Comparing the list of twenty-one SCDC board members to other elected and appointed boards betrays a great deal of overlap. Familiar names, Dave Kronsteiner, Timm Slater and John Sweet, Jon Barton, John Knutson along with John Briggs just pop up on boards and committees everywhere. Barton and Briggs, for example, are both on the board of the airport district that has turned the airport into such a boondoggle and Barton and Knutson are founding members of the CCAP (Coos County Alliance for Progress), a political action committee that spent a record amount of money during the last election to control the county commission and try and convince the public to hire a county administrator.
In and of itself, seeing the same people controlling the local councils and commissions wouldn’t be so terrible except that there is no diversity of thinking and a rigid inflexible ideology excludes input from outside sources, namely the public who are pretty much kept in the dark. Knutson, in fact, during a breakfast meeting of the Douglas Timber Operators in April of 2012 said it was “laughable” to conduct the public business in front of the public. Circumventing Oregon’s public meetings law, in his opinion was one reason to hire a county administrator.
Knutson, Barton and Briggs along with Bill Richardson and Fred and Megan Jacquot are the current SCDC executive directors. According to the SCDC bylaws, “The South Coast Development Council’s mission is to promote and support businesses that provide quality jobs through responsible development on Oregon’s South Coast.” A noble enough mission and to that end the board is empowered to “do and perform every act and thing whatsoever which it shall deem necessary, expedient, or advisable to carry out the purposes of the Corporation.” (Presumably, this includes putting the competition, like Captain Yates, out of business.)
SCDC, like most economic development agencies, receives a lot of its funding through paid memberships from public entities like the cities of Coos Bay and North Bend and at one time the Port of Coos Bay and the county. In 2009, its board used these public contributions to provide a $60K+ job to the obviously unqualified new wife of fellow crony and former interim county commissioner Fred Messerle. The organization began to fall on hard times and according to a grant application recently submitted to the county hired a consultant, Chabin Concepts to identify its strengths and weaknesses and fix what ails it as wells as provide it with a new arsenal of buzzwords.
What has been lacking is a targeted work plan. A plan for the recruitment, retention and expansion of traded sector businesses as the primary goal of an economic development strategy. Chabin Concepts, a nationally recognized
economic development consulting group, was contracted to perform an inventory of existing assets, assess the effectiveness of the organization, survey stakeholders, and develop a three year work plan.
Unlike many similar private, state and federal economic development organizations, SCDC’s new purpose, mission and objective is to focus specifically on Coos County’s Traded Sector businesses and provide a more consistent and comprehensive service overall.
SCDC takes credit for socializing the risk via tax subsides of Oregon Resources and Bandon Dunes and working to do the same for Jordan Cove, all companies that had a specific reason to situate here and were not recruited by SCDC. In so doing, SCDC acknowledges its failure to entice new industry to the area but is nevertheless “poised to move forward with a greater focus and measurable accountability.” (Visions of a walrus on tippy toes springs to mind).
Asked if the agency would consider a lesser amount to support the “SCDC Traded Sector Business Retention and Expansion Project”, (after all there are seven applicants vying for the county’s limited economic development funds), SCDC is disinclined to accept anything less than the full request.
While there is always the potential to scale back the scope of the SCDC Traded Sector Business Retention and Expansion Project, we want to emphasize the importance of the participation by Coos County. We think a county decision to fund this project and SCDC sends a signal to our other funding partners that economic development remains a priority for Coos County. Conversely, if the county declines to provide adequate funding, many of our partners feel the better alternative may be to shut the organization down rather than attempt to provide services with extremely limited means.
The county is “poised” to hand off a big chunk of change to the same tight, secretive little cabal that has facilitated so many publicly funded failures while operating behind closed doors, (board members must sign non-disclosure agreements), and is expected to hold a work session to discuss all seven proposals sometime before the December 1 award date.
During the same Douglas Timber Operators breakfast mentioned above, then commissioner Fred Messerle complaining about federal and state agencies making decisions affecting Coos County without the county’s input offered up one of his many folksy bromides. “You know what they say,” he said.”If you aren’t at the table then you are on the menu.” Pretty much that sums up the problem with SCDC and the other publicly funded economic development agency, the Port of Coos Bay. The public has been on the menu for a long time and they are still nibbling away at us and producing no results.
SCDC said it itself, “the better alternative may be to shut the organization down.”
You may read the application here. SCDC grant app
With SCDC plugging for things like a county “administrator”, who needs enemies? – Doro
Ugh…should have figured that about Coquille…they probably didn’t get the letter of support that was written for them by the SCDC for “their” support of the grant back to the SCDC in time for the deadline.
Oh well, small cities and counties with gullible, dim bulb administrators and commissioners are a boon to charlatans like those at the SCDC.
I’ll tell you what, give me one week and $1000 and I’ll put together a database of trade-sector businesses for them…no need to blow $75k on something they probably already have or should have had by now after all the courting of dirty industry they have done.
Well, that is one of the most poorly written and compiled grant applications I have ever seen, most funding agencies would have tossed it in the trash, and I don’t doubt for a minute that they will get everything they want from our puppet Commissioners. Same cast of characters, all one big-circle jerk to screw over the taxpayers. They want $75k to set up a database of contacts in the manufacturing world? What the hell have they been doing for the last decade? And how has that “manufacturing” thingy been working out for us? Good lord, if I had a filthy, polluting business and needed some rubes in the local government to bend over for me, I would definitely settle in Coos County.
I notice the City of Coquille did not send a letter of support…maybe they have a few brain cells over there? Maybe Coos Bay, North Bend, Bandon, Myrtle Point, WRCA, the airport & the Port (and all others claiming “support”) should shoulder the cost of their $75k database…basically, they are saying “if you don’t give us everything we want, we’ll take the ball you bought for us and go home”…then just go, you will not be missed and we can keep the money we would have flushed down the toilet on another crony-filled folly.
I also do not know why their own board members can write letters of support – clear conflict of interest. But then again, when have they ever done anything legally and above-board?
Yup, receiving support letters from your own board members does seem a bit much. What struck me is that the application completely fails to demonstrate a need this agency fills that shouldn’t be provided by the individual businesses themselves. SCDC even admits it itself, “without full funding we may as well fold”.
Coquille just passed a resolution with a 100% vote that written for them and contains 4 provably false “whereas” statements… No they don’t have a brains on Coquille’s council
That we have to tell these commissioners what’s the difference between right and wrong, shows how sick the system really is. SCDC doubled down on the last election by making sure the only choices we had were SCDC and worse SCDC candidates to choose from. We’ll have to watch and see how they spin after they screw up and make Christmas gifts to themselves from inside the courthouse.
A person with any business savvy need only read the form 990 (for year 2011, where’s 2012?) to understand why SCDC is ineffective. Almost $200,000 in annual expenses and no accomplishment. Why should any person believe that SCDC will accomplish anything for $75,000 when they have accomplished nothing spending more than $2 million? No measurable goals for the leader either. Any of the many poor county taxpayers whose money will be sent by Sweet and Cribbins to SCDC and who is reading the stated SCDC employee benefits package, including insurance coverage alone that exceeds the annual salary of many of our poor taxpaying neighbors and that is light years beyond Nobamacare, will be furious. Sadly most county taxpayers will not read MGX. Nor will they read anything that comes close to being factual in the World paper. If all of these deep pocket organizations writing support letters get a warm feeling about SCDC, let them fund the next years effort. Are the taxpayers aware of these letters written by their elected and appointed representatives? There are many organizations within Oregon doing what SCDCC promises to do. Most are in some way already funded by taxpayer dollars.
They have a choice, go quietly and disband now or they can press their luck and take the money from Sweet and Cribbins. That is probably what needs to happen to help the people of this area wake up and focus on who they are and what they do.
Ironically Bob Main will escape the fallout if they give more money because he has groomed the public perception of being an outsider to this cabal,even though he was the one who slung the county doors wide open for Messerle and Cam Parry to stage the SCDC coup on Coos County. We all know Cribbins and Sweet are SCDC, so now they just need to show the rest of the County who they work for by making us all pay to support more corruption by this white collar crime ring.
Considering John Sweet is an SCDC board member and has been for ten years, I would think he should recuse himself from deliberating or voting on this application. That leaves us with convincing Bob Main or Melissa Cribbins not to throw any more money at SCDC… this may be a tough task judging from how Main was genuflecting to Knutson at the last BOC meeting.