County Politics

The role of an elected Board of County Commissioners (BCC) is to provide public oversight, fiscal responsibility, and transparent governance. But recent policy shifts in administrative meetings are raising serious questions about where the real authority lies and whether the public is being left in the dark.We need answers to these critical transparency questions:Delegation of Power: Is it true that the BCC recently approved a policy change giving individual department heads the unilateral authority to…

Last month, the Board of County Commissioners (BCC) terminated all three budget committee members, allegedly because "they all thought the same." While the board needed to stagger terms, they could have simply let current terms expire in November or asked for volunteers to accept one, two, or three-year seats. Instead, by dissolving the committee entirely, the BCC violated ORS 294.414, ignoring established state statutes. The board claims to want "diverse thinking," which explains their appointment…