The CCAP website is no different than either of the structure and governance advisory committees reports. They promise facts but offer up declarative statements instead of facts. An administrator, we are told, “provides a more efficient and responsive management structure for County operations”. Hiring an administrator will improve budget controls, planning and “Substantial savings to be realized by realigning departments and functions”. Bold statements but there is absolutely no empirical support for these claims. It is magical thinking, we may just as well place a Buddha on the courthouse steps and rub its tummy every morning for good luck.

The CCAP belief system is nothing more than dogmatic superstition or what amounts to faith based governance. They would have us believe in an administrative savior, a new messiah, a mythological superhero who, (dressed in khakis, loafers and probably a Bandon Dunes polo shirt), will heal the sick and raise the poor crumbled remnants of Coos County staff, unifying them into one giant happy face with a wave of his magic scepter. Not only will the chosen one free up the commissioners time, bring in new revenue, streamline services and unite departments that often have nothing to do with each other but this person will even work for cheap. The perfect plastic icon to place on the chamber’s altar.

The CCAP says, “we have proven without any shadow of doubt” that Coos County is broken but what they have really proven is they have a willful, stubborn inability to comprehend the difference between business and government. The CCAP are possessed of a studied incompetence when it comes to what government is and does and an almost childlike faith in magical principles that enables them to abandon history and principles and ignore empirical data.

In an effort to try to understand this faith based mechanism that is so dominant in Coos County politics right now, I began reading The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science- and Reality. Dogma is defined as a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true but that cannot necessarily be proven or disproved, like belief in God. The book identifies discernible differences between liberal and conservative brains which may account for the frustrations we have trying to communicate with each other. More importantly, it points out that conservatives are more likely to adhere to dogmatic belief systems than liberals, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Additionally, John Dean’s Conservatives Without Conscience which details the ability of some conservatives to accept flawed reasoning and rationalize unethical behavior if it is condoned by an authoritarian figure. Grile, Pettit, Barton, etc… speak authoritatively and confidently until they are pressed for details like the recent Grile grilling at the CCRCC meeting. They have tried to bolster their claims by citing the advisory report studies and The World has done its best to give these documents unearned credibility but it doesn’t change the fact that the governance ordinance and hiring an administrator is a philosophical move based upon little more than superstition.

Whether the PAC really believes its own dogma or not it wants the rest of us who are not predisposed to process data when there isn’t any offered, to accept it on faith. Personally, I believe the PAC have an as yet undeclared but fairly obvious agenda for wanting to centralize the power structure in Coos County and that is simply to make it more compliant to their personal aims and thwart the public right to interfere in those aims as they intrude on citizens’ lives.