Commissioner Main and I have not seen eye to eye lately but responding to my email alerting him to an ethics complaint filed alleging meetings law violations by the structure advisory committee, Main and I found something to agree upon. “The report was inaccurate, poorly researched and a disservice to the citizens of Coos County,” he said. “I have not attended any of the structure meetings and was appalled when I found out that the “draft report” was released to the paper before the structure committee had even met to discuss the “draft report”…” This latter statement is part of the basis of the ethics complaint.
Another point of agreement is Main believes that some members of the committee appear to have a “political agenda” a point Pettit strongly denied at the joint committee meeting last Wednesday. The agenda, in my opinion, is to concentrate power into the hands of one person or czar, much like the Port is run now, that favors an unfettered development stance seen by many as “pro-business”. Main says, “I am NOT in favor of adding layers to county government.”
Members of both the governance and structure committees expressed frustration that the commissioners cannot speak together about county business unless they hold a public hearing. As I have mentioned before and is reflective of the danger of having people with little or no public administration experience try and apply business methods to government.
The corporate mindset that dominates the committee is unable to make the distinction between making quick decisions that effect a quarterly return for a handful of shareholders vs the management of public treasure that belongs to future generations. In their minds, public process is too unwieldy to involve the electorate and so the establishment of a czar, the same failed management system we have at the Port of Coos Bay is the obvious answer to securing ORC mineral leases and Wagon Road agreements, etc…
Lastly, Al Pettit posted a comment on MGx providing a detail of times and methods in which the committee exchanged materials that have still not been provided to the public and deliberated outside of public view. It also appears that the summaries provided to the public are the primary opinion of committee co-chair Jon Barton.
First, contrary to what has been reported in the press, the Structure Committee members submitted their respective findings to Co-Chair Jon Barton who was responsible for consolidating the information. He forwarded a copy of the consolidated draft to every committee member on Saturday, November 5th, for review, comments, feedback and preparation for our Wednesday, November 9th Structure meeting. Our open meeting took place on Wednesday, November 9th at which time we discussed the same, draft document and The World ran their article based upon the same draft document on Saturday, November 12th, four days after our open meeting.
The two appointed interim commissioners, rather than acting as place holders, have chosen to further disrupt a county already rocked by the untimely death of two elected officials.
There is a growing sentiment amongst former Main voters not to repeat the experience and I believe he handpicked this board and we and he are all nowl paying the price for it.
Bishop was paid $151K to run a budget half the size of the county’s and no fully qualified and experienced public administrator will touch this job for less but they probably already have someone in mind who will play ball with the chamber…. and ignore the will of the people.
Unless I’m missing something, what does the county have to gain by hiring a county administrator, other than to pay a hefty salary for something the county’s department heads normally relay to the Commissioners during the budget process? Sure the County has financial problems, but do we have to hire a $100,000+ administrator to tell us that. Like I’ve said before, it’s not the current form of county government that’s the problem; it’s the people who we elect. In this case, two of the three weren’t elected, but appointed by a panel of special interest groups and Bob Main can be held partially responsible for that. I voted for Bob when he ran for Commissioner, but won’t this election. I thought he was above the political foray and would do what’s right to represent the voters of this county. I will encourage anybody I know to do likewise.