Admittedly, I am tired after a long three day trek from Coquille to St Helena to Daly City to San Jose and back again but I note from the Saturday paper that The World seems to have missed the point about the planning fee fiasco. Under a subheading, “Misguided ourtage”, the paper scolds citizens outraged that commissioner Fred Messerle, along with some of his benefactors, would benefit from a fee reduction that cost the taxpayers in excess of $30K. “Jeers to those who keep fanning the phony scandal”, says the paper, while ignoring Messerle’s poor judgment, the benefits to his campaign contributors and the cost to the taxpayer. Rather than using the term “misguided” the paper should have just been honest and admitted they were engaging in misdirection, a cheap magician’s trick, to divert our attention from the real matter of Messerle’s lousy judgment.

The paper follows this with, “…cheers to Messerle for voluntarily forking over..” his cost savings, when he should reimburse the county for $30K+ in lost fees.

If the paper performed its duty as a watchdog, citizens wouldn’t have to “fan” the flames of scandal because the paper would be doing its job… alas, it does not. Rather than a watchdog, this paper operates as a down and out pimp desperately selling the imaginary virtues of an aging, addled prostitute to an unsuspecting clientele.

Thankfully, it is up to OGEC (Oregon Government Ethics Commission), not the paper’s editorial baord, to determine whether Messerle’s conduct was unethical or not.