John Knutson, the new chairman of SCDC and co-founder of the political action committee, Coos County Alliance for Progress says ORC may disappear if the county doesn’t lease minerals to the company so it can borrow money at more favorable terms. According to Knutson, in a letter to The Sentinel, the chromite mining firm has invested $100 million in Coos County and the county should share the risk by allowing the minerals underneath productive timber property to be leveraged to keep the company afloat in a “very soft worldwide economy”.
Actually, the company has invested $100 million (is that even the right number, it keeps growing) in itself, not Coos County. ORC has erected a single purpose facility in a tax free enterprise zone that is no more an investment in Coos County than if I parked a $100,000 Mercedes in my driveway and called that an investment in my home. Second, if an investment bank and commercial lenders won’t take a risk on ORC in a soft economy, surely the county shouldn’t be doing so either.
Knutson says the leases are “business issues” that should be handled by “business people” so ORC should probably look for private land to lease because the county is a government not a venture capital company. Maybe Knutson has been eating some of that “seed corn” Fred Messerle told the governor about last week, probably the genetically modified kind.
Thank you Richard and Dragon.
I could not agree more. These same faces have been selling this BS for four decades. They certainly could have changed this county, but they do NOT want this county to change. They make their living hawking jobs, have no intention, nor have no track record to show for forty years of “job creation”, but they bring their tin cups and come a beggin anyway. And they get it. They buy a Salem congress critter for a measly five thousand dollars, have their spawn write the legislation, and zip, there you go, another competitor gone, a longtime business, gone. This is how this county operates, they have what was the only newspaper in town, which is nothing now, but a feed from Salem, and that’s how they have done it. And they will continue doing it until someone stops them.
Sause is the Don in all this, in my humble opinion, but Knutson,Messerlie,Barton and Little Al are just Fredo’s in the Family.
It’s amazing to see an entire county believe bullshit for forty years, then sit there, slack-jawed waiting to vote for more of the same.
I’ve lived in three states as an adult, and always been a political junkie, and I have NEVER seen such terrible disregard for the law and the well being of their citizens from every board in this county. Every damn one, still siphoning tax dollars to give to Sandy Messerlie and the rest. Nothing changes, nothing will, until we get someone to come down here and stop this madness.
There are certainly lots of facts to back us up, just read Job Messiahs. It’s all there documented.
This has to stop.
As long as these sorts of deals are put together, reputable business will continue to avoid Coos County. The AG or the US attorney for Oregon should conduct an investigation of, the Coos County, SCDC, CCD and the Port. Put these clowns and scoundrels out to pasture.
IDM International Limited, the Australian parent company of Oregon Resources Corp. is in the toilet. It’s stock is selling at 4¢ a share, and on August 28th it had to borrow $5 million, at 18% per year, plus a 1% royalty on the gross revenue from the sale of mineral sands from its Oregon operation, payable on demand. But, that didn’t help much.
One week later, ORC laid off 31 of its 100 workers, and cut its sand mining operation from seven days a week down to four. Output is expected to be cut in half.
Now a tugboat magnate is telling the people of Coos County that they must bail out IDM by giving them the rights to the minerals underneath the County’s productive timber property. And we should. We owe them big time. After all, they came all the way from Australia to dig holes in our forests, just for us.
Let us not be stingy. There is no point in limiting the IDM rescue to just mineral rights. Why not give them logging rights, fishing rights, farm land, the candy stores, bars and the new cheese factory? Why not just give IDM the whole damn county? That way IDM could leverage some more big loans before they pull the handle and flush.
On their way down the plumbing they can pay off their creditors by their selling county assets, and perhaps have enough left over to treat the SCDC captains of industry and tugboats to one more free lunch.
Aw, the Knutson Klan rears it’s ugly head. Knutson and Sause have run this waterfront for decades, they want NOTHING to change, they LIKE their boardwalk facing parking spaces for their equipment, think they want to see success in any other way?
Hah, these are the main Dons of Coos County, al and barton and messer lie are just Fredo’s in Sause’s world. The real power is Sause.
He can put a forty year old business out of commission with a $5,000 donation in Salem, have his spawn write the legislation.
Slick as snot as my dear mother used to say.
So what do we do now? These families have been preying upon the rest of us for decades, how does a population dislodge them? I don’t have an extra five thousand to buy a congressman.
Dear Knute:
The county has already assumed too much risk doing business with this outfit that has not been fiscally solvent forever. Why shouldn’t future business be with a reputable company that will be around through the life of any contract? You may be unaware that there is legal doctrine in this state referred to as the laws of impossibility, or impracticability that would aid your ORC friends in current business dealings. The county, currently under the bungling amateurish direction of your pal Messerle, would be violating their fiduciary responsibility to us citizens and intentionally jeopardizing the money of us who are not as wealthy as you. A leader of SCDC must be aware that there are ways to save the current local ORC jobs while not guaranteeing the entire world wide corporate structure, with financial support. If you need stimulus monies, call your pal Barak not the poor folk in Barview, Empire, and Powres.
I
Sincerely,
Ima Notwealthy
The County is setting itself up to have the County’s mineral rights become an asset in the bankruptcy of ORC. A commitment of mineral lands to ORC just means the County loses all control over the land when ORC goes into receivership. A VERY BAD idea!
Yes, Smith should have been moved out long ago and that mouthy little geologist… neither one have the social skills to win hearts and minds
Whatever monies ORC has invested locally is/was, like any other business venture, a gamble. This one just didn’t work out. Does anyone believe ORC would have profit shared with Coos County had they been more successful? It will end up as a write off for the parent corporation, which was more than likely the plan in the first place. Judging by the quality of staff ORC brought with them could anyone honestly have expected success?