Three of the seven member structure advisory committee joined the host of the Jim Bice Show today giving rise to the question of whether the “majority” has now become the minority. Timm Slater and Jon Barton provided backup for the thin skinned Al Pettit who basically rehashed the same material again and pitched the need for a county administrator to take over from the commissioners. Bice was not a proponent of the idea, however, noting that the committee’s report had little substance, “no numbers”, and needed more than subjective opinion before enacting a massive change in local governance.

Last month it was revealed that the structure advisory committee was not in agreement on the findings and conclusions presented by Barton and Pettit and that three members objected to the conclusions. Two members were named, Daniela Kellum and Sheriff Craig Zanni and with today’s trio we can surmise that one or possibly both of the remaining members, Laird Bryan and JJ McLeod, are not on board with the final product.

Bice, to his credit, mentioned the dissenting minority report at the beginning of the show but the topic was ignored thereafter and never explained by the guests. It will be interesting to see if Bice invites Zanni on the show. The one solid revelation, if you can call it that, was the admission by Barton that if the county had a central administrator, this person would have already negotiated a lease with ORC. In short, their primary reason for wanting an administrator is not to run the county’s day to day operations as previously claimed but to cut deals outside of public scrutiny, much like the CEO tries to do at the Port of Coos Bay.

Bice behaved like a wanna-be shock jock at times, referring to “knuckle draggers” and “CAVE people” to which Barton and Pettit cheered but otherwise the show was pretty underwhelming except when the audience was treated to the sound of Jon Barton belching. Pettit appears to be masking his hate for Randy Sanne by continuing to pick on Solid Waste, so there was nothing new there and Barton and Slater sounded like, well, Barton and Slater.

A couple more gems from the show. Barton admitted that neither he nor Pettit had any public administration experience and therefore wouldn’t qualify for the job of CEO. One would think that would disqualify them from evaluating a government entity period but they didn’t see it that way. The other gem was when Barton described how it took him 8 hours to develop a “profit and loss” statement for the county or solid waste (I was distracted at that moment) and he was stunned the county, a not for profit government agency, didn’t have a P&L. You can’t make this stuff up