few examples related to statements made by Pettit and Jon Barton, another committee member, during a recent public meeting regarding the solid waste department.
Pettit states that members of the “maintenance crew” told him extensive repairs costing millions of dollars will be necessary in the near future and Jon Barton states that in five or six years it will be necessary to spend between $3 and $7 million dollars to build a new ash trench. Pettit spoke to only one person who might be considered maintenance, an operating crew employee who denies saying anything about multimillion dollar repairs and a report prepared for the real Solid Waste advisory committee has determined there are thirteen years left in the existing trench and that was before the new and profitable metal reclamation process began. Additionally, the actual cost of building a new trench is estimated to be less than $1.5 million and shutting the plant down would cost the county millions while raising disposal costs to the public.
The World newspaper has printed three separate pieces regarding the subjective nine page report crafted by people of this poor caliber in the past week. One employed an explosive headline, “Future of county’s workings may hang on report”, yet the paper apparently never published a word about the 150 page, concisely written well cited and informative Governor’s Task Force on Federal Forest Payments and County Services final report. Other departments have privately shared similar complaints about the quality of the committee’s technical output and I will detail those as supporting data comes in but if the future hangs on the shallow and sloppy analysis of individuals who are this careless, incompetent or dishonest we have no one to blame but ourselves for allowing the commission to force these committees on the county.
Pettit quipped during the latest meeting that his valuable time was uncompensated which is too bad really because then we the public might have a right to sue him for shoddy work and misleading and influencing state and county elected officials. As it is we may have to settle for filing complaints with OGEC for the multiple public meetings law violations they appear to have committed. Barton tells the committee members to direct their recommendations to him only and says he has a “problem” allowing the public to see these recommendations before they prepare their next report…
” “We the People” back into the equation…. Government of the people, by the people, for the people. That will be the only way true and lasting change for the better can occur….”
Is that like that old Constitutional Republic, America had? Or is it the representative who are voted in to office, choose a committee to listen to, and hire an administrator to implement the ideas passed from the committees.? The second method allows government to act much quicker, and to partner with business to benefit, who?
Magix
You remind me of Brooksley Born. For those of you who don’t recall, she was the woman who long before the economic meltdown tried to sound the warning. Of course, no one listened because Greenspan and all his chums, who were considered the economic God’s and Guru’s at the time, disagreed with her, so instead of listening they did everything they could to discredited her and thus so did all the bureaucrats who blindly followed them along. [Sound familiar]
If you haven’t watched the PBS documentary on this, I highly recommend it.
It runs 55 minutes, but you won’t be bored.
Frontline: The Warning: http://watch.opb.org/video/1302794657/
Greenspan in the end had to admit his free market ideology was crap, but by that time it was of course rather obvious and too late. ….And yet, despite all this, here we are still following it. (?)
I can only hope that enough people rise to the occasion and once again put “We the People” back into the equation…. Government of the people, by the people, for the people. That will be the only way true and lasting change for the better can occur….
Gene, they have a real hunkering to let Waste Connections convert the site to a transfer station, that is clear but what is really funny is how these ill conceived committees are stepping all over other long established committees – you can hear the squabbles already
Oh Mary, now I am even more depressed….:)
Welcome, Salmonologist, and thank you too. David Cay Johnston, friend of MGx wrote the article you are mentioning and what is sad is that much of the legislation favored by the chamber is actually not good for business, especially small business over the long term (or short term for that matter). The chamber, unfortunately pretty much follows Koch financed ALEC group which writes model legislation and sells it to state legislators who believe it is ‘good for business’.
If this committee doesn’t ultimately recommend that the county should privatize the solid waste department by selling out to waste management and all future road work be subcontracted to knife river, then I WILL be surprised.
Are lobbyist due finders fees and commissions for all county sales they arrange?
Thank you Mary. I too hope people will pay attention. It was reported last year that Oregon made more revenue from lottery proceeds than from corporate taxes – until the day that is reversed, Oregon is in no way is unfriendly to business.
The Solid Waste employee is correct: the repairs he listed with me were in the tens of thousands, adding to hundreds of thousands. He did not tell me that there were millions of dollars of repairs looming and that number is not in our Summary report.
Me too, we are already three years behind on implementing some of these VIABLE solutions
Mary,
Thank you.
I only hope enough people will pay attention and stop this train before it is too late.
Hoo Haw!
What say you Laurel and Hardy/Barton and Pettit?
What amateurs, they thought we were all, let’s see, they call us Cave People don’t they?
Well looks to me like they disturbed a nest of very angry, articulate, knowledgeable Neanderthals.
This is going to be fun. Al? We’re waiting for your reponse, Jonnie gave up after one try, hard to call him a lightweight, but if the shoe fits, throw it at him.
Hey, throwing shoes, that’s a novel idea .