A Point to Ponder
“If the County is so damned broke, why are they continuing to pursue Dan Driscoll and Oysterville Sea Farms? How much drain is their current court appeal on the county?”
We ‘ve been asked that question many times since last week’s banner headline in the Chinook Observer: Money cliff nears for Pacific County with the sub-head Top official: Worst situation in her 30-year career. I imagine there will be some letters to the editor in today’s paper asking the same questions. I hope so.
We’ve certainly been pondering that question ourselves. But not out loud to anyone who could give us an answer. We gave up on that long ago. There is undoubtedly some cosmic law regarding perfectly intelligent, well-meaning people saying one thing when they run for office and another as soon as they are sworn in. Those of us who ask questions are suddenly ‘outsiders’ and don’t understand the full implications yada yada yada.
Personal Privacy vs Full Disclosure? Maybe something like that. Whatever the reason/excuse/pretext is, it seems endemic to public officials and public employees in general to begin their jobs with good intentions and end up giving us folks outside the loop answers in governmental gobbledygook. Like ‘these dollars’ can only be used for ‘this purpose’ or that the State makes increasing demands of Counties without commensurate financial compensation.
But I don’t think the Oysterville Sea Farms situation comes under those sorts of budget constraints. Nope. This is a home-grown affair and, as I see it, it’s sucking up a lot of our tax dollars. Money that could go toward keeping staff positions that may otherwise be threatened with layoffs. It seems a no-brainer for the County to drop their appeal and save the money
As a result of this blog, I’ll likely hear from both sides of the OSF equation. I hope not. We’ve had ten long years to listen to the pros and cons. We’re tired of the bureaucratic answers. In fact, we’re tired of the bureaucracy – the entire convoluted process. And we are dead tired of wondering how much money the County has spent on this unpopular pursuit of one of our most popular Oysterville residents.
Whatever happened to the of, by and for the people? You’d think in a County the size of ours, we could get it right. But, no. We ‘outsiders’ seem destined to just keep pondering…
I sent an article on this subject to the Chinook Observer last Monday and they chose not to enter it in todays issue. I also processed a records request and received a one page response
indicating they could only account of $2800.00 of expenditures for lay legal work. “They do not keep track of labor hours spent on this issue”. How do they build budgets ? No wonder they are running out of money. A sad issue of certain people spending tax payers money
for personal reasons.
I’m with you. I didn’t vote for the commissioner that is involved in wasting our limited county’s money. But he got re elected. ?? Surprised me!