We’ve had a long and pleasant reprieve but it appears, unfortunately, that the mathematically challenged Jon Barton has regained his mojo. The Walrus is once again weighing in and sharing his regressive views in the local paper regurgitating industry talking points on fossil-fuel development and now blathering on about county governance.
Barton has offered us his “learned” critique of the proposed home rule charter based upon his brief tenure as a member of the structure advisory committee . He was only appointed to the committee by the county commission because he shared the board’s majority view of converting county governance over to a hired administrator. It’s ironic that Barton’s criticisms of the charter, if one were just to substitute the titles, are almost identical to public criticism of his recommendation at the time. Namely:
BARTON – “It is idealistically crafted with little regard to the practicalities of managing an organization of the size and complexity as Coos County.”
The public rightly recognized that the structure advisory committee was formed with one predetermined yet undisclosed goal of hiring a county administrator without any regard to practicalities and complexities. 
Barton, like the other appointed members rarely attended a board meeting prior to the formation of the committee, except to ask for money for SCDC and has rarely attended since.
BARTON – “Proponents say the Charter would reduce costs but other than offering up eliminating commissioner credit cards and requiring public bidding for goods and services (already practiced and required by state law) they offer little to substantiate their claim.”
Once the “noisemakers” as Barton calls the public, demanded evidence that hiring an administrator “would save the county millions.” Sigh, despite enthusiastic attestations from proponents of the “administrator model” none were able to actually provide substantive evidence of why they themselves were so convinced hiring an administrator would magically improve the county.
In another bit of irony, the paper reports that Melissa Cribbins supports the possibility of a home rule charter but has reservations about the charter on this November’s ballot.
CRIBBINS – “I think home rule is a good thing. It reflects the individual characteristics of a county. But I am concerned in this case that it’s small groups of people with individual interests.”
Wow! Just swap “home rule” with the words “community enhancement plan” and Cribbins could actually be a member of the public voicing concern about the CEP.
“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax–
Of cabbages–and kings–
And why the sea is boiling hot–
And whether pigs have wings.”
The Walrus and the Carpenter by Lewis Carroll
(just before eating the poor, duped Oysters)
I bet this is something Jon doesn’t want to talk about. Who owns this mess he has helped create.
We are witnessing the trickle down of power to the local level from his masters. You just have to look at what he’s pushing to know who he works for.
The following paragraph is copied from this report.
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/Global/usa/planet3/PDFs/Kingpins-of-Carbon.pdf
The Kingpins of Carbon and Their War on Democracy
Global warming is a potentially devastating problem requiring urgent action by governments. However, to date the U.S. government has remained largely paralyzed. Now new Greenpeace research has shed light on the sources of paralysis, a multi-decade war on democracy by the kingpins of carbon – the coal, oil, and gas industries allied with a handful of self-interested libertarian billionaires. Their strategy has aimed to (1) shrink, disable and paralyze progressive government and (2) manipulate the remaining levers of government power by (a) eliminating all restrictions on private money in elections and (b) disenfranchising blacks, Latinos, the young, the elderly, and the disabled, all of whom are presumed to favor Democrats.Since 1975, their strategy has rolled back New Deal programs, weakened labor unions, and reversed victories of the civil rights movement, undermining the strength and cohesion of the middle class, further enriching and empowering a tiny self-interested elite.
Who’s to blame for the continual mess. Barton is just a large fish in a small pond, who makes his living by stroking the good-ol-boy system for his corporate sponsors. that’s going on in every county in America. His kind has learned to work to system to his advantage, and we all know it. The root of the problems that allow his kind to operate are far upstream.
The Author of the following paragraphs has his finger on the root.
The old liberal class, the safety valve that addressed grievances and injustices in times of economic or political distress, has been neutered. There are self-identified liberals, including Barack Obama, who continue to speak in the old language of liberalism but serve corporate power. This has been true since the Clinton administration. Bill Clinton found that by doing corporate bidding he could get corporate money—thus NAFTA, the destruction of our welfare system, the explosion of mass incarceration under the [1994] omnibus bill, the deregulation of the FCC, turning the airwaves over to a half dozen corporations, and the revoking of FDR’s 1933 Glass-Steagall reform that had protected our banking system from speculators. Clinton, in exchange for corporate money, transformed the Democratic Party into the Republican Party. This was diabolically brilliant. It forced the Republican Party to shift so far to the right it became insane.
To assume that Obama, or the Democratic Party, because they acknowledge the reality of climate change, while the lunatic fringe of the Republican Party does not, is better equipped to deal with the crisis is incorrect. Republicans appeal to one constituency. The Democrats appeal to another. But both parties will do nothing to halt the ravaging of the planet.
The whole article can be read here.
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/09/22/coming-climate-revolt
Jon Barton is just one of the local sumo wrestlers for the paid for politicians and corporate lobbies and as long as he can hold on to the public teat, he won’t be pushed out of the local ring of power. He has too many good-ol-boy connections. That’s what he has helped build locally and he’s sitting on top of this little hill, but He’s scared of the charter.
I just have to laugh. I thought EXACTLY the same thing. Much ado about nothing, actually. Worried about them fat short fingers getting turned away from
the public’s panties? Perhaps? You betcha he is, another one who has had his
way with The Peoples’ Money for WAAAAYYYY too long. Come on Jon, name ONE damn project whereby you brought even one good sustaining job to CoosCounty, name just one who actually stayed longer than the tax breaks you and your cronies handed them, which really wasn’t YOURS to give now was it Jonnie Boy? Sickens me to see these clowns show their faces before the tax paying citizens of Coos Co. My personal opinions only, always.