Listening to John Sweet’s campaign stump it seems that he often conflates the sovereign municipal government of Coos County, and myriad services it provides with the broader socioeconomic issues facing the county.  The two biggest issues facing the county, he claims, are child poverty and unemployment but are these issues really the purview of a county commissioner? The County, (big C), is comprised of more than twenty departments ranging from public safety matters such as roads, law enforcement and public health to public services like planning, elections, recording, taxation and assessment and more. The commissioners’ first job is to manage the County’s annual revenue in such a way as to provide the best services, as efficiently as possible, for your tax dollar. Included in that process is ensuring the County has adequate revenue to provide these services.  Despite your annual 3% property tax increase, Coos County is fast running out of money which is why the number one issue facing the County is revenue.

Not to say that a healthy local government won’t have some positive impact on the complicated social ills facing the county, (little c), today but asserting that any commissioner is going to solve domestic abuse or child poverty or create jobs where the private sector has failed is quite a stretch. Nevertheless, The World is effectively doing just that. Claiming Sweet has earned a second term as county commissioner, the paper chided opponent Don Gurney for not focusing upon “improving our embarrassingly low public health statistics or finding other economic drivers in addition to timber.” The funny thing is, Sweet is the liaison to the public health department. In deriding Gurney, the paper, ipso facto, blames Sweet for those “embarrassingly low public health statistics.” Then the paper endorsed Sweet anyway.

Now to those non-timber related economic drivers. Sweet claims to have a lot of economic development cred with his past affiliations with SCDC and its predecessor, FONSI. Of course, even SCDC admits its first thirteen odd years were a dismal failure but is economic development enough to fix our immediate problems? Even when the County was pulling in up to $6 million in annual timber payments it still had to draw from the forest reserve fund that Gurney, working with past commissions, helped install. The last SRS (Secure Rural Schools) payment we are likely to receive has already come and gone and the forest reserve fund will dry up in two years leaving Coos County in similar straits as neighboring Curry County. Based upon the County property tax rate of $1.08/$1000 we will need a $6 billion increase to the County tax base no later than 2016 to match lost federal timber payments. (With our luck and if Sweet has his way, that $6 bilion would end up in an enterprise zone and effectively be worthless.)

Like it or not, to stay afloat in the near term, the County must resolve its federal timber issues and maintain the separation of the Coos Bay Wagon Road lands from the O&C lands. This is why it was disappointing to when the paper conflated the two Acts and chose not to correct the error. The paper is perpetuating the same confusion that led Senator Wyden’s staff to literally give away more than 60,000 acres billion dollar tax base in his forest bill. Indirectly, The World editors acknowledge that the $5K a month lobbyist hired by the board to clear up that same confusion has not been beneficial and admits the County needs Gurney. The editors recommend sending Gurney to Washington, DC to lobby Congress on local timber issues  “where his passion and expertise lie.”

Gurney, worked with past commissions to secure more than $12 million in federal money owed to the County and collaborated with the commission to implement the very forest reserve fund John Sweet is dipping into now. In the two years that Sweet has been working to “portray an image of transparency”, (yes, the paper actually published those words), Gurney has endeavored to work with this commission to protect the CBWR lands and collect badly needed annual revenue the county should be able to depend upon. Unfortunately, unlike commissions past, this one has chosen to turn a blind eye, despite looming economic disaster. Hence Gurney’s decision to run for the office.

The paper is trying to paint Gurney as a one issue candidate yet that issue, revenue, is by far the most important one and will go a long way towards building a foundation on which other agencies and the private sector can rely upon in order to address social issues. Elect Don Gurney and retire John Sweet. Then Sweet can vie for a job at one of the many economic development agencies like the Port or SCDC where HIS passion and expertise lie.