Just Ross and Tim at the meeting since Lynda's on vacation through June 7.
Open public forum time on the agenda has gotten really interesting. Ross was probably thinking today that he should never have shut Annette McGee down last week. In fact he gave her a whole round of ammunition that she used on him today.
Ross called on Annette first but she said that she'd wait her turn until other citizens had an opportunity to speak because she knows what it's like to be cut off. Recall she was not allowed to speak last week by Ross. What a mistake, Ross.
Lewis Caponi has become quite the regular speaker sharing with us his views on the Arizona state immigration policy. I wonder if he is aware that our commissioners don't set immigration policy for Mason County. Lewis, if you need some budget issues to get outraged about, do drop this blogger a line. I can set you up because I must prioritize what I will be outraged about on a weekly basis. I welcome your support.
Todd Fredson made the case that ADAGE will be cutting down twice the amount of board feet once considered a sustainable practice. Tim of course disagreed with him and missed Todd's point. But I sure wasn't surprised by Tim's response.
I asked the "dreaded questions" about conflicts of interest and personal gain involving the commissioners, family, friends and staff as related to biomass power production. Ross appeared to be responding sincerely that he really needed to check to make sure that he didn't have an issue with Simpson being part of his 401k. Tim said that if he thinks he has a conflict he'll let us know before he casts a vote. I'll have more to say on the whole issue of the costs and benefits of ADAGE, Mason LLC in an upcoming blog. Please check back later in the week.
Annette came back to the podium to really blast Ross. She said that as a former commissioner she would never have denied a citizen the opportunity to speak and that a limit of fifteen minutes per meeting for citizen comment was insufficient. When she served as county commissioner, meetings could last up to two days if the public wanted to speak to the commissioners. And Annette said she never wanted to cut the public off because she needed to hear what they had to say. Boy, what a novel concept - listen to the voters.
Then Annette went on to take exception to Lynda's comment last week when she said, "We've gotten rid of the Fairgrounds. Now we may have to eliminate the Parks, WSU Extension and Probation Services in order to pay the increased union contract costs."
None of these potential cuts would have been necessary had the commissioners made responsible decisions with our money 2006 through 2008. If the Jail union contract is an indicator, then the amount the county will be paying above the adopted budget will be somewhere well above $1 million.
Both Annette and the Undersheriff Jim Barrett underscored that Lynda is attempting to drive a wedge between the Sheriff's department and the other elected officials and department heads. Who ultimately loses in this type of blame game atmosphere? We the citizens are the big losers. As Annette said, "Stop taking it out on us." Sometimes the commissioners appear to be punishing us - the citizens and taxpayers for whom they work and to whom they are answerable.
I'll continue tomorrow on this. Today I'm exhausted.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
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Brenda,
ReplyDeleteI need to remain anonymous and I hope you will honor that but if you like my arguments or parts of them, feel free - in fact I would be honored - if you use them or any part of them.
Here is a little venting. The County has been getting around the wage increase freeze by reclassifying certain non-union positions. If you review the monthly employee action forms from Feb. 2009 to present (which you can obtain from HR) you might be amazed. Most recently, look at the commissioner's staff, they took a "furlough" day (every month or week, I'm not sure)to save money and they were recently reclassified in a much higher salary bracket and I cannot imagine their duties have changed much if at all. Then you have the Commissioners who's salaries are/may be constitutionally mandated - Well I believe the State has the right to deny and/or modify that raise during tough economic times such as these AND the Commissioners can most certainly "donate" their raise back to the County to keep food on the table of the employees from the Parks Dept. I wonder if they would be willing to do that? As far as the Sheriff's office, their raise / settlement should come out of their budget just like with any other department. Facilities and Grounds is a non-mandated service and they haven't been hit at all with budget cuts - they haven't lost anyone. Finally, did the Commissioners ever once ask the County EMPLOYEES what they were willing to do the help the County out? NO, but I'm sure the majority would have been willing to do what they needed to do to save the jobs of their co-workers and help get the county out of this hardship. Everyone I've talked to was willing to take a reduced work week, and/or furlough days. The Commissioners instead assisted in helping County Employees lose their jobs and get the County further in debt. I personally feel that when the Commissioners were cutting the fat by firing/laying off employees, they should have started with themselves - at least then we wouldn't have been sued! They need to be held accountable for all their actions.
Anonymous, thank you for your thoughtful comment. When you post an anonymous comment, your identity is not revealed even to me.
ReplyDeleteFirst off, let me thank you for whatever it is that you do to make our county function. Please don't stop working hard to make Mason County a better place to live.
I'm quite aware that the 60 or so county employees eliminated in the 2008 - 2009 timeframe were not fairly distributed within the county departments and offices. It just simply was not fair and now we have a new baseline. That's how the budgets will be distributed from now on unless there is an intervention.
The new HR should be given two priorities: to settle the union contracts and to conduct a salary and staffing review for all county employees. And I do mean "all" to include Public Works.
Don't get me started on the Commissioner's salaries. Honestly, do they think we are stupid?