The candidate forum held at the chamber luncheon last week is available at Coos Media Center. Incumbent Bob Main appears to believe that the county’s greatest salvation lies in cajoling Congress to continue subsidizing the timber counties and to turn over a million acres for clear cutting, create jobs he says and obviously glut the market with timber. The bill has no real chance of passing but Main implores the audience, at least three separate times, to contact your federal representatives so we can hire more deputies, fill the jails and have free dumping at the county waste site.
Fred Messerle, on the other hand has a list of what the county needs including less regulation and more resource extraction but offers no explanation of how to achieve any of these wishes, what the cumulative impacts might be or how they actually improve services. Messerle, fills in all these gaps though with his folksy “kick the can down the road”, “elephants in the living room” and “every ship needs a captain” metaphors and his famous “jaws of death” reference complete with arm gestures and by ending 90% of his sentences with the phrase “moving forward”. Messerle, once again appears to be confused about the county budget, pass through funds and the $20 million general fund.
Only Randy Sanne, obviously my pick in this race, has an actual budget plan put to paper that can be analyzed by the public and implemented without an act of Congress or legislative changes in Salem. According to Sanne, who managed a $70 million Dept of Defense budget, the county budget can be balanced with the resources at hand, in part by reorganizing how the budget is tracked.
I understand Ima’s concerns about Sanne’s public speaking, I couldn’t care less that the man speaks slowly and thoughtfully, THAT Ima, is more important to me than the polished skill of “lying through your teeth” that a smooth talker develops.
Ima? He’s Thinking Before Speaking. THAT is also important to me. We’ve become, as a nation, too darn hung up on “appearances”, me thinks. I like what comes out of Sanne’s mouth, I don’t even care if he has teeth, just tell me the truth. The voters of this county have been fleeced so long, maybe they just expect it. Sanne is just used to working hard I think, not blowing smoke up yer behind ! I’m hoping he makes it, I think the voters are watching closely.
If this election goes to the Messerle, SCDC, Chamber crowd, I will let go of any hope for this county to progress past this Job Messiah BS. Someone just screamed at me on another forum, about pointing fingers at them, you know, those SCDC, Chamber heads who are out there “working to bring jobs here”, and I just asked them if they paid an employee for four decades to do a job, and they do not do it, in fact they cost your company probably half of a billion dollars if we knew the truth in the same period of time, would you STILL be paying them? Hell no you wouldn’t. Defund them all and encourage small business to come here.
I agree that Messerle is wholly unqualified or suited to hold this position. He doesn’t even know that the county acts as a pass through for $110 million while maintaining a general fund of $20 million. He was using numbers at the forum about $60 million in costs in four years and only $40 million in revenue, his “jaws of death” but the numbers don’t correspond to any specific portion of the budget. He also kept throwing in legislative issues that will not be solved at the county level
If you listened carefully you heard Randy explain that he can balance the budget maintaining existing services WITHOUT SRS funding or federal payments.
Does Mr. Sanne understand that while he promises in the forum to balance the budget in 4 or 5 years; it’s balanced every year. Mr. Sanne does have some new ideas. I wanted to vote for him. I urge you, if he makes the cut, to help him with public speaking. I would not want the present Mr. Sanne to speak for me with senior staffers in DC or Salem. At best, he will be a spoiler and get Messerle elected. Had he run for a different position, as I and others here had suggested, he would be a winner. Correctemente, Messerle tells us that he will be managing a $50 million budget. It’s more than double that. People must read http://www.fredmesserle.com before he pulls it. There is no doubt that Slater, Pettit, and Barton are running dressed as Messerle. Messerles “issues” are a repeat of the committee report. Only Cribbins, the tribe supported candidate, is more transparent. Messerles major position is his need for a county manager so he can travel to Washington frequently. Even his friends at the World paper said it’s a “wonkish” campaign issue. Did you aslo note in the forum introductory remarks by Novotny that all questions were “preprepared” by a chamber committee? Most of those questions favored Messerle. Have you heard from chamber members that the chamber sent out a message to suport Messerle? Go across the street to the court house and ask Main if he heard that. Maybe he had a copy. Messerle is a cruel joke. I do note that Clarkie Walworth is now going after Parry as well as Main.