A minority report formulated by three of the seven member structure advisory committee was submitted to the board of commissioners today. According to witnesses, Sheriff Craig Zanni commanded the podium with an unscheduled presentation of the minority report and indicated that contrary to claims made by Jon Barton at the last BOC meeting, the final conclusions were not arrived at by consensus.

The minority report explains the original mission to, “identify potential cost savings that might be obtained through the existing structure or alternative structures” and describes the unscientific methodology employed by the majority members to reach its conclusions and that the final conclusions fail to address that mission entirely. The minority report disputes claims made by Al Pettit that the county’s IT systems are not secure and confirms questions raised on MGx that a twenty percent sampling of the county employees was not a valid statistical survey.

The foremost recommendation in the majority report to hire a county manager belies many of the claims made by co-chairs Jon Barton and Al Pettit and effectively implicates the pair in an attempt at skullduggery. (And probably a lot worse)

The majority of the Structure Committee may have recommended that the county create and fill the
position of County Administrator at its earliest opportunity. However, at least two members of that committee stated that this type of change in county government was not acceptable without a vote of the citizens of Coos County. At no time were any specifics identified where the funding for the position and or cost savings would be obtained to pay for this position. Nor was a vote taken as to this recommendation. Only generalities were discussed regarding this being a way of making the county run more efficiently and effectively. There are other ways to improve efficiency without such a drastic change in county operations, which if implemented, requires the support and consent of the voters of Coos County.

Witnesses state the Zanni offered much more during his presentation than is available in the report so many thanks to PEG Broadcasting for filming today’s meeting. The video should be up in a couple of days.

minority report