If there’s one thing that City and County elected officials and former elected officials like to brag about or pretend to brag about in Josephine County, it’s their supposed support for local public safety or local law enforcement. But as always, we must observe what they do, not what they say.
Former Josephine County Commissioner Herman Baertschiger was on the Bill Meyer Radio Show again on Tuesday morning, August 25, and announced that he filed a court challenge to the ballot title for the County’s Adult Jail and Juvenile Justice Detention Levy renewal. Baertschiger’s primary argument seems to be the use of the word “renewal” in the ballot title language.
There is a brief period after ballot measures are filed that a member of the public can argue the ballot title. Baertschiger proclaimed that he recently paid a $281 court fee to challenge the local option levy renewal measure recently approved by the Josephine County Board of Commissioners.
My opinion is that Baertschiger is grasping at straws in a desperate attempt to make the current county commissioners look bad so that his buddies such as recalled Commissioner John West have a better chance of getting back into office in the election this November. And, as we reported here two weeks ago, Baertschiger’s recent comments on the Bill Meyer Show have proven that Baertschiger doesn’t watch all the County Commissioner meetings anymore since he ended his term as Commissioner in January 2025 and hasn’t analyzed in depth the actual financial position of the Adult Jail and Juvenile Justice detention program budgets.
A little bit of history is in order here before discussing what else Baertschiger said on the radio this week to try and sabotage this levy renewal effort. First, not everyone knows that Baertschiger would have likely faced a recall as commissioner in 2024 had his term as commissioner not been ending at the end of 2024. At the same time as voters soundly recalled John West from office in 2024 by about 62% of those that voted in the recall election, the large group of citizens that supported the John West recall also had a serious discussion about filing a similar recall petition against Herman Baertschiger.
Many, but not all, of the factual and opinion statements appearing all the recall petition for John West could have also been stated in a recall petition for Herman Baertschiger. Chief among them, in my opinion, would have been “ignoring the will of the people” as in his last year in office in 2024 he failed to appropriate the resources to the Sheriff’s patrol budget that voters just voted in during the November 2023 election. For two years after 2023, we paid property taxes for a level of service that the County Commissioners failed to deliver during the budget approval and adoption process.
Just two weeks ago, Josephine County Commissioners made the right decision for the reasons we’ve discussed in the Grants Pass Tribune over the last two months. And that decision was to place a levy renewal on the ballot for the exact same rate of 93 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value. This is the same tax rate it has been at for the last 10 fiscal years since it was first approved by voters in 2017. The current levy expires next year and simply needs to be “renewed.”
This summer, the Josephine County Commissioners discussed a range of options because over the last 10 years the rate of expense inflation has been slightly higher than the rate of growth in assessed values and growth in property tax revenues. But in the end, in my opinion they made the right call by simply calling this a renewal and drafting a levy renewal measure very similar to the last time it was “renewed” (in 2021 when Baertschiger was a commissioner).
According to Baertschiger’s comments on the radio, he objects to calling this a renewal mainly because the ballot measure language no longer states explicitly that it supports all 14 beds on the detention side of the Juvenile Justice programs. The measure still says 185 beds in the adult jail but leaves out more specific information about juvenile justice detention.
However, in my opinion, this does not in itself mean this can’t be considered a renewal. County Commissioners themselves stated in a public appearance just this week that the juvenile detention program, used for youth that allegedly committed very serious crimes, is staffed at the same level no matter whether all beds are filled or just a few are filled. The logistics and operating requirements for juvenile detention are the same no matter how many of those beds are filled at the same time.
That fact, plus the truth of the financial position of the County’s jail and detention fund makes it look to me like Baertschiger just wasted $281 of his money on this ballot title court challenge.
On the radio, Baertschiger complained about how much the levy is projected to bring in for the next five years compared to how much it brought in 10 years ago. Sure, 10 years of inflation adds up fast…so what’s your point Mr. Baertschiger? He didn’t seem to have a point other than to make it sound like the County is grabbing for a whole bunch of new money. No, this truly is a renewal as it funds the same services at the exact same property tax rate as it’s been for the past 10 years.
In the current environment, where generally inflation is slightly outpacing the growth in assessed values, it is possible that a small amount of general fund or other resources may need to supplement the jail and juvenile detention levy towards the end of what would be the next levy renewal period. And this is the primary reason why the County made some relatively minor changes to the ballot measure language for this year’s renewal.
But what Baertschiger failed to discuss, a critical error in my view, is that the County didn’t even spend all the property tax revenues from previous jail/juvenile levies. And usually, these programs don’t spend their full budgets due to having temporary staffing vacancies and other reasons.
In the Jail/Juvenile detention fund, there is a current carryover fund balance of at least $2.4 million according to County budget documents. This is the amount of previous levies that went unspent. And according to recent comments by the County’s newly appointed Finance Director, that carryover savings amount may be even higher. This helps make the levy renewal more sustainable during the next five-year renewal period.
Baertschiger continued on the radio with several other comments that were nothing other than red herrings, in my view. Red herring comments by Baertschiger included flippant comments such as, “every time you turn around they are going back to the citizens’ well for more money” and “how much can we afford” and complaining about average income levels in Josephine County and some county staff compensation studies that were recently done. And then despite voters approving this levy renewal by a landslide 66% of the voters the last time it was before voters, Baertschiger went on the record predicting that voters would start turning down these types of ballot measures.
Baertschiger even went as far as to imply the current commissioners have had illegal serial communications among board members this year about another funding measure that could be proposed next year specific to the Juvenile Justice program. It was clear that Baertschiger has not watched all the commissioner workshop meetings on this topic, because this is simply just one of the many options they considered while crafting this renewal measure.
Baertschiger’s radio comments on this topic both this week and in recent weeks included very little hard factual data about the County’s financial position, the true state of the jail and juvenile justice detention budgets, savings from previous levy periods, and comments related to how much the County forestry budget contributes to juvenile justice. Baertschiger even implied that funding from this levy wouldn’t go to juvenile detention according to the ballot language, which just isn’t factual.
It was crystal clear to me that Baertschiger’s main goal is to sabotage this levy renewal ballot measure. No matter what happens in court, let’s hope voters remember how bad things were for local public safety in Grants Pass and Josephine County when the County was in financial crisis between 2012 and 2017 and had a relatively minimal budget for adult jail services. Our justice system just doesn’t work when there isn’t a jail operating at the proper level.
I also find it odd that the Bill Meyer Show keeps bringing a former county commissioner on the radio show to discuss what current county commissioners are doing. Clearly Baertschiger doesn’t watch all the current county commissioner meetings. Why not invite the current county commissioners or the Josephine County Sheriff on the radio program as the subject matter experts when discussing current proposed ballot measures?
The courts usually take up ballot title challenges in a relatively rapid fashion, given tight timelines to hold elections and distribute the voters pamphlet. In my opinion, no matter what the court decides this is a simple renewal of the same 93-cent levy that has supported these programs for the last 10 years. And no matter what the court says about the specific language of the ballot title, voters should “renew” this levy when you get your ballots in the mail in about two months.