Wednesday evening at the regular Coquille School Board meeting, Margaret Barber, Bill Lansing and Steve Jansen presented the now infamous community enhancement plan. After the same power point presentation given at other venues I asked Jansen and Lansing what taxes would be paid if there was no urban renewal district or enterprise zone. Neither knew the answer. They had no idea that establishing a $3 million a year endowment in Coos County would deprive the state school fund of half a billion dollars.
What that tells us is that we have a small collection of people making what amounts to a billion dollar decision involving public money without knowing the barest, most rudimentary facts and without thinking the whole thing through. This is a consequence of avoiding the public process we are entitled to when determining the use of public funds. The plan wants to take public money and place it into private corporations so the funds can be used to gamble on waterfront development. The plan contends the state can’t “develop a world-class education delivery system” but Bill Lansing, Joanne Verger and John Whitty can but only if the funds are under the “shield” of a private corporation.
Lansing is of the opinion that Coos County loses 50% of all tax money to the state school fund. “That money is gone,” says Lansing. The cost of keeping our kids in school varies across the state from $5,600 to $28,000 with a statewide average of $9,700 per studdent. There are 8,468 students in Coos County and using $9.7K, (the local figure may be closer to $7K), for sake of example, county schools require $82 million a year to educate our kids. Thanks to special assessments and enterprise zone exemptions Coos County only takes in a fraction of taxable potential or approximately $26 million per year and according to Jansen, 42% goes into the school fund. Even if we use the lesser figure of $7K per student the state back fills our property tax shortfall at least $50 million annually.
The Jordan Cove project has a long way to go yet before it is approved much less constructed. To date we still don’t have a draft EIS, a final EIS and are probably two years out from a Final Record of Decision which will include economic impacts. The community enhancement plan will deprive the state school fund of almost $23 million annually and shortchange local taxing districts. It ignores the economic impacts the project will have on the area. Any plan at this point is premature.
Nevertheless, in the name of education all this effort is being exerted so a private corporation can divvy out $3 million a year in public money to local schools in the form of grants. Lansing says they want to add Reedsport and Langlois school districts into the mix. At approximately 9,500 students that works out to a little over $300 per student.
Lansing and I have engaged in a somewhat testy email exchange in which I explained that I had no doubt of his sincerity unfortunately I am not convinced the “plan” even meets the definition of plan nor do I have confidence the people chosen by other people who don’t have the authority to choose anyone to manage these schemes have the programmatic overview necessary to ensure any success. He accused me of being “horribly confused” adding “this is not an environmental issue.” Perhaps not directly from Lansing’s point of view, but if he understood that any project brings with it economic impacts which are typically addressed as part of the EIS and affects the consideration of reasonable alternatives as required by NEPA he would realize the promoters of this scheme to save a bunch of Canadian shareholders hundreds of millions of dollars is very premature.
We have civic leaders making major, billion dollar decisions without all the facts. Hell, they aren’t even asking questions…
Oh, Mary, what I wouldn’t have given to see you go head to head with Bill Lansing. He has no business anywhere near education, IMO, just a blustering old fool.
Any chance you will debate him again? I want to be there.
Not too likely, and frankly there wouldn’t be much sport in it for me anyway. Methinks he is little more than a patsy fooled into thinking he is helping schools when he is really providing cover for the bigger
scamschemeIs this an epiphany moment for those undecided individuals that know that republicans are keen on starving government of tax dollars, but thought that democrats wanted more tax dollars?
These democrats running this scheme are going to shrink tax dollars to our government while making a profit for foreign investors. They are going to accomplish far more for the sponsors of the tea party and the GOP than those organizations combined. Where do I sign-up?
BSOregon.
This port serves Kitzhaber, they are sitting there doing his will. This mess has his greedy hands deep in the dough. He parked his former chief of staff at the port drawing a hefty salary during Kulengoski’s term and that guy was instrumental in the direction this port steered. That guy went back to Salem and now has his own branch of our state government under his control. While he was sitting alongside the recently departed Jeffrey Bishop molding and crafting the Jordan Cove Scheme that has involved a lot of cast members from our various government agency’s and local boards of prominence, he was shaking hands and cutting deals on your dime and that would indicate that he had Kitzhabers blessings. So I don’t think Kitzhaber will be replacing any of them soon, unless someone can make it look like this whole affair is just as sleazy as what Chris Christy has done in New Jersey. If this plan to hijack the money was crafted ten years ago, then all these people on their board of control have been conspiring to steal public funds while some of them worked for the government and some of their co-conspirators still do.
What! You trying to tell me that the “Democrats” as a bunch have slid so far right that they would be considered moderate Republicans a generation ago?
Why that’s just outrageously correct!
The local yaks have just made the mistake of actually vocalizing it and Kitzhaber may have to Christie a few local scapegoats.
Those yahoos keep yaking it up and they may find Kitzhaber replacing the whole Port board way before the pipe dream becomes just that.
Greeting Coquillian. And I thought that we here in Coos Bay had the market captured on brain dead elected, appointed, and self anointed politicians.