All Posts Tagged With: "Coos County Road Department"
More fallout on the Local Improvement Districts in Coos County
Commissioner Kevin Stufflebean is perhaps most famous, (on this blog anyway), for his ability to confuse things. During the road department layoffs he presented to the public information suggesting the department had been operating in the red for eight years. When this was exposed as false, he blamed the press for, well, quoting from his own press release.
Keeping track of Stufflebean is a little like watching someone spinning three cups around and trying to keep track of which one holds the pea. His latest innovation, the local improvement districts, has been a dizzying display of spinning cups and it just seems to get worse all the time.
A letter to the editor this week explains the perspective of a Stage Road LID resident and the confusion that arises from Stufflebean’s projects.
As a resident of Stage Road, I was glad to read that Kevin Stufflebean and John Rowe learned their lesson with the Wallace Road project. What they did not learn, however, was how to get their facts straight….
As far as the driveway paving, Stage Road residents did not make this request; therefore no legal obligation existed to respond. Stufflebean offered that option to us at the first meeting when the county had 22 extra on its road crew. The offer was withdrawn after the Wallace Road fiasco.
At the first meeting, we were told the county had all the equipment and manpower to do the work. This was reiterated at the next meeting, after the county laid off most of the road crew.
We were assured that the county still had the manpower, knowledge and equipment to do the work. It was not until after the feasibility study was done that we were told it was more ‘cost effective” to put the project out to bid because ‘contractors were hungry.”
It doesn’t help that the paper doesn’t pin Stufflebean down on these claims and commit to one story or the other. What is with Nikki Whitty that she has followed Stufflebean’s lead so many times considering how often people have stood before the commission to point out inconsistencies in his statements. What is she thinking, or does she?
Driveway paving ‘aboveboard’ according to The World
The World has posted an odd article. Odd in that it contradicts its own reporting and then has John Rowe contradicting Nikki Whitty and facts contradicting other statements. Evidently, enough concern has been expressed over the paving of ten private driveways as part of the Wallace Road LID the paper sought to clear things up but seems to have just made them muddier. The paper still fails to report on the additional $36,000 in cost to be financed over a ten year period. Nor is there mention of the incongruity of using county forces and dedicated road funds on private property when many residents report their roads are not being adequately maintained.
Although county crews paved private driveways as well as streets in the Wallace Road Local Improvement District, property owners paid for both labor and materials at the same price they would have paid a private contractor, according to Rowe.
And the plan to pave driveways while roads were being paved in the county’s first local improvement district was never a secret.
‘It was talked about at several meetings,” Rowe said.
‘It was in my feasibility document.”
This account counters the earlier account that the driveways were a surprise.
what Commissioner Kevin Stufflebean and Roadmaster John Rowe didn’t announce at the time was they were also paving 10 private driveways.
That was revealed only when citizens snapped pictures of the work in progress.
The driveways, or at least the mention that some residents wanted driveways paved, may well have been discussed at public meetings attended primarily by the residents of the LID. Rowe’s claim driveways are mentioned in his feasibility study meet the barest definition of mention.
Prior to the paving of the driveways neither the public nor the BOC were presented with the $36,000 cost and whether the County was going to be financing the cost over the ten year period. A subsequent BOC meeting ratified the paving ‘after the fact’ but the public was not informed of the costs before the paving.
Rowe also contradicts Whitty’s statement that he didn’t want to do driveways.
Another contradiction is the claim county forces were able to pave the driveways for the same price as private contractors. One LID resident claimed on this blog that it was cheaper for him to have the county do the paving.
Rowe is now saying that for the Stage Road LID it would cost $10 per yard more for the county to pave than a private contractor. This despite the county not having to pay fuel taxes or prevailing wages. Rowe claims contractors are hungry right now but where are they cutting the costs if the job requires them to pay prevailing wage? (It may be the job size does not require prevailing wages)
Lastly, the paper reports Planning Commissioner, Dennis Schad, who had five driveways paved had nothing to do with the formation of the LID. What may be pertinent in this instance is whether a sitting commissioner received favorable terms or benefits from public funds. Schad and five other property owners had their driveways paved and financed by the County, an opportunity not being offered to property owners of the other two LIDs. Of course, if Schad plans to pay the $10,200 for the driveways in full upon presentation of the final cost, it isn’t an issue.
Wallace Road LID total cost $90,000 with driveways
The World is reporting the cost of the Wallace Road Local Improvement District at $54,000. This is true but only if excluding the ten private driveways paved at an additional cost of $36,000. The total cost of the project is $90,000. The County is financing the costs for the property owners over a ten year period at 9% interest.
Forty percent of the cost of the Wallace LID has tied up dedicated road funds for private driveways, $10,200 for driveways belonging to a Coos County Planning Commissioner, Dennis Schad. Links to the public records and ‘contracts’ if you can call them that can be found here.
Stufflebean campaign stunt comes back to haunt him
Even The World, despite supporting Stufflebean through the recall, are finding it difficult to reconcile the road master’s determination to use county forces to pave a collection of private driveways.
Stufflebean, the road department liaison, did not give a clear answer to why commissioners included driveways in the first place.
$54,000 project
“We legally have to respond to that request. Meaning the board,” he said.
“This being our first LID in Coos County, we said we would obliged their legal request as authorized by law. With Stage (Road), we told them that we wouldn’t,” Stufflebean wrote in an e-mail to The World.
As inarticulate and grammatically challenged as ever, Stufflebean appears to be saying the County will comply with the law in one instance but defy the law in the other. Except the ORS originally cited as justification for paving private drives doesn’t mandate the County to pave ‘private driveways’.
Commissioner Nikki Whitty is now saying all driveways are off the table and residents of the Stage Road LID I have spoken to confirm despite earlier promises to pave their driveways, they have recently been advised driveways are off the table.
Neither the resolution, nor the order, read the Wallace LID Resolution & Order commit the County to paving private drives ( as far as I can tell). So who committed county funds, dedicated road funds, to non public use? One can only surmise Roadmaster John Rowe who unlike other departments has a lot of discretionary spending capability, chose to pave some private drives despite a meager crew and 600 miles of county roads to maintain. We have to assume his BOC liaison, Stufflebean, who maneuvered the local access channel to film what can only be described as a campaign video (apparently for free), blessed the project.
The real concern is whether the County can really compel the property owners of the Wallace Road LID to pay the tab. The resolution and order appear to have no teeth (and I admit I am not a lawyer) but neither do the Wallace LID Owner estimates. As far as I can tell there is nothing compelling the owners to pay for the improvements made to their driveways. The owners acknowledge the cost of the driveways, some circular, some having multiple drives, but nowhere does it say in the drawings, resolution or order the owners have to repay the costs. (Unless I have missed something so please read these documents)
It seems that a rogue element in the Coos County Road Department chose to pave private drives, (rumor has it that a member of the Coos County Planning Commission paved a driveway, five in fact), without authorization. So who should really be paying that tab?
The World misses the mark as usual in latest editorial
In what appears to be the third editorial calling for the recall of Adam Colby, The World sloppily defends a decision not to support an earlier recall effort against Kevin Stufflebean by misstating facts.
But a key difference separates the two recalls: clarity of purpose.
Stufflebean’s foes never articulated a reasonable al-ternative to the layoffs. Larry Van Elsberg, who led the recall, admitted in a World interview that he had no better solution to the department’s budget troubles.[Emphasis mine]
In light of Stufflebean’s very public and humiliating emails that reveal his incompetence and inability to manage the job, and The World’s own unprofessional participation in his implosion, I can see where they would like to pass the buck. Had The World really done its job during that time they would have known, as should Nikki Whitty, there was no budget problem!
Stufflebean tried to sell the public that the department was operating in the red for eight of the last ten years. This was not only untrue but would have been impossible and illegal if it had. Whitty, who was commissioner during all those ‘red’ years, should have had bells going off but instead fell for it hook, line and sinker, and so did The World. Neither Van Elsberg or anyone else could make judgments about the budget because public information was suddenly very difficult to obtain and explanations from Stufflebean were, in a word, nonsensical.
The road department layoff was not the purpose of the recall, although, it did motivate a lot of people to get involved. The committee to recall Stufflebean was called ‘Citizens for Fair and Open Government’. The push for the recall was because enough people knew then what everyone is starting to realize now, Stufflebean is not competent to manage public resource and provide for public safety.
Citizens for Fair and Open Government showed how the commissioners, Whitty, Stufflebean and John Griffith, technically complied with public meeting laws while at the same time obscuring their intentions from the public. Even The World reporter, along with the workers themselves, did not know there were going to be layoffs. Later Stufflebean, acting as road master, blamed the reporter for his staff not knowing he was laying them off. The recall was never about finding an alternative to a layoff, it was about letting reasonable people allow the public to participate in their own governance about critical matters like public safety.
Other papers covered this travesty and the obfuscation well enough that only those precincts relying predominantly on The World for information voted to keep him. Had The World done their job, the additional 1,800 votes needed would have spared Coos County these recent embarrassments thrust upon us and Sheriff Andy Jackson by Stufflebean.
As to their continual drumming for a recall of Colby, their opinion should have little sway this time after bungling the Stufflebean recall and late night email accusations. Nevertheless, they should stop trying to cover up their poor decision on one by passing it off on a failure to clarify the message – Citizens for Fair and Open Government wanted fair and open government. Hard to get any clearer than that.
The editorial is entitle Why Voters Should Care. The real question is why voters should care what The World thinks?
Stufflebean fired off accusatory emails to others as well
Immediately after The World published its account of Kevin Stufflebean’s email accusations, former roadmaster and commissioner candidate, Larry Van Elsberg, also received a late night rant, sent from the official Coos County email address flinging wild and incoherent accusations at Van Elsberg and several road department employees. The email even ends with accusations against me and I have nothing to do with any of this.
Van Elsberg turned the email over to the district attorney who in turn provided it to the Attorney General for evaluation in their investigation of Sheriff Andy Jackson. Many question how rational or fit Stufflebean is to hold office and manage public resources. The excerpts of the email below, the parts that do not name employees, speaks volumes and if this email is anything like the email sent to The World you will understand why I find their handling so questionable.
Your illegal executive sessions with commissioners that Nikki Whitty was never involved with and you provided the information to jody macafree so we have documentation.
You completely misappropriated gas tax revenue on work that was nor done in right of ways, that is illegal and you should be prosecuted for it. Don’t try to blame commissioners as you had the authority
delegates to you by commissioners…
Van Elsberg doesn’t know what Stufflebean is talking about here and his willingness to share this with AG supports his claims of innocence. It is also interesting how Kevin always defends Nikki but then she has pretty much been in lockstep with Kevin from the day they both failed to attend Commissioner Bob Main’s swearing in to the harmonious decision not to reinstate the road crew to rubber stamping road equipment purchases despite having no staff to run it.
Stufflebean names many current and former employees of the road department in this tirade so I am trying to share enough of the email to reveal the state of mind of the commissioner without sharing sections with names.
I have told the world that I am more then willing to set with you and
them to go over issues.The newspaper can question my integrity, and they have forgot to pull the article they printed with my wife in pic that her job was cut,
You Larry, have questioned my integrity and I have all the info to support me, and had you been interested in the best interest of coos
county you could have came with concerns and we could have looked at them, but instead you wanted to cover your ass and come after me.I let you you do it for 16 months, and no more. The truth is always glorious. My notebooks will be released for clarification.
Larry, you can put on the seat belt and enjoy the ride or you can start putting out the truth. It will be betterif you admit versus me
discrediting you.
The email is very lengthy, riddled with grammatical errors and an amazingly shocking thing to see coming from an elected official. It was sent at midnight, as mentioned, from Stufflebean’s official county email address.
Several people living on Stage Road, out along Coaledo and other areas have told me how badly their roads are being maintained since the layoffs. One truck driver lost a leaf spring because of gaping potholes. Perhaps, Stufflebean, by hurling accusations at others hopes to deflect attention from the bad decisions he has made.
This, in my opinion, is not a stable person.
AG exonerates Sheriff’s Office
In a letter dated June 25, 2010, Chief Counsel, Sean Riddell of the Criminal Justice Division advised they found “…no evidence to support Mr Stufflebean’s claims, which if true, would rise to the level of criminal conduct. We see no need for further investigation”.
The letter apologizes for inconveniencing the department but gives no hint as to whether it plans to penalize Stufflebean for wasting everyone’s time and money. Stufflebean, meanwhile, is reported to be refusing comment citing he has yet to read the report. ‘The report’ is three paragraphs and I read it under a minute and part is copied here and was copied to the commissioner. Maybe an apology would be in order…
Let’s not forget Stufflebean also accused Larry Van Elsberg of corruption in the road department. Van Elsberg was cheered but not surprised by the AG’s findings and noted that the accusations against the road department were also vague and said, “desperate people do desperate things”.
Kevin gets facts confused and thereby confuses the public
During Tuesday’s BOC meeting, Kevin Stufflebean addresses Phil Thompson who frequently handles the camera for the local public access channel. Stufflebean is of the impression that Thompson was filming work being done out at the Wallace Road local improvement district. For clarification in the following exchange, Thompson had a small digital still camera with him and says he took two photos.
I want to thank Phil Thompson because Phil, I understand you were out on Wallace Road yesterday taking pictures…. Oh, I thought you were recording… I am hoping you guys are doing a show on the local improvement district out there because that’s a very successful one for the County…. I am assuming you guys are doing a show about Wallace Avenue and LID… I want to thank you because I think that’s a good thing for the county and that’s the first local improvement district that’s actually going through so people will be able to see how the process works and what’s going on so I thank you…
All the while Stufflebean is encouraging Thompson to do a show on the Wallace Road improvements it turns out he is planning on doing one himself, complete with a Chyron or subtitle. In what appears to be little more than a campaign video, Stufflebean appears shortly after the BOC meeting, on camera with one of the lucky recipients of Bancroft Bond, what works out to be ten year financing, for his personal driveway. The driveway improvements are an optional side deal allowed under ORS 371.640. Allowed, but by no means mandatory, as far as I can tell.
The local improvement districts can be a great way to improve some roads and I am all for them. In effect, the County is behaving as the lender to the abutting property owners to improve the road and assessing the costs of the materials to the members of the LID with the County picking up the labor cost. Those home owners that request driveway work off the right of way can also finance the work though the LID assessment but must incur not only the materials cost but also the labor costs.
During the video pictured above Kevin addresses concerns raised at the BOC meeting earlier that day regarding tying up an already small county road crew to do work on private property. Yesterday, before seeing either the BOC meeting or the LID video, I sent the following email to all three commissioners but have yet to receive a reply.
Where can I obtain a copy of Resolution 09-09-136L pertaining to the formation of the Wallace/Shell/Caraway LID? Where do I find a copy of the agreements with the abutting land owners? Several people have asked me questions relating to improvements off the right of way and on private property, for example driveways. My understanding is the homeowners are responsible for all material and labor costs for the off right of way work. Is this true? How is reimbursement made to the county, specifically for the driveways? Is it reimbursed immediately or assessed as an increase to property taxes and paid out over time?
Also, I have been advised the road crews have been working overtime, grading on weekends, most recently in the Fairview area. Is this true? Given the small crew, is the taxpayer absorbing the cost of overtime while crews are paving private drives during regular work hours if road crew are then left doing regular road maintenance on weekends?
Thank you,
Mary
In the video Kevin claims to have eighteen road employees and with only eight working on Wallace Road that leaves ten to work on the roads.
…we have eight of our eighteen employees out here, that means we still have ten of our employees throughout the county doing road maintenance. That was an issue that was brought up at our board meeting, in fact, this morning
Here is the problem. The road department doesn’t have eighteen employees, only sixteen. Four are management and one is a mechanic. Three are on light duty, meaning physical problems restrict the type of work they can do, and one is off until the first of the year with a shoulder injury. Cindy Moody, who manages the sign shop, was seen flagging for the work on Wallace Road. Roughly, it would seem the eight able bodied workers paving Wallace Road left office staff, the roadmaster, John Rowe, and some physically impaired road employees ‘throughout’ the county.
These are the kind of factual errors that both confuse the electorate and raise the level of mistrust of the commissioner to such a high level as to initiate a recall. Whether Commissioner Stufflebean is dishonest or just incapable of keeping his facts straight hardly matters. In the end, the taxpayer is being manipulated and confused and therefore not able to make qualified and informed decisions with public money, resources and maintain infrastructure and provide for public safety.
Coos County Commissioner Stufflebean hurling accusations
In an email to The World (which the paper has not released) Commissioner Kevin Stufflebean, perhaps aware his days in office are waning, levels accusations of corruption and department mismanagement at Sheriff Andy Jackson, former road master, Larry Van Elsberg and threw barbs at Commissioner Bob Main. The World followed up by calling Jackson and Van Elsberg, both candidates for commissioner positions 2 and 3 respectively, and reported on their responses to some of the charges today. According to Van Elsberg, The World reporter, Meghan Walsh, will publilsh another article specific to Stufflebean’s charges relating to the 12″ pipeline fiasco, tomorrow.
In many ways the email and subsequent article is another golden opportunity to call into question Stufflebean’s already questionable integrity and revisit, thanks to him, the less than adequately covered pipeline issue. As a campaign strategy, I suspect the email will cause more harm than good and cause Commissioner Nikki Whitty some grief as well. Unfortunately, the article misrepresents some information relating to events that occurred at the road department before Van Elsberg was road master as having occurred under his watch.
‘He had no management of his staff,” said Barry Austin, the current foreman, who has been with the department almost 15 years.
Austin said he and other workers sometimes played blackjack for hours a day. Others were known to use county materials for personal use.
‘Maybe some of this Larry didn’t know, but if he had been doing his job he would have known,” Austin said. ‘That stuff doesn’t happen anymore.”
First, why is The World printing the comments of an admitted bad public employee whom Stufflebean lifted to management status after Van Elsberg retired and remains with the road deparment, anyway? Austen applied for the foreman’s position but was passed over by Van Elsberg when he was road master. Second, according to Van Elsberg, he brought the matter to the attention of then road master Bits Klemm who brought the practice of playing blackjack to an end.
Austen is not the only questionable employee Stufflebean raised to management level. Shawn Migas was found to have defrauded worker’s compensation over an incident that occurred at a rock crusher that broke his leg. Stufflebean, acting as interim road master, created a special management position for Migas and gave him a raise. The incident became known after the statute of limitations had expired. Migas was placed on temporary leave, but retained his management position and raise. Shortly thereafter, the infamous New Year’s Eve layoffs included the employees who brought the incident to light. Migas has since left the road department.
A letter to Meghan Walsh, author of the article quoted above requesting a correction has so far gone unanswered.
Whitty running scared??? UPDATED
Nikki Whitty clearly views former roadmaster and current candidate for her county commission seat, Larry Van Elsberg as a serious threat. In a letter to the editor thinly disguised as an attack on two of her constituents she throws some barbs at her closest opponent.
Regarding the letter from Ronnie Herne, I would like to clarify misstatements and fabrications. I was disappointed in my opponent who approved it in advance….I did support the layoffs in the road department. Our former roadmaster should have made changes but failed to do so.
Really Nikki, if you thought Larry should have made changes during your tenure you ought to have done something about it. If anyone is responsible, assuming changes really should have been made, it is you! You are definitely responsible for the underhanded manner in which the road department layoffs were conducted. Shame on you!
Further, many of us, including me, appreciate Ronnie and Jaye for their tireless efforts to get at the truth despite you and your egg timer. These are public meetings after all, we are supposed to be able to ask questions and demand answers even when you don’t want to give them. If anyone is rude, Nikki, it is you and Kevin for refusing to answer questions regarding public business and consent calendar items.
This letter was dirty in more ways than one and it is going to cost you votes, it isn’t going to gain you any.
Oh, and the bond cost may have only been $27M but the total cost with state funds was $50M so stop splitting hairs
UPDATE In 2002 a new roadmaster Larry Van Elsberg was given a thin budget to work with and was considering laying off six employees in order to afford asphalt. The union lobbied Commissioners Whitty, Griffith, and Ross against the layoffs. The commissioners pulled $110,000 dollars from the general fund to keep the employees. The employees ad probably Larry were much relieved.
To quote my source, Nikki has really ‘fouled her own nest here’, accusing Larry of not making employee cuts when, in fact, she wouldn’t let him.
Why I will not vote for any incumbents for Coos County Commission
Before I begin my explanation of why I will not vote for either incumbent in the upcoming commissioners race I must tell a quick story. It was already getting dark the afternoon of December 31, 2008 when I received a text message telling me almost 60% of the County Road Department were being told they were being laid off over at the Owen Building. Having previously ignored county politics I thought about not going but living only two blocks away, I grabbed a pen and piece of paper and walked in on the meeting.
The bad news had already been delivered by the time I arrived but I was present as the gravity of the situation began to sink in to the department especially the twenty two workers affected and the questions were starting to fly as I took a seat in the back of the room. Kevin Stufflebean was the lone commissioner present and at the time, and despite no qualifications whatsoever, had been acting roadmaster since the resignation of former roadmaster, Larry Van Elsberg. Human Resources Director Steve Allen was also present as was Bobbie Brooks, assistant to the commissioners.
Stufflebean explained he had determined there may be upcoming budget shortfalls and he was reorganizing the department to make it more efficient. Paring it down from 36 to 14 crew workers to maintain 600 miles of county roads, would allow more funds, $1M per year, to be available for asphalt. The soon to be former road workers began asking some good questions and astute comments. They pointed out amongst other things the commissioner/roadmaster had just laid off the entire paving crew and there was no one left who knew how to lay asphalt.
The stunned workers asked a lot of intelligent questions and it was obvious these rugged, burly hard working guys knew their jobs and knew very well what they were talking about. They asked how 14 remaining crew, (11 really actually work on the road) could keep up with mowing and ditching and grading and patching and brush cutting, etc…. Stufflebean’s answer was always the same, ‘… we have done an in depth analysis…’ and this newly efficient, lighter trimmer department will be able to function better than before. He repeatedly alluded to the ‘analysis’ but did not provide one with the press release or the budget and lay off packet provided to the workers. (Weeks later, under pressure, it was admitted the analysis did not exist on paper).
From my vantage point in the back of the room Stufflebean sounded like so many smoothly evasive politicians I have listened to before in city councils, state legislatures and Congress. From where I sat it looked like he didn’t answer questions because he had no real answers or justification for what he had done and the details that came out over the next few weeks, I believe, support this opinion.
But it was one certain moment during that meeting that has forever colored my view of the commissioner. As part of the union contract the union members are entitled to reeducation allowance to help them develop new job skills for work in other fields. One ‘bargaining unit’, as the union refers to the workers in the contract, asked Stufflebean about these benefits, after all most of these guys were in their late forties early fifties, not an easy time to make a career change.
Stufflebean laughed a little, almost scoffed and said, ‘oh yeah, we call that our dog and pony show’. It was that moment, that flippant belittling remark delivered to a roomful of men with families that had just lost their livelihood and meant to imply a minor concession to union negotiators was just so much ink on paper, that I came to really know Kevin Stufflebean. My earlier disgust at his artful skirting and dancing around questions he didn’t have a good answer for was nothing compared to the visceral reaction I had to the man spewing meaningless adjectives together in the hopes of at least giving the impression of a complete sentence. For several moments I was actually sick to my stomach, nauseated, watching Stufflebean perform what could only be described as a classic dog and pony show.
None of the story above except the part about the budget and the analysis has anything to do with why I will not vote for the incumbents but I tell it here to disclose up front my perspective of how the County works has been permanently influenced by my New Year’s Eve epiphany. Previously, I have written how both Nikki Whitty and Stufflebean participated in what The World editorial referred to as the ‘undeniably stealthy’ way in which the road department and the public were kept in the dark about the layoffs until the last minute, here and hereand for more just go here. (Stufflebean, of course, denies obfuscation but you can read more about that here).
So without rehashing whether Stufflebean with the complicity of former Commissioner John Griffith and Nikki Whitty deliberately obfuscated Stufflebean’s intention to lay off the road department while still appearing to comply with public meeting laws as I believe is the case, I recommend reading earlier reporting on the matter, listening to the audio or watching the public broadcasts of the relevant meetings to make your own determination. What is important and cannot be refuted by Stufflebean or Whitty or Griffith is the decision to ‘reorganize’ the road department, a department critical to public safety, was based solely on a budget projection, not an approved, ratified budget that has seen the light of annual public budget work sessions, but a budget projection prepared by one man, the dog and pony show man.
During the New Year’s Eve meeting Stufflebean stated at one point the layoffs were not about money but then spent the next several weeks convincing the public the layoffs were all about the money. The layoff packet and press release contained the budget projection of only $3.5M prepared by Stufflebean and it presented such a dire picture the information he provided indicated the department had been operating in the red for seven of the last ten years!
One could almost forgive the horrible way the county employees were treated with figures like that, except for the fact they weren’t true. Van Elsberg had been roadmaster for seven of those ten years and had always operated with a balanced budget. Public records confirm this. When confronted with this flagrant error in budgeting Stufflebean blamed The World reporter but I and every member of the road department saw the same documents she did and they clearly present, as he publicly claimed, the department operating in the red for multiple years.
Commissioner Whitty should have known. If she read any of the rationale Stufflebean provided for the layoffs, (and surely with something this critical she would at least review the information before casting such a serious vote), she would have known something was wrong with the budget projection from that fact alone. She was commissioner all those years the department operated with a balanced budget! Nevertheless, Whitty didn’t question anything, not even when twenty two family wage jobs were at stake not even when public safety, (remember Dean Caudle), was at stake. Whitty didn’t question a thing.
Three months later during the annual budget work sessions the road department budget miraculously expanded back to $5.8M a 60% increase over the dire unilateral forecasts of the previous December. Stufflebean’s projections were so bad, in fact, it is hard not to speculate they might have been done deliberately to mislead the public as a justification for the layoffs. At the very least this gives substance to the argument no major decisions affecting the entire populace should ever be made from a solo budget projection.
This one example, and there are more, illustrates a lack of fitness to serve in a leadership position. In my opinion, they, Whitty, Stufflebean and Griffith exhibited gross negligence and a lack of critical thinking skills. Whitty and Stufflebean make major decisions on our behalf without understanding the economic impacts to the County budget and the County economy as a whole. They don’t understand how to calculate a return on the taxpayer investment. They don’t know how to evaluate the impacts of potentially reduced property values and stifled residential development next to a strip mine operation, for example, against the jobs that might have come from new homes near a golf resort. They don’t know how to balance jobs expected from one enterprise against jobs lost from another.
I say all this because I have asked them for specific answers to questions like when will the public see a return on the $450K taxpayer investment in W Beaver Hill Road and they don’t answer because they don’t know. They invest huge sums of money without being able to tell the public when they will see a return because they don’t know.
They gamble with the public treasure without the skills to know what they are doing. Both appear to rely heavily on the same small cluster of people, SCDC, FONSI, etc… for guidance and talking points instead of reaching out for fresh ideas and new thinking.
Whitty and Stufflebean don’t have the critical thinking skills necessary to manage public funds and resources and maintain public safety and infrastructure. The electorate can go on as usual on pipeline dream promises and dog and pony shows or they can cut their losses and try something new. My trust in the status quo went out the window one cold New Year’s Eve…
Transparency vs Opacity, will be issue in forthcoming commissioners’ race
Despite narrowly surviving a recall effort for what even The World referred to as the undeniably “stealthy” manner in which twenty two county road workers were laid off, Commissioner Kevin Stufflebean is still curtailing public access.
…Commissioner Kevin Stufflebean outlined his new vision for board meetings. First step was to rearrange the courtroom, secluding employees to one side of the room…Next, he addressed how employees interact with audience members and the board. From now on, all public questions will be directed to the board. Commissioners can either answer them or give the person at the podium permission to take the floor… Stufflebean reminded the 20 or so department heads in attendance they do not have to respond to inquiries by the media and can filter responses through the commissioners’ office.
Stufflebean has been the center of controversy relating to public transparency and public access for some time and a strong case has been made the county, with the apparent approval of County Counsel, Jaqui Haggerty, misuses the executive session. Prior to the meeting Bob Main refused to attend an executive session claiming he didn’t feel comfortable keeping the details from the public. Whitty had no qualms about holding the executive session.
Further, Stufflebean wants to further complicate public access, thereby impairing the public’s ability to participate in its own governance by taking over the video taping of BOC meetings raising many eyebrows
The following was sent to the Editor. It refers to an article printed on January 27th.
It is the same sentiment that I share along with other volunteers at Coos Community Media Center.I was apalled to note Commissioner Stufflebean’s comment reported in Wednesday’s World, quoting a cost
to the county of $30-50,000 to record county meetings and place them on the web. Channel 14
currently records these meetings at a rate far lower than that. Channel 14′s subscription rates are
determined by hours of service rendered to the subscriber. Should the Commission continue to hold two
public meetings a month, that subscription cost would be around $7000 per year. For that sum, Channel 14
records 24 meetings, posts them on the web (where they remain for at least two months),
provides one week of “air” time (at least 12 repeats) on Charter Cable Channel 14 in the Bay Area and environs and on Comspan Channel 73 in Bandon, Coquille, Myrtle Point, and Reedsport, and provides a
DVD archive copy if requested. Additional meetings are charged at $90/ hour.
When the website went active in September of 2009, all the agencies who subscribe to Channel 14
were invited to place a link to it on their site. No government agency (or anybody else) has ever paid
a dime to have their meetings or programs posted to the web by Channel 14.
The care and maintenance of that website costs around $3000 per year.
During the county’s negotiations for the year’s contract with Channel 14, Mr. Stufflebean suggested
that the meeting content was the property of the county and that the commissioners should have
ownership of the sole DVD copy of each meeting. This smacks of censorship and all
citizens need to be wary of such attempts. Public meetings are public domain and can
be recorded by anyone and distributed at will.Gordon Young
Channel 14
So to recap, Stufflebean still wants to control the message and apparently doesn’t trust his own department heads to answer questions about their own departments. (We can all understand why he wouldn’t want Colby talking) Aren’t the commissioners busy enough without vetting questions and answers about ongoing county business? Does he really feel they are incompetent or is he hoping to disguise his intentions and actions from the public as it appears he did with the road department layoffs?
Again, where is Whitty in all of this? Does she share Stufflebean’s apparent contempt for the department heads skills? Does she share his apparent contempt for the public’s right to know? It sure seems like it.
New Year’s catch up #1 Van Elsberg running for County Commish
NORTH BEND, OR, DECEMBER 28, 2009: After much thought and the support of my family and friends, I have decided to seek the office of Coos County Commissioner. I do not take this decision lightly, as there will be many challenges ahead for Coos County and its citizens.
Larry Van Elsberg has opted to run for Position 2 against the very popular and some consider, unbeatable Nikki Whitty. Van Elsberg made quite a name for himself when he headed the recall effort that narrowly failed to unseat Commissioner Kevin Stufflebean but whether that fame will garner him votes will depend upon his platform, not the least of which is public safety and transparency.
Whitty did herself a lot of harm in my view by aligning so tightly with Stufflebean and participating in the public obfuscation of details leading up to the sudden layoff of twenty two county road workers on New Year’s Eve 2008. Hopefully, the bizarre manipulation of the road department budgets wherein the media released worksheets used to justify the layoffs showed the road dept operating in the red for eight of the last ten years (not possible by the way and Whitty should have known that) compared to the budget worksession versions handed out to the public in March showing ample funding for the road department and a balanced budget for the past ten years will be explained. Whitty has distanced herself from Stufflebean even to the point of moving her chair away from him during public hearings, but I don’t think she can totally cleanse herself in the eyes of the public.
The campaign will be an opportunity to bring out details of Whitty’s and outed commissioner, John Griffith’s handling of the NW Natural pipeline issue, of which Van Elsberg, then County Road Master was intimately aware of and might illuminate the legislation, hold onto your hat Roblan, that relieves NWN from paying its fair share of taxes to the county.
With luck the local media will start covering these issues with a level a detail they ignored at the time. We will certainly do our best, as time permits, to bring these facts to light here as the campaign progresses.
Where I have been and what I have been doing and why
Coos County and the entire Southern Oregon Coast, without question, is an exquisitely beautiful area, so six years ago I thought this would be a wonderful place to raise my daughters. Within a year, however, some hard realities and culture shocks began to set in.
At first they weren’t so out of the ordinary, I mean everyone knows old people often have too much time on their hands and meddle in other peoples lives, it happens everywhere. The news is riddled with daily accounts of bad cops and incompetent police work around the globe, not just here. The term ‘good old boy’ system wasn’t coined in Coos County and it is no surprise the system thrives here as well as elsewhere.
Elected officials misuse public money and mistreat public employees everywhere, not just in Coos County. Crimes against women are committed everywhere, everyday, not just here. Hard economic times, poor financial planning and lousy business ethics don’t necessarily go hand in hand but they each happen everywhere not just here.
Still there is some other element, some indefinable undercurrent, some unquantifiable but nevertheless measurable resistance, some low amperage buzz always in the background, a niggling impediment to a peaceful and productive life. Coos County has a certain meanness to it. Coos County takes a strange delight in the suffering of others, schadenfreude it is called.
Not that the county and the communities that make it up aren’t changing. Long time incumbents have found themselves replaced with fresh blood, despite an electorate with a below average literacy rate. Some new blood is moving to the area and more importantly some of the old blood, the ‘good old boys’, are grudgingly relinquishing control or passing on. But old habits are hard shaken and the inevitable reaction to fight tooth and nail to maintain power manifests as a mean disregard for anyone perceived as a threat. The despicable handling of the Coos County Road Department layoffs last New Year’s Eve and the recent forced departure of Coos Bay’s city manager are two good examples.
Since moving here I have made some lifelong friendships and had some wonderful adventures but in a nutshell, Coos County is not a good place to raise bright, imaginative and highly gifted children, especially daughters. Despite recent events for which I heap strong praise on local law enforcement for speedy resolutions, Coos County is not a safe or nurturing place for women.
After witnessing the treatment of citizens and employees by local leadership across the county, it isn’t somewhere I want to do business either. In fact, whereas this area made everything harder, set up endless hurdles for me, my children even my damaged veteran son and made almost no effort to support a gift that would have provided $2M in annual revenue for the schools, my little company is now being greeted with an abundance of solid technical support, years of experience and downright goodwill and optimism. A breath of fresh air.
These last several weeks, much to the chagrin of my kids, I have been commuting daily or living in hotels while completing the V-LIM generator outside the strange cosmic influences of Coos County. With a lot of help, we have made less than concentric components concentric, we have laboriously measured and narrowed the gap between magnets and coils. We have remade parts and then remade them again and I have learned the glaring difference between an artisan, an assembly firm and a real manufacturer with years of experience.
We have designed the testing procedure and believe we have located a state of the art digitizing oscilloscope to measure flux fields, resistance, inductance, voltage, amperage and, oh yes, kilowatts output. We now are, I am now ready…
… except to post this I have to find some decent cell coverage or a good internet connection. Guess you can’t have everything.
Jessica---stumbled around and found your blog! I still haven't found the Coast News online, can you direct me? ...
Thank you, Linda, you did a much better job of explaining fusion voting or cross nomination than my humble effort. ...
I'm chair of the Independent Party. There is nothing unusual about candidates seeking and obtaining multiple party nominations. “Cross-nominations” ...
Well I'm certainly no expert, but it seems to me it's a little like giving Roblan a license to talk ...