By KELLI FONTENOT and ED COX
Published July 23, 2008 by The Dalles Chronicle
MOSIER — The Wasco County Home Rule Charter Committee has decided that five is the magic number — of commissioners, that is.
In finally resolving one of its longstanding questions at the Mosier Grange Thursday night, the committee charged with proposing a reorganization of the county’s government unanimously settled on the idea of electing four commissioners by district and one chair at large. Still unresolved is the issue of whether the charter would call for a hired county administrator.
Each commissioner must have lived in Wasco County for one year prior to the election. Everyone agreed that all positions should be nonpartisan.
There was also a lively debate over whether public employees should be allowed on the board.
The committee discussed not allowing any employees whose paychecks derive from taxpayer dollars to be able to be part of a committee. The draft states that “No regular or temporary public employee shall be eligible to serve as a member of the board of commissioners.”
Committee member Julie Krueger said she thought it was discrimination to exclude someone from a commitee based on whether or not they were a public employee. She noted that people who run for commissioner positions generally do so in the interest of serving the community. Other committee members argued that being employed by the public would incite conflicts of interest.
In the end, the committee voted 4-2 to exclude public employees, with chairman Keith Mobley abstaining and Krueger and McHale opposed. Since the meeting, Mobley said The Dalles City Manager Nolan Young, speaking as a citizen, has protested the public employee exclusion. Mobley said the committee will the matter again at its next meeting.
Committee member Georgia Murray raised another personnel issue. She said that at one point, at least six members of the same family were working for the county. She made it clear that she did not wish for currently employed county workers to be fired merely because they are related, but she suggested that the charter could mention the situation to prevent it from continuing.
“I agree that’s a problem,” said committee member Van Valkenburgh. “I don’t think it should be in the charter, but I think that it’s a good personnel policy.”
“Well, do you want to put a limit on more than five family members?” committee member Jack Hay joked.
Everyone laughed, but Murray said she has started asking new employees whom they are related to because it seems everyone working for the county is related.
“I just think that there are so many people out there who are qualified, but it seems like everybody who gets a job is related to somebody, and I just don’t like that,” Murray said.
That particular issue remained unresolved.
At the sparsely attended meeting, Bill Ward, one of the two audience members from Mosier, said the charter should be constructed without deceptive language and terms that are not immediately understandable. Ward, Mosier’s former mayor, said a five-commissioner board was “fine” and asked the committee to make sure it contained both a representative from western Wasco county and a professional to lead the board.
“As long as you get a good person who has the capacity by education, training and experience that can give you what you need, I think that’s a very good idea,” Ward said.
The committee spent part of the meeting looking through a list of ordinances processed by the county court, as an extension of an earlier discussion about proposed rules for passing ordinances and the use of emergency clauses.
In the words of the charter draft, “An ordinance adopted to meet an emergency may take effect as soon as it is adopted. An emergency ordinance is in existence of clear and present danger or threat to life or property of the people of Wasco County, resulting from a disaster either natural or manmade.” Emergency ordinances authorize immediate action — in short, there’s no 30-day waiting period to deal with.
Murray went to the county courthouse and compiled a complete list of all ordinances processed by the county court since 2003. According to her research, the county considered 40 percent of those to be emergencies. Murray will redraft that information and present it again at the next meeting.
The next committee meeting is set for Thursday, July 31 from 3 to 5 p.m. at the Wasco County Courthouse. The committee will begin with an examination of Article 4 of the charter draft — deciding whether they want an administrator.
Early in Thursday’s meeting, McHale, the committee’s self-described “court jester,” remarked that the committee would not have to argue over the same issues repeatedly if certain members were not so stubborn.
“We’re not hard-headed,” vice chair Lewis Flint said. “We just want to get it right.”
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