Both the structure and governance advisory committees have declared Coos County’s current system of government as “broken”, “outdated” and apparently not very trendy. Rather than fix whatever it is that is broken these same committees recommend throwing the whole thing out and starting over with a new centralized model. They want to trade in a bunch of little silos for one big one with a puppet they can control at the helm.
It has been wisely pointed out by Frank Vincent, candidate for position two, that the structure advisory committee undertook its assessment of the county at the worst possible time after the untimely deaths of two commissioners. Nevertheless, an email circulated by Jon Barton a while back supports the belief that three, possibly four of the committee members were in search of a report supporting predetermined conclusions.
Regardless how this plays out the public need to devise some mechanism, some standard by which they can appraise the performance of their elected commissioners and any future CEO. We have heard about how our commissioners just don’t have enough time to carry out their administrative duties, whatever they might be, and set policy, lobby Salem, Congress, etc… because they are doing mundane daily tasks. Now I would argue that the twice monthly agendas belie the validity of this claim because they really don’t address anything very earth shattering during these meetings so I requested copies of the commissioners’ calendars for last year. If this trio is overworked they are not marking it down on their calendars or providing any obvious trail to support their claims. (Well, Cam Parry spends every Thursday prepping for his radio show)
One method of helping the public track the daily work product of their commissioners, ( and other elected officials ) might be to provide an accessible, real time, online appointment calendar detailing who they are meeting, why and then a follow up summary of the outcome of the meeting. Perhaps we could enable the GPS function in their cell phones to provide online tracking of their whereabouts during business hours. The commissioners could post a detail of their monthly expense reports weekly or monthly for the public to evaluate since they don’t vote on their own expense reimbursements at public meetings.
We should form a citizen advisory group to formulate a scorecard or series of benchmarks that each commissioner or other elected official must meet and perform quarterly reviews to help keep them on course as they proceed through their terms. We could, in fact, treat them the way they have treated us and empower select groups of people to oversee and evaluate them as they perform their day to day duties.
We could do a lot of stuff…
ALEC blew in the hairy ears of the Good Ole Boys, and they liked it.
Who, with appropriate authority, would we talk to about setting up a CAG? The Gov? The AG? DeFazio? We can set it up, but I doubt the BOC would take it seriously, even show hostility, as per their MO.
Unlikely we could obtain the blessing of any state agency but in this case authority may be exercised through the support of fellow citizens either through protest or even ballot initiatives or petitions
And I thought that the fellow running for office who was able to work for Coos County and Lane County at the same time was a superman. Not only is Parry off prepping for his show while paid to be a full time Commissioner, he is apparently spending time running the family business. And, Messerle customers report that ol Fred is very active in the business. If Barton who was tossed from the Port Board and was rejected by the voters for the airport board claims that the commissioners have too little time for manahgement is correct, Parry and Messerle owe their constituents some answers.