The BCC Weekly – Taking the “Blind” out of the BCC
Commissioner Chris Barnett, head of all things “news” and PR in the Josephine County BCC Office, snubbed the local favorite radio station KAJO recently as the venue for more regular talk shows by the Board of County Commissioners (BCC). Barnett instead announced multiple times that Commissioners and County staff would make biweekly appearances on the highly partisan Bill Meyer radio show. Then this week Barnett posted a big spiteful article on his personal business “news” Facebook pages titled “Why Radio Advertising Doesn’t Work Anymore.”
Last week Commissioner Barnett himself took the liberty of making the first biweekly appearance on the Bill Meyer Show to try and address various questions and comments lingering by Josephine County BCC watchers. It’s an interesting choice that Barnett would use the highly partisan Bill Meyer show to do this instead of answering the many questions and comments that Josephine County citizens and local media representatives have posed to the BCC.
Commissioners Barnett and Blech recently refuse to answer most questions by the media or by citizens in weekly business sessions, don’t return voicemail messages, and refuse to meet with most members of local media. One has to question whether this is because Commissioner Barnett personally formed at least one new “news” reporting business not long after being sworn in as Commissioner. Barnett’s “Josephine County Tribune” Facebook page has done paid advertising on Facebook and recently has been advertising for reporter/journalist jobs.
With at least two more county department heads either resigning or being fired by the BCC in the last week, Josephine County is undergoing a fundamental restructuring of its leadership and operating structure. This is all while commissioners refuse to allow the public, their bosses, to weigh in on any part of this grand restructuring.
We’ve now lost the majority of the non-elected department heads of the County along with most staff in several county divisions, and the BCC refuses to answer media or public questions as to why these terminations were necessary. Last week’s casualties were Rob Brandes, the Public Works Director and Jim Goodwin, the Juvenile Justice Director. Both gentlemen were known and respected locally and throughout the state for being very good at what they did for Josephine County. Both had worked for Josephine County for many, many years, dedicated and loyal to the County through the good and the bad over the years. The true cost of losing them and many other talented staff can’t be accurately calculated.
Barnett’s first biweekly appearance on the Bill Meyer Show definitely seemed scripted, in my opinion. And Barnett played off all this Josephine County chaos as nothing more than business as usual, how any organization would have to react to tightening budgets and drops in revenue (except operating revenue of the County has actually increased significantly in the last two years). Barnett, rather than answering the questions just answered some of them in generic format without actually answering. For example, the why behind the cuts was answered by Barnett in the same way he answered these types of questions when he was running for office or deflecting without actually answering.
Bill Meyer asked, “How is the rightsizing going,” and “what is the status of the trimming?” Barnett’s response: “Well we do have a little bit of a reorganization going on but every company and every business in America goes through this and the County government is no different.” Then he went on to talk about reorganizations he saw during his days in the military.
Barnett continued, “We’re kind of going with internal audits seeing what we are doing and how we can be more efficient. And I think the people that voted us in, they want more efficiency in government, they want things to run faster and quicker, and they want us to be good stewards of their taxpayer dollars. We have to go in and look out for fraud, waste, and abuse and those are the things we are looking at right now for the taxpayers that voted us in.” Meyer then suggested that it sounds like they are going the DOGE route here at the local level.
Except with those goals in mind as stated by Barnett, many of the end results will be exactly the opposite of those goals in my opinion. Dismantling departments, firing well respected department heads for no reason, cutting budgets when there isn’t a financial need to do so, according to many has led to an attitude of no confidence in the leadership of the County. This then leads to low productivity and very inefficient working environments. And the lawsuits from former employees are starting to pile up. Yet another improper termination lawsuit was filed by a former county employee just this week.
At the current rate of lawsuits being filed against the county, the County is risking losing its insurance provider and the DOGE-light Josephine County BCC is likely to face increased costs and an extremely inefficient workforce for many years to come. This is the opposite of the happy happy joy joy goals and interview answers stated by Barnett on the Bill Meyer show last week. And we have confirmation that several other former County employees have now lawyered up.
The next scripted question was “What is Michael Sellers role now…it’s been kind of a work in progress, and I know when the emergency manager position went away he took that on and what is the story?” Barnett responded, “Michael Sellers has really stepped up. He really cares about the County and how we do things there and try to run more efficiently. He is the Director of Operations, so that is his job. He oversees the other departments, and he gives us briefings and updates…it kind of makes the process of supervising more efficient and the Director of Operations is doing that. And it gives us more time as commissioners to be out in the field and do things people want us to do.”
Bill Meyer went on to ask about whether this is an efficiency move that is to give the county “one chief versus many chiefs.” Surprisingly, Barnett answered, “Exactly, just one to supervise all other managers and directors…so they go to him, he comes to us (the BCC), we put things on the agenda…” Meyer asked if Sellers was essentially the equivalent of the Jackson County Manager Danny Jordan. Barnett said, “He’s performing a lot of those duties without being the manager, he’s not the County Manager at all.”
I about spit out my coffee when I heard Barnett say this. Because Barnett just described that Sellers is doing exactly what the main duties of a County Manager actually are. But Barnett says Sellers is “not the County Manager at all.”
No wonder the former County Finance Director didn’t speak up when Sellers made mistakes such as prematurely recommending cutting the Firewise program budget in half because he didn’t analyze the available budget of the Firewise program correctly. No County employee would want to face the wrath of the County Manager equivalent or the County Commissioners who put him into this position as a political favor and not because he had the skills and experience to serve in this role (in my opinion).
Ironically, Barnett and recalled commissioner John West along with the who’s who of the Josephine County Republican Party Central Committee rallied against the County Charter change on the May 2024 Ballot in Josephine County which would have created a County Manager role and more of a County Manager form of government in Josephine County. And going with a County Manager form of government was one of the main things that they campaigned against, saying how it would be at a huge cost to taxpayers and nobody wants an unelected bureaucrat running the County. But that’s exactly what we have now.
Recalled Commissioner John West spent well over $10,000 of his personal money campaigning against this Charter change ballot measure as admitted by West in video interviews during the recall campaign. Ironically, Michael Sellers, now the acting equivalent of the Josephine County Manager, has been and continues to be the Vice Chair of the Josephine County Republican Party Executive Committee.
Essentially, Barnett just said the quiet part out loud. Now that one of their own is holding the title of the equivalent of the Josephine County Manager, it’s okay for Josephine County to operate similar to a County Manager form of government where it’s the Manager actually supervising departments rather than Commissioners supervising departments. This is the very thing that they violently rallied against when the Charter change proposal was on the ballot. There were daily reminders on the partisan Bill Meyer Show about how bad this charter change ballot measure was.
Now the very people that were most opposed to the Charter change have restructured the County operations to be similar to what would have been required by the proposed failed Charter change ballot measure. I guess the current BCC members and Vice Chair Michael Sellers support a charter change, after all.
And by making this change, in my opinion the BCC is saying, “We don’t want to do the job that voters elected us to do and that we’re being paid a very nice salary to do. We just want to do the fun stuff like going out in the field and going to meetings and spending time with our constituents.” But don’t take my word for it, just find the podcast archive and listen to Barnett’s segment on the Bill Meyer Show last week.