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 The offer was withdrawn after the Wallace Road fiasco.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?

A recent editorial blunders over the topic of fusion voting while attempting to marginalize third parties. Fusion voting is used in many states and is employed to great success in New York. Fusion voting allows an independent party like Working Families to define or narrow down campaign issues that address matters of specific concern… like unions, or health care, or education.

A third party can than endorse a candidate that most closely aligns with their viewpoint. At election time, voters may check the Democrat box, for example, or the Working Families box for a candidate. This allows a candidate to know how many votes they received solely because of their position on the third party’s concerns and how hard to work in the legislature to retain those votes for future elections.

The World editorial misses the point regarding the Independent Party of Oregon and calls fusion voting a ‘quirk’ and assumes it is supposed to help win elections.

…the IPO is making headlines because of a legal quirk that lets a candidate represent more than one party. Among the candidates with dual labels this year is state Rep. Arnie Roblan, D-Coos Bay. (Should we say, ‘D/I-Coos Bay”?)

The big question is how much a dual label will help anyone win a general election. Probably not much. The IPO can’t exert real influence until it acts like a party, which means adopting shared principles and common goals. To do so, however, would alienate members who want to be truly independent.

That’s the underlying problem of all so-called ‘independent” parties. People can be independent, or they can participate in party politics. They can’t rationally do both.

What in the world does the Independent Party see in Arne Roblan? Or the Dems, for that matter?

Right here in Coos County we have an excellent example of how a free press and a true democracy are supposed to work. As reported in Coast Lake News and on this blog, Jessica LLoyd-Rogers reported on what might have become an expensive policy blunder in the guise of a nuisance abatement ordinance authored by Lakeside City Counsel, Fred Carleton. Carleton, who also doubles as counsel for the City of Bandon, drafted an ordinance that threatened to tread on the 4th Amendment rights of Lakeside residents.

Thanks to Coast Lake News calling attention to the ‘defects’ in the ordinance, Carleton is now backpedaling and recommending the city council rescind the ordinance. This is the power of the press in action. Without this story and the resultant backlash from rightly outraged citizens, the ordinance would have been enacted unchallenged leaving the city vulnerable to civil liability. This is the job of the press in a democratic society.

Somebody should remind The World of this fact. Two weeks after Coast Lake News broke the story, The World reports on the ordinance ‘defect’ and gives no attribution the other newspaper.

Read this exchange between Clark Walworth, editor at The World and a reader as appalled as I am.

Subject Clark’s response to: The World according to Dr. Seuss
Sender Bob Fischer
Recipient Mary Geddry
Date Today 00:48
To protect your privacy, remote images are blocked in this message. Display images

Oh, well now, that clears that up. …Bob

Begin forwarded message:

From: “Clark Walworth”
Date: July 28, 2010 5:29:41 PM PDT
To: “Bob Fischer”
Subject: RE: For Your Information: The World according to Dr. Seuss

Mr. Fischer,

The main distinction I see between the two versions is that the first is an expression of the writer’s viewpoint, while the second is a news story. Reporters for The World are not allowed to level unsupported accusations based on their own interpretation of events. For that reason, statements such as “violate residents’ Fourth Amendment rights” and “a pattern of secrecy and targeting citizens” could not appear in Ms. Musicar’s account.

Please don’t misunderstand my explanation. I don’t mean to criticize Ms. Lloyd-Rogers for engaging in spirited advocacy of her viewpoint. Such advocacy is her constitutional right, and Lakeside no doubt is enriched by her efforts. The World, however, practices a different variety of journalism. I hope you will recognize the value of seeing a dispassionate, factual report in addition to Ms. Lloyd-Rogers more personal interpretation.

Clark Walworth
Publisher and Editor
The World

From: Bob Fischer
Sent: Tuesday, July 27, 2010 10:28 PM
To: Undisclosed recipients:
Subject: For Your Information: The World according to Dr. Seuss

I have sent this to the Bandon City Council, the City Manager, and to my progressive friends. I want you to receive a copy from me.
Bob

Recently, Carol and I bought one of our nephews some Dr. Seuss books at a Fred Meyers up north, and the clerk at the checkout stand said he loves Dr. Seuss because that’s how he learned to read, and especially because when he was in college he dropped acid, and every time he did it the world looked just like a story by Dr. Seuss. He said he figures Dr. Seuss was an acid freak, and that’s why he wrote the the kinds of books he did.

There could be something to that.

Here is the short version of the Lakeside City ordinance written by Jessica Lloyd-Rogers of the Coast Lake News in Lakeside. It appeared in Blue Oregon.

Lakeside, Oregon decides that the 4th Amendment doesn’t apply here
By Jessica Lloyd-Rogers of Lakeside, Oregon. Jessica is the editor and publisher of the Coast Lake News, a weekly print newspaper that serves Lakeside and the surrounding area.

With unintended irony, the Lakeside City Council unanimously voted in their July meeting to violate residents’ Fourth Amendment rights when they passed an ordinance which allows city officials or designees to enter private property at will to search for code violations without a prior complaint.

Despite public comments from City Attorney Frederick J. Carleton that, “We are not after the money, we are after curing the problem,”the new ordinance also more than tripled fines from $200 per day per violation to $750 per day per violation.

To be fair, it is possible that the Mayor Pro Tem Rod Schilling, Councilors and the City Attorney did not intend to violate the U.S. Constitution or “go after the money”. Those portions of the ordinance might have been an oversight that could have been discovered and changed with input from the public. That input was prevented by the secretive actions surrounding the adoption of the ordinance.

There was no public notice and the item was not listed on the agenda. Brought up under “Items Not on the Agenda” the Ordinance was referred to only by number and once by title before being immediately adopted without discussion.

Not content with violating the Fourth Amendment and Oregon’s Public Meeting Law, the Council’s procedure violates the City Charter and continues a pattern of secrecy and targeting citizens. And, of course, these are the folks who all ran on a platform of ‘open and transparent’ government.
July 22, 2010

Here is the same story the way it appeared in The World. There are no sneaky and illegal procedures by the City Council. That’s all gone like a fleeting thought, and there is no Fourth Amendment violation, nothing about illegal searches, or trespass, or violations of people’s privacy. Some characters appear who don’t exist. Suddenly, there’s a search warrant to be obtained when none was needed before. Where did that come from? But, the only real problem with the ordinance is it’s kind of vague, and there could be a slight defect, maybe, and perhaps it needs some tweaking… if it gets repealed. Otherwise, it’s all good, and Lakeside will be a better place now, all cleaned up!

Woohoo! I can hear colors and see music! The walls are moving in and out. This stuff is a trip. The World is groovy, man. Here, take one of these and keep reading.

Lakeside questions nuisance law

By Jessica Musicar, Staff Writer | Posted: Tuesday, July 27, 2010 11:00 am

LAKESIDE — Lakeside’s city attorney wants to repeal a new civil violations and enforcement ordinance because it’s too vague and may infringe on people rights.

Although he drafted it, Fred Carleton admits it’s not well written and could have a constitutional defect.

Residents like Naomi Parker agree.

‘I think the wording isn’t so that regular people can even understand the ordinance,” she said.

Parker said she plans to speak at the next Lakeside City Council meeting — 7 p.m. on Aug. 12 — to air her concerns about the ordinance, which increases fines for nuisance abatements from $200 to $750. It also would allow city officials to enter properties that have ongoing nuisance issues by obtaining administrative search warrants from Coos County Circuit Court judges.

Parker said she opposes that part of the ordinance.

She added the ordinance’s language isn’t appropriate for the city. For example, a chief of police could enforce the ordinance, it states, and prosecution shall be filed with the municipal judge of the city.

Lakeside has no such officials.

Carleton said he wanted to give more teeth to the city’s existing nuisance abatement ordinance, which deals with issues such as tall grass — a fire hazard — or rat-infested properties that are considered a public health issue.

He said Lakeside recently has dealt with several egregious cases in which property owners didn’t comply with requests to clean up their property.

Under the new ordinance, if a property is found to be a nuisance by the council — following a community member’s complaint — the owner would be notified and given a number of days to fix the problem.

If an owner doesn’t obey, Carleton said he would submit an affidavit and get an administrative search warrant from a judge that would allow city officials or hired contractors to do the work themselves.

For property owners who refuse permission to enter or inspect the property, enforcement officials may seek an administrative inspection warrant.

Those who do not abate nuisances could pay up to a $750-per-day fine, depending on a judge’s discretion.

However, ‘we don’t want the fines,” he said.

‘We want them to take care of the problem, but we have to have some leverage.”

The ordinance would take effect Aug. 8, a month after it passed.

If it is repealed, Carleton said he’ll rework and present it at the council’s September meeting.

Since it was approved, several residents have put up ‘No Trespassing” signs outside their homes, including Roger Rolen.

He said he didn’t entirely understand the ordinance, but city staff shouldn’t come on his property and attempt to fine him for improving his property.

Reporter Jessica Musicar can be reached at 541-269-1222, ext. 240; or at jmusicar@theworldlink.com.

*** *** *** *** *** ***

PLEASE NOTE: This is not a criticism of Jessica Musicar’s writing. She is a World staff writer, and she has to write what the World’s publisher and editor Clark Walworth tells her to write. But, Fred! Oh my gawd, Fred! Where is your head? Have you ever tried writing children’s books?

Bob Fischer

Clark, I am compelled to challenge your condescending ‘viewpoint’ of Ms Lloyd-Rogers’ reporting. Just because your paper fails to observe and confirm a ‘pattern’ doesn’t disprove its existence or the validity of another journalist reporting on it. Further, your comments are even more ironic considering your paper would not have had this story at all if another journalist at another paper hadn’t broken the story two weeks earlier, causing the city counsel, Fred Carleton, to rethink the flagrant violation of the 4th amendment he crafted as a city ordinance. The real story is that a real journalist did their job and helped avert a public policy blunder. Your paper didn’t even give Coast Lake News a nod.

In the middle of a big proposal my precious computer refuses to boot up. Will be taking it in to the Mac Store Monday and crossing my fingers

Meanwhile there is nice editorial about housing veterans at The World. Am wondering who wrote it because it is finer prose than usual

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?

We didn’t have to wait long to see how The World would handle the news about Sheriff Jackson being cleared of corruption. As everyone knows, an email to the paper from Kevin Stufflebean, unreleased to the public but selectively quoted from, prompted an investigation by the State Attorney General. Given the vagueness and wide sweeping tone of the accusations many people including me felt the paper was errant in even reporting the accusations without some evidence. The Attorney General, also not provided any evidence, found the accusations to be baseless but lack of evidence didn’t stop the paper from giving Stufflebean a platform to vent his anger towards his perceived enemies.

The paper penned an editorial today (better written than usual) likening the commissioner to the boy who cried wolf. The paper throws Stufflebean to the wolves but doesn’t own up to its own responsibility in this entertaining but ridiculous event.

Last month, stinging from a weak finish in the May primary, Stufflebean unleashed a batch of invective, including an unsupported accusation of corruption in the sheriff’s office. He evidently didn’t realize such an allegation would justify an investigation by the state attorney general, which the sheriff solemnly requested.

Not surprisingly, the investigation found nothing. Stufflebean had sound and fury, but no evidence.

“Not surprisingly”, they say, like they knew it all along. If that is true, if they knew the accusations were baseless, then the fact they published the story at all reveals a terrible lack of journalistic ethics. Of course they should have known it all along. How many commissioners report corruption to a paper rather than a district attorney or a police department?

That a sitting commissioner might send a late night venom filled rant to a newspaper about his political enemies is news, sure. Spelling out the accusations without revealing the source document, without any evidence… That is not news, that is sensationalism and at the expense of a lot of people who, had the paper not cooperated with Stufflebean, had they not enabled his childish behavior, would not have had to be bothered.

The paper owes the citizens an apology. Stufflebean isn’t alone in losing credibility over this chapter in Coos County politics.

The World is now representing itself as a voice of reason after enabling Stufflebean to vent against his perceived enemies last week, setting off a State investigation into the Sheriffs Office. Now, after they published this stuff, they call for Stufflebean to show ‘what he’s got’.

One of two things is true. Either the Coos County Sheriff’s Office is corrupt, or County Commissioner Kevin Stufflebean is guilty of rhetorical recklessness.

If it’s the first, then Stufflebean needs to produce his evidence. If it’s the second, he needs to retract his inflammatory comments promptly, and apologize to the honest county employees he has defamed….Assuming Stufflebean’s allegation is nothing but political wind, he should retract it immediately, before the state invests time and money investigating a fantasy. The retraction will hurt Stufflebean’s campaign, but knowingly triggering a needless investigation will hurt worse. Unless he has some real cards to show, he should fold this hand now.

Hello!!! The World should have insisted Stufflebean produce his evidence before they ever published anything or better yet, they should have turned it over to the DA. Maybe the paper should determine whether something is ‘political wind’ or alcohol fueled rants or bad dreams or an ‘undigested bit of beef’ before publishing. As Scrooge said, Stufflebean’s charges are more of gravy than grave.