As mentioned in Part One of this series, immediately upon filing the recall petition in early August 2024, Commissioner West began the personal attacks on a few of us that were helping to lead the recall effort. West falsely claimed this effort was from the “other” political party, claimed in error without any research that the recall petition points were not true, and began personal attacks against the recall’s chief petitioner and others.
Then came the lawsuits. One was a $500,000 lawsuit against the founder and owner of the Grants Pass Tribune for articles supporting the recall points. Another lawsuit was filed against the County Clerk for the method of verifying recall petition signatures. And then a last-minute lawsuit was filed against the chief petitioner for the recall points and recall language.
The timing of the most recent lawsuit against the recall chief petitioner is highly suspect, given it was filed a week after ballots were mailed out. If Commissioner West had that much of a problem with the petition language he should have filed this lawsuit four months ago when the recall petition signature gathering effort began. Filing the case four months later and after ballots were sent out appears like a political stunt at best.
December 17th this case gets tried in the court of public opinion. Then much later the case will be tried in the court of law. Personally, I look forward to both because I know all fact-based points in the recall petition are true.
The recall petition was given 200 words in the legal petition to explain the reasons for the recall. We spent considerable time on the language to make sure we could back up any fact-based points on the petition. After signature verification, Commissioner West was also given 200 words to fill out a Statement of Justification for the ballot. West didn’t argue against any of the specific points in the recall petition in the Statement of Justification.
But when it comes to the campaign material developed and distributed by Commissioner West and the Central Committee of the Josephine County Republican Party, false statements in campaign materials are almost too many to count. West has been observed making false statements against many other candidates and measures in the past, and West’s recall campaign is quite the work of fiction. Unfortunately for Commissioner West, “ORS 260.532 False publication relating to candidate or measure” covers both printed and digital campaign materials.
Let’s dive into a recall-related brochure prominently highlighted on the home page of the Josephine County Republican Party (worthy again to note that the founders of this recall movement were all Republicans that wanted to hold one of our own accountable). The brochure has seven “They Lied…” statements in it, referring to the recall petition. Those are as follows:
- They Lied saying John West engaged in, “Bad faith negotiations in the Pipe Fork property sale…” West merely states he did not, as proven on public record and merely claims he’s just one of three on the board.
Truth – after agreeing on a higher revised property sale price after West got into office, West insisted at the very last minute on a deed restriction that he knew the BLM would never agree to in order to torpedo the deal. This was a bad decision, contrary to previous promises, and the County lost a sale of the property for $2.3 million and well above the official appraised price of the property.
- They Lied saying John West “Ignored the will of the voters by eliminating funding for community programs including OSU extension, Law Enforcement…” West didn’t even argue this one, only stating that there are three commissioners on board.
Truth – the OSU extension was a voter approved service district, and West was the tie breaking vote when the board eliminated the funding. West was also the tie-breaking vote in a budget approval decision that saw a significant amount of General Fund revenue taken away from the County Sheriff only 6 months after voters approved a new Law Enforcement Service District for additional revenues for the Sheriff. One County Budget Committee member called this a bait and switch and many in the community are unhappy with West’s budget actions right after County voters said otherwise.
- They Lied saying, “West has shown a pattern of violating state laws, including campaign finance regulations and public meeting laws, and is currently facing several pending ethics and labor law violations.” West claimed in his rebuttal that he has not been found to have violated any regulations or laws and has been cleared of all investigated claims.
Truth – The Recall Committee has documentation of dozens of campaign finance reporting violations and Commissioner West even admitted at least twice on video interviews in recent months that he spent thousands of his personal money campaigning on certain ballot issues without reporting that campaign spending. State law requires campaign spending to be reported when it’s in excess of $250 for the year if you’re campaigning for or against a measure or individual on the ballot. West also admitted to having 13 ethics violation claims filed against him. The Oregon Government Ethics Commission only reports case dispositions online and only three West case dispositions have been reported. There are also some pending BOLI complaints, and the Recall Committee has documented at least one major incident where West broke County law. See the fact sheet posted at www.RecallJohnWest.com for many of these details.
- They Lied alleging John West “Unlawfully approved a Library District withdrawal leading to costly litigation.” West claims he acted lawfully with the other commissioners and worked to rectify an error when it was discovered.
Truth – West and friends had been attacking the Library District in several ways and West as the tiebreaking vote to allow an illegal withdrawal to be approved was just one of a few ways West was attacking the Library District. West’s political allies (those he often works with on political campaigns) were working hard to get elected seats on the Library District board, worked to prevent the Library from getting a $200,000 grant, and quickly added several political allies to the agenda for district withdrawal before a lawsuit had to be filed to stop them. Also West himself was personally calling people interested in annexing into the District to try and talk them out of annexing using very misleading statements about the financial consequences of joining the district. The Library District would not have moved forward with their lawsuit if it wasn’t necessary, and the settlement of the lawsuit is what reversed the illegally approved withdrawal request.
- They Lied alleging “West has shown a pattern of threating community safety by reducing the Firewise program, reducing the Emergency Management program, and eliminating the property development fire standards.” West claimed he voted to extend the length of the Firewise Program because of budget cuts from the state and said he never cut emergency management programs.
Truth – These items are all fairly correlated and are also prime examples of the many rash and costly decisions and votes made by West while ignoring public comments. As shown in the fact sheet on the Recall website, West had an illegal meeting with Commissioner Baertschiger and decided to combine the Emergency Management and IT departments into one department so that they could appoint their longtime political ally to be the department director of these two combined departments. This appointed individual worked for Commissioner Baertschiger while he served in the State Senate, and as of the time the recall petition was launched this individual still worked full time for two State Senators while serving as the full time Director of both County IT and County Emergency Management. This individual had no real boots on the ground experience with Emergency Management and was now the Director.
The Director’s lack of time (from working 3 jobs) and lack of Emergency Management experience reduced the amount of time staff worked in Emergency Management and led to at least one major mistake. This Director recommended cutting the Firewise program in half because he thought the program money was running out. The truth is this Director misinterpreted or didn’t know how these grant funds that provide for the program could be used and gave bad advice to the Commissioners. There was plenty of money to continue operating the Firewise program at full strength for many years to come and this was confirmed when I personally had a meeting with the County Finance Director. County Commissioners made a rash decision to cut this program without checking with all the direct program participants and refused to listen to public testimony around the time the program was cut. Commissioners have also refused to acknowledge this major mistake in the several requests made to them asking if they will refund the Firewise program because no matter the public benefit West and his appointed political ally can’t admit any of the Recall Petition points actually have merit.
And finally, despite warnings from ODF, West spearheaded changes to County code that no longer required a property developer to enroll in a structural fire protection service if the rural property was served by ODF. The problem here of course is that ODF does not provide structural fire protection and only works on wildfire issues. Commissioners were told by several people this code change could not happen legally. But they didn’t listen and in July 2024 the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals reversed this change to fire protection requirements. Perhaps not coincidentally, one of West’s personal businesses is developing residential properties in rural Josephine County.
- They Lied alleging John West “Hired unqualified political allies for key County employee and contract positions.” West tries to deflect on this one by saying he can’t hire anyone on his own and the board votes on new hires.
Truth – Examples of this are well documented in the recall fact sheet at www.RecallJohnWest.com as well as in a September 16, 2024 story in the Grants Pass Tribune titled “A Story of Corruption…” Not only did West along with Commissioner Baertschiger ignore a highly qualified candidate that applied for the Emergency Manager Director role, but they also held an illegal meeting and decided to appoint their friend and political ally Michael Sellers to a newly created job which was the director over both the County IT and Emergency Management departments. For at least the last couple years Michael Sellers also happens to be vice chair of the Josephine County Republican Executive Committee.
And when news broke that Michael Sellers spent at least his first year as the director of both these two County departments while also working two other jobs for two State Senators, we’ve heard nothing from West and the Josephine County Commissioners about this conflict and abuse of taxpayer money. West even claimed in a media interview that he didn’t know Sellers had these other jobs, despite one of them being on Sellers’ job application when he first applied for the job. This is further evidence he was appointed because of who he knew, not because of his qualifications.
Also as well documented in the Grants Pass Tribune in early 2024, West got his friend and political ally, former Commissioner Simon Hare a broadband grant-related contracting job with Josephine County. Except, apparently West was so eager for his friend to start getting paid that two months of his contract salary were paid before the County Commissioners even considered voting on the contract and before the County had a signed contract for services. West admitted in a County public meeting that he is the one that made all these arrangements.
- They Lied alleging “During Commissioner John West’s first 19 months in office, he has cost the County at least an estimated $6,424,000 in lost revenues, increased costs, and reductions in voter-approved and valued County programs (Pipe Fork property, 4H/OSU Extension Service, a potential mining lease, and more). West claims he has not cost the county any funds and that the commissioners have saved the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars by combining departments and getting rid of costly administrators.
Truth – Commissioner West brags about these sort of cost-cutting measures, but the inconvenient truth is in the first annual budget season after West voted to combine the IT and Emergency Management departments, these two departments showed a total combined budget increase of $835,400 or an increase of 35.3% in fiscal 2025 versus the fiscal 2024 budget. So much for any money savings there. The losses to the County are well documented on the Recall website as well as in Part One of this series.
In conclusion, Commissioner West may have declined to argue the petition points in the official Statement of Justification elections filing form, but it’s also illegal per ORS 260.532 to publish these kinds of false statements in advertisements, newspapers, or in digital form. West and his political allies in the Josephine County Republican Party Central Committee have published these and many other false statements about the recall measure in all of these locations.
If you want to dive into the details behind the Recall Petition points, see the fact sheet posted at www.RecallJohnWest.com and feel free to reach out to the Recall Committee with any questions.
