Pretty damned good call if you ask me.
November 07, 2007
County Split Over DA Measure
Just 31 votes caused the failure of measure 4-123. In our news this morning Commission Chair Richard Lee admitted that the committee for an independent DA did a good job telling it's story in making a case for a change in the county charter which, if it had passed, would have changed the manner in which the county provides compensation for Josh Marquis. Mr. Lee said he is glad that with the failure of this measure the commission can get back to doing the business of the public. Our reporter asked Mr. Lee when the commission might take action on an offer from Mr. Marquis to sit down with the commissioners and talk this out. Mr. Lee said there is a statewide meeting of Oregon Counties coming up and we are in the holiday season after all and he said it was unlikely that the DA will be invited to participate in a November meeting to discuss how to proceed on some agreement with the DA.What? Hopefully the commission understands how close they came to losing control of this situation and takes action quickly to come to a working relationship with this very popularDA which would seem to be very much the business of the public. This election wasn't a slam dunk for either side. It was fortunate for the county that the committee that brought this measure to the ballot decided to take the approach they did. If this had not been a constitutional change to the county charter which would have guaranteed a compensation level for the DA, it might have passed by 31 votes instead. Unless the commission drops it's attempt to control charging decisions made by the Office of District Attorney and comes to a reasonable agreement over performance measures, there could be another initiative that cures the flaws in measure 4-123. Some are already calling for a recall of the majority of the commission.It's time to resolve this matter.
And we see where the DA has promptly submitted his performance measures for 2007/2008 budget.
By the way, whatever happened on that grand jesture of a letter to the "Guvnuh" from our notorious County Commission on a state sanctioned resolution to compensation for the State's District attorneys?
2 comments:
I had a copy of the letter Ted wrote back. It basically outlined the pay increases that have happened over the last few years.....3% here....6% there...1.5% here etc etc....
He also said that his budget gave them a pretty big raise, but the House and Senate changed it.
I saw the same letter, I believe but, "The Commission" has yet to update us at all on the status of their effort on our behalf and that of the District Attorney have they?
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