A Side Note In A National Debate

One of my pals out there sent this along. I thought I might share it with you. Some of the language is strong but then so are the feelings behind this open letter.

Your comments are always welcome.

THIS SENIOR CITIZEN NAILED IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Alan Simpson, Senator from Wyoming , Co-Chair of Obama's deficit
commission, calls senior citizens the Greediest Generation as he
compared "Social Security" to a Milk Cow with 310 million teats.
August, 2010.

Here's a response in a letter from a unknown fellow in Montana ...
I think he is a little ticked off! He also tells it like it is !
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Hey Alan, let's get a few things straight..

1. As a career politician, you have been on the public dole for FIFTY
YEARS.

2. I have been paying Social Security taxes for 48 YEARS (since I was 15
years old. I am now 63).

3 My Social Security payments, and those of millions of other
Americans, were safely tucked away in an interest bearing account for
decades until you political pukes decided to raid the account and give
OUR money to a bunch of zero ambition losers in return for votes, thus
bankrupting the system and turning Social Security into a Ponzi scheme
that would have made Bernie Madoff proud.

4. Recently, just like Lucy & Charlie Brown, you and your ilk pulled the
proverbial football away from millions of American seniors nearing
retirement and moved the goalposts for full retirement from age 65 to
age 67. NOW, you and your shill commission is proposing to move the
goalposts YET AGAIN.

5 I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying into Medicare
from Day One, and now you morons propose to change the rules of the
game. Why? Because you idiots mismanaged other parts of the economy
to such an extent that you need to steal money from Medicare to pay
the bills.

6. I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying income taxes our
entire lives, and now you propose to increase our taxes yet again. Why?
Because you incompetent bastards spent our money so profligately that
you just kept on spending even after you ran out of money. Now, you come
to the American taxpayers and say you need more to pay off YOUR debt.

To add insult to injury, you label us "greedy" for calling "bullshit" on
your incompetence. Well, Captain Bullshit, I have a few questions for
YOU.

1. How much money have you earned from the American taxpayers during
your pathetic 50-year political career?

2. At what age did you retire from your pathetic political career, and
how much are you receiving in annual retirement benefits from the
American taxpayers?

3. How much do you pay for YOUR government provided health insurance?

4. What cuts in YOUR retirement and healthcare benefits are you
proposing in your disgusting deficit reduction proposal, or, as usual,
have you exempted yourself and your political cronies?

It is you, Captain Bullshit, and your political co-conspirators called
Congress who are the "greedy" ones. It is you and your fellow nutcases
who have bankrupted America and stolen the American dream from
millions of loyal, patriotic taxpayers. And for what? Votes. That's right,
sir. You and yours have bankrupted America for the sole purpose of
advancing your pathetic political careers. You know it, we know it, and
you know that we know it.

And you can take that to the bank, you miserable son of a bitch.
If you like the way things are in America , delete this. If you agree with
what a fellow Montana citizen says, PASS IT ON!!!!

Supremes say "STOP...)

Just got this:

SUPREME COURT HALTS COUNTY PIPELINE REVIEW; HEARING CANCELED



The Oregon Supreme Court, in a ruling handed down Tuesday, issued a stay against Clatsop County from proceeding with its reconsideration of the Oregon Pipeline LLC land-use application. As a result, the public hearing scheduled before the Clatsop County Board of Commissioners for Wednesday, March 30 has been canceled.

The board was scheduled to review and possibly approve findings of fact denying the consolidated application for the construction of 41 miles of natural gas pipeline.

The court also ordered Clatsop County Circuit Court Judge Cindee Matyas to reinstate a writ of mandamus sought by Oregon Pipeline against the county and proceed with the mandamus case.

The board of commissioners is reconsidering the approval originally granted to the Oregon Pipeline application by the county commissioners in November 2010. On March 9 the board gave tentative approval to preliminary findings that would deny the application. The board was due to review the final, modified findings at the March 30 hearing.

On March 4 Oregon Pipeline filed a writ of mandamus petition with the local circuit court, arguing that the county has failed to take final action on its application within the timeframe mandated by Oregon land-use law. Matyas signed the writ and set a show-cause hearing for March 18, but on March 17 she vacated the writ.

On March 21 Oregon Pipeline filed a writ of mandamus with the Supreme Court asking the court to order Matyas to reinstate the writ filed in Clatsop County court, and to stay all proceedings and decisions by the county on the application.

Oregon Pipeline contends that once the writ of mandamus was filed in local circuit court, the county no longer had jurisdiction over the application.

Q&A

Quite a few comments on the weekend round-up post and a couple with questions that readers would like answered. I'll give it a try. Could you remind us all again how much money NNB Radio stations took in in advertising dollars from the various natural gas entities that were trying to convince us to allow these projects to happen? Could that possibly be related to why you would still be trying to advocate for these companies? Answer: Northern Star Natural Gas was an advertising client on NNB radio and ran a regular schedule of ads in support of their project for which they paid just like any other advertiser. NNB also participated in an annual promotional campaign each December in which we took phone calls on the air from listeners who made Christmas wishes which Northern Star granted to the best of their ability. I believe we did run promotional announcements following the campaign each year to say that Northern Star had spent well over $5000.00 each year to do things like get people home for the holidays, buy toys and clothing for those in need..etc. Oregon LNG and Oregon Pipeline are not advertising clients of NNB. Their approach does not seem to include an advertising campaign. Well, Tom, if you actually updated your website with the comments of listeners in a timely manner, you would have heard something different. However, as long as you update when you feel like it and only select the information you want, you will be, unfortuately, very much like Steve Forrester's Daily A. So, why are you here anyway? Answer: It's true that I never have as much time as I would like to respond directly to listener comments here and to moderate comments as quickly as some might like. As far as picking what I publish goes I think if you were to read some of the comments to my posts you might be wondering instead why I would allow some of them that appear to be personal attacks. I think most people understand the difference between a chat room or forum format and a blog. Some don't and want to carry on conversations on line here. I've tried running "boards" in the past and, frankly, I don't have the time to devote to moderate those properly. I like to write. I like to share a personal perspective. This blog provides a space where I can expand on some of the things that the "tyranny of the clock" does not permit on the radio. I do enjoy reading all the comments and sometimes I learn something new.

Clatsop County Weekend Round up

Well my friends it's been quite a while since my last update and we have a lot of ground to cover. In this report we'll have the latest Oregon Pipeline v.s. Clatsop County and we'll take a look at that decision to fire the entire county Planning Commission...

Where to start? How about the Bus?

Former Executive Director Cindy Howe and her lawyer have reached a settlement with SETD and part of it was acceptance of her formal resignation according to a news release from Dan Schwanz who is the temporary Executive Director. Cindy offered her resignation three months ago but the Board refused to accept it. Not because they were trying to talk her out of it but over the settlement terms of her very well written contract. Insiders tell me she didn't get everything she wanted but at least she can put "resigned" on her resume instead of "fired". The rest of the details are officially under wraps. Meanwhile we just got the following news release:

Sunset Empire Transportation District recently announced employee layoff and route service cuts in response to their recent discovery of a severe cash flow problem and mounting debt service. The Transit District with assistance from the Oregon Department of Transportation and Special Districts Association of Oregon developed a financial recovery plan that will allow Sunset Empire Transportation District to eventually restore some of the service cuts implemented in the restructure plan. The Sunset Empire Transportation District Board of Directors invited public input to assist in the restructure plan, route design and service hours. Three new route proposals and other service changes were presented at the regularly scheduled SETD Board of Directors meeting today. Due to the volume of public input the SETD Board elected to postpone making a decision The SETD Board of Directors will hold a Special Meeting at 9 AM on Monday March 28th at the Transit Center in Astoria to make their final decision on the proposed route changes.



The public meeting held on Thursday was packed with people truly scared for their jobs, their homes, their health...and these are riders, although I'm sure it's safe to say that the 36 SETD employees who are looking at lay-offs come the end of the month are thinking about the same things. There were a couple of big sticking points for riders. First, all weekend service will stop. That's a huge problem for riders who depend on that bus to get to and from work. These are the folks that don't have an alternative and the board seems to take no responsibility for seeking a solution. The other point is that the system will be down to six buses total.








The math , such as it is, works out that it costs $45 to $47 per hour to run those buses. If buses are half empty the district loses money every hour. By having fewer buses and either less coverage or less travel time the two guys trying to save SETD from imploding entirely think they have a better shot at filling more seats more consistently thereby reaching the hourly operational cost.



Some people asked about raising money by selling the buses that would otherwise just sit unused. The board didn't respond so I will. The problem is that ODOT holds the title to many of those buses and the buses that are owned by the district are already leveraged. The Board does plan to sell them but only to get out from under trying to maintain them in a mothballed state. They don't expect to make big bucks by reducing the fleet.



There is a misconception about seeking grant funding. There is some of that going on but those grants that Cindy Howe was going for that required matching funds have been thrown out. SETD doesn't have the matching money and it's not likely they would go looking for it. Howe never had the chance to explain how she was going to make that work. The fact is the Board was having difficulty communicating with their Executive Director



Cutting routes has another effect. The State DHS has concerns because so many of their clients absolutely depend on the bus. The State agency on Senior and Disability Services just moved into their new facility in the Warrenton business park and many of their clients depend on the bus service to make appointments there. Community Action Team (CAT) just placed some families in homes in the Warrenton area to get them off the street. The state granted funds to get that done but that grant depended on regular public transportation being available. CAT had no idea that SETD was crashing as they were arranging the grant.


Another misconception is that "somebody" took the money that would have kept the buses running. There is no question that funds were mishandled in terms of the way the budgeting was handled but it's also pretty clear that this situation, from all indications so far, didn't come about as the result of someone stealing from the district. It happened because the District tried to do more than it is truly capable of handling. It tried to be a Tri-Met when all it could really be is much smaller. Running multiple buses on multiple routes in the cities with half full, sometimes nearly empty buses, providing long distance connections between cities more frequently while making many stops along the way. Board Chair Ron Bline put it this way: 'We just had too much out there and now we have to pull back".


Pull back they will and the fallout will be significant.







Meanwhile...Over at the County.........



As KAST reported this week, the Clatsop County Commission threw out the members of the County Planning Commission. The entire planning commission.



I received the following email from one of those volunteers:


" The issue at hand is being mischaracterized as one that claims that Debra Birkby and I have a dispute and that the two of us are engaged in a conflict.

This is not the case.

The issue at hand consists of local citizenry that must interact with Debra, who has functioned in a few public capacities.

During her limited tenures, she has demonstrated a track record that selectively disregards the rule of law and those things that make up good governance for our community.

This is well documented in Arch Cape public record.

Birkby's disrespect for both the rule of law and good governance, as demonstrated in Arch Cape, has now departed South County and has taken up residency on the body of the Clatsop County Board of Commissioners .

My sole issue with Birkby, is to hold her accountable for her campaign promises of restoring transparency and trust in our local government as well as her promise to assist small business in job growth."


Stephen Malkowski / Planning Commissioner



I want to thank Steve for his communication. The reasons for releasing all the Planning Commissioners was not stated clearly by the County Commissioners in public session other than Commissioner Birkby's odd comment that the action marks a "Rite of Passage" for the Commission. This term is usually reserved to describe a significant event that marks a person's progress from one status to another. Marriage is one example. I suppose this would be a divorce. It is common in the business world that when a new CEO takes the helm of a company the executives who worked for the former CEO are asked to resign if their philosophy of operation differs from that of the new boss. Birkby cited the example of a new President bringing along his own adviser's to fill cabinet posts. This is expected. What the County Commissioners did was not.



The action lines up perfectly with Birkby's personal grudges and shows that Chairman Rohne thinks it's quite proper and in fact Democratic to put anything on the agenda that the other commissioners desire without

thinking of consequences. There was nothing wrong with adding this item to the agenda for discussion but to make it an action item that was handled in a matter of minutes doesn't make any sense.



Callers to KAST Coastwatch said it was certainly insulting to those volunteer Planning Commissioners and an insult to anyone who volunteers their time to the County as a matter of civic duty.



Callers also found it troubling that Commissioner Scott Lee made it a point to say to the audience that "There is no conspiracy here" "Methinks thou dost protest too much" would have been my response. Then Commissioner Huhtala really played it up by saying he just wanted to listen to the discussion but he certainly didn't like one of the staff options that would have had him tell the Planning Commissioners from his district that their service would be ending prematurely. He insisted the commissioners formally take it off the table. They did.

The discussion was rather limited. If indeed Commissioner Huhtala was trying to make a decision based on what was said at the meeting I can only conclude he must have psychic powers to have come to the conclusion that dumping the entire Planning Commission was the best possible option. There was no reasonable argument presented. Just the fact that the Planning Commission serves at the pleasure of the County Commissioners doesn't cut it. The disposed of Planning Commissioners may reapply for consideration if they choose. Really? Do you think any of them will? Why would they after a slap in the face like this?



Let's move on, shall we?



Oregon Pipeline has gone to the State Supreme Court with claims that Circuit Court Judge Cindee Matyas acted improperly when she vacated an Alternative Writ Of Mandamus sought by Oregon Pipeline Company against Clatsop County. The Writ was designed to force the County to do one of two things. They could immediately approve the consolidated land use application for the construction of he natural gas pipeline OP needs to build to service it's proposed OLNG terminal in Warrenton, or set a show cause hearing with the court to offer substantial evidence in support of delaying the decision to approve it. Neither of those things happened. Instead Judge Matyas wrote a letter to the parties involved saying that she is satisfied that the process in reconsidering the application, while slow, is still proceeding and she felt it would be inappropriate for the court to take over the process at this time.

Oregon Pipeline argues that the statutes involving the Alternative Writ of Mandamus do not allow the court discretionary powers to simpily cancel the hearing and vacate the Writ. Oregon Pipline says the county missed the statutory deadlines even after Oregon Pipeline agreed to several extensions and that the Writ is intended as a legal remedy for applicants when governments drag their feet on these sorts of decisions.

Oregon Pipeline would like the Oregon Supreme Court to direct Judge Matyas to reinstate the Writ and to make that decision before the county makes it's inevitable decision to deny the permit. OP's lawyers say failure to do so will get very expensive, very fast. They use nicer language but that's pretty much the gist of it.

It seems the County was successful in it's argument with the local court that they had in fact approved the application in question by the agreed deadline and they had also acted legally in later withdrawing the application from LUBA for reconsideration and therefore reset the deadline.

We can only hope that the Supremes see through this shell game.

Well of course there's more to blog about and we'll get to other matters later. Until then feel free to hit the comment link and chat amongst yourselves. Comment moderation is sometimes a bit slow but I ask for your patience.

The New Clatsop County

If I were to ask you to predict what our county will look like over the next five years what would you say? If you exclude those things you would like to see and base your answer on what you know about the political climate and where opportunities would become realities, what would your best guess be?

Nuclear? Really?

The Obama Administration has stated that we should start building more nuclear power plants. In doing so he would point to other counties which have built and operate far more nuclear plants than the United States has. Countries like Japan. You can't say the Japanese aren't careful about building something like a nuclear plant yet it seems the nuclear option may not be the best idea in a country prone to earthquakes to begin with. I'm thinking the Obama energy push will be somewhat less nuclear in the future. I'm thinking he'll even deny he ever brought it up.

Meanwhile the 155 LNG terminals and storage facilities and associated pipelines in Japan seem to have weathered the quake and the tsunamis very well. Any issues following the quake were handled by the individual crews at the sites and there was nothing major to deal with.

Which brings us back home to Clatsop County. The Japanese disaster serves as a great example of what the experts have been saying about LNG safety since the topic first came up. LNG has been around a very long time. The methods and materials for handling the product have developed along with advances in science over those years. Requiring Oregon Pipeline Company to present a fully fleshed out emergency plan before granting permits may seem reasonable but it's truly not. Requiring the company to have a plan in place before the gas is allowed to flow is reasonable. That's why it was deemed a "condition" of approval. As long as our emergency responders end up with everything they need to handle any conceivable emergency along the pipeline route, I'm happy. It's reasonable. To hold out on this issue shows the automatic bias of the commissioners. The fact that their own attorney had to warn them to actually have a reason for changing the requirements was troubling.

Ah-h-h The Weekend Has Arrived

Do me a favor? Drive carefully or not at all. Don't use candles for lighting, kerosine or gasoline for heating and, lets just keep that barbecue outside on the deck where it belongs. Tie everything down just in case the wind blows and if you plan to set foot in a boat of any kind make sure you wear a life vest and stay out of dangerous currents. No traffic accidents, no fires and, if you don't know how to run a tractor stay away from them because the first thing that happens is they turn over on top of you. Don't even get me started on the topic of chainsaws. Have a safe weekend. Let's not create any news..okay?

Transit A Mess

After attending SETD board meetings recently and hearing first-hand the situation the bus service finds itself in I can't help wondering what the real story is here.

We reported last Thursday that the South County Transit Center is a dead deal and we also reported that at this point the transit agency figures it is spending about $70k to $80k more each month than it takes in. It's also reported that the ridership numbers are no where near the estimates used to apply for some grants the agency was seeking up until the board decided to abandon those applications.

My question is: Was there a governing board for this organization before November of 2010? apparently there was because the Executive Director did get some job performance reviews from somebody. According to the paper the reviews were positive with one exception. It's easy to remember the conflict between Cindy Howe and Jim Santee because it was rare for any spate to become as public as that one was. Jim didn't buy in the boards position and frequently asked questions that created unwelcome conflict. This is where I depart from some. Government boards are not formed with the idea that each member must agree on every point of discussion. If you find yourself on the losing end of a vote that doesn't mean you give up your position and support the majority just to appear to be cooperative. Sometimes the majority is wrong and to change one's public position on an issue isn't necessary unless you have been utterly convinced that your position was incorrect. Unfortunately I've seen this question asked: Okay you have voted against the majority of the board but you will support the majority position. Is that correct?". A completely inappropriate question on the part of a board leader whether that be a chairman or a Mayor.