The BCC Weekly – Taking the “Blind” out of the BCC
Many of us understand the “Lion, Tiger, and Bears oh my” expression of the fear of unknown dangers made popular by the 1939 musical film Wizard of Oz. Nostalgic fears start to fade as recent events such as the circulation of recall petitions for Commissioners Barnett and Blech appear to be bringing the dark scary unknown more into the light.
Last week’s BCC Weekly “The Whitepaper That Wasn’t” discussed many false statements and exaggerations contained in the “Whitepaper” recently drafted and sent out by Commissioners Barnett and Blech in response to the recall petitions filed against both of them about 5 weeks ago. The most outrageous of the lyin’ in the “Whitepaper” and by supporters of the Commissioners is that the far-left national group Indivisible and local chapters of Indivisible are responsible for funding and arranging the recall.
One of the primary authors of this outrageous conspiracy theory, Olivia Herrera, outed herself two weeks ago with her first appearance on the Bill Meyer Radio show. Ms. Herrera had a long segment on the radio show talking about how she had been researching Indivisible and related local chapters for years and she was about to release some detailed information about the group by documentary video and otherwise.
Then within a couple days came the YouTube video based on Olivia Herrera’s research that was released by Jordan Mortenson, who earlier this year became good friends with Commissioner Barnett and also recently became a new writer for Commissioner Chris Barnett’s various “news” pages on Facebook. The video, narrated by Mortenson himself, starts by saying “The new recall effort of our Josephine County Commissioners is paid for and organized by none other than Rogue Indivisible.” That’s an interesting statement given Rogue Indivisible was just reorganized and according to the new Chair doesn’t even have a bank account as of a couple weeks ago. Secretary of State Business filings confirm the group has been inactive for a few years. When a few local folks pointed this out along with other facts, Mortenson quickly deleted and revised a news article he posted on Chris Barnett’s various “news” Facebook pages. However, as of the date of this article the false statements on the video remain.
But clearly the opposition to the recall petitions is not letting facts get in the way of a good story. In the last week, newly infamous figures such as Olivia Herrera and Bryan Welden have been staffing recall opposition tables in places such as in front of the post office and next to the Saturday Growers’ Market. These opposition tables have attempted to be placed right in the same spot or right next to the spot where recall committee volunteers are attempting to gather signatures. Last week a video was posted on Facebook by somebody that went down to the post office to interview both the signature gatherers and the anti-recall table. Olivia Herrera and Bryan Welden both appear in the video making false statements about the recall petition and about the organizers of the recall.
Things got so tense in front of the post office last week that Olivia Herrera and the anti-recall group were reported to the Grants Pass Police…twice! Last week I went down to the signature gathering table and opposition table in front of the GP Post Office to do an interview of my own. Sure enough, Olivia Herrera was there with a very large sign, standing immediately next to the recall petition signature gathering table as to block the view from 6th Street. Ms. Herrera refused to do an interview, even though at the time all she was doing was standing there holding a sign.
Both Commissioners Chris Barnett and Andreas Blech have been seen and photographed hanging out at the recall opposition table with Olivia Herrera and Bryan Welden, and the commissioners appear to have been collaborating with these two. Perhaps it’s also worthy of mentioning that all three current commissioners, Bryan Welden, and Olivia Herrera are all Josephine County Republican PCPs (Precinct Committee Persons).
It also happens that at the August 25th large courthouse gathering of recall supporters and recall opposition people, the date the recall petition was filed with the County Clerk, videos circulated showing Olivia Herrera screaming loudly in the halls of the courthouse. Therefore, the screaming and harassing behavior began before the language of the recall petitions had even been released to the public.
Videos have circulated on Facebook in the last year of Olivia Herrera screaming loudly at many of the other “peaceful” protests that happened in front of the County Courthouse. It should be no surprise that the Grants Pass Police were contacted twice last week regarding Olivia Herrera’s harassing behavior towards recall committee volunteers gathering signatures as well as for allegedly harassing citizens just visiting the post office and even allegedly harassing post office employees.
Recall Committee volunteers commented that the erratic behavior of the recall opposition group actually convinced some people to sign the recall petition, and that many were coming up to recall petition volunteers saying thank you for fighting against this unruly behavior. Recall committee volunteers also believe opposition people like Olivia Herrera and Bryan Welden may have broken the law by harassing signature gatherers and those considering signing the petitions. Petition signature gathering efforts have special protections under state law.
Olivia Herrera (who seems to go by Oliva Herrera for some reason) recently made such a local political splash with her wild local conspiracy theories and harassing political behavior that a local community member decided to run a background check on Ms. Herrera. It’s certainly not for me to judge, but if I was an elected official I would be cautious about having someone with this kind of history be a front person for a recall opposition effort. The phrase “Don’t throw rocks in a glass house” comes to mind.
The recall opposition effort seems to be taking the same path as the “paper tiger” John West travelled before he was recalled from office by a vote of almost two to one in the recall vote of December 17, 2024. Recalled Commissioner John West’s sole campaign strategy was to try and convince voters that the recall was nothing but lies and led by Democrats or left-leaning political operatives. Yet similar to the West recall committee, when I interviewed this year’s recall committee leaders, I found that the majority of them are republicans.
Many of West’s republican buddies to this day still say that his recall was nothing but lies, and that left-leaning political groups were primarily behind it. As somebody that personally help lead West’s recall, I can say for a fact the majority of the leadership of the recall were republicans, all three spokespeople for the recall were republicans, and almost all the recall petition points that were fact-based points (as opposed to opinions) have been proven true in the court of law. In my opinion, the remaining point that is still working through the court process will also likely be proven true.
West has threatened current commissioners by saying he’ll throw his money around to help recall them from office or that the local republican office won’t support them if they don’t make the right decisions. But after West was voted out of office by nearly two-thirds of recall election voters and after West has lost all his recall-related court cases that went to court and were actually decided based on merit, in my opinion West is no more than a “paper tiger’ in the local political scene these days.
I suspect that it will take some time before local citizens of all political stripes learn just how costly the personnel actions of West and current commissioners have been, partially because employment-related lawsuits take some time to work their way through the system. But one of the data points I find most interesting in the current recall processes is that neither commissioner has argued the point that appears on Blech’s recall petition which is, “According to the County’s former Budget Officer, he attempted to promote the IT/Emergency Management Director to a newly created position with a total compensation package cost of approximately $388,000 per year.” Commissioner Blech has only said in public a couple times in recent weeks that this County employee (Michael Sellers) is not currently working in the capacity of Director of Operations or Chief of Staff. When this issue first blew up, commissioners only said that Mr. Sellers had no employment contract drafted up for this, they never actually denied that this compensation package was attempted. To my knowledge, they still to this day haven’t publicly denied that this was attempted.
There is a popular saying regarding bear attacks that goes, “If it’s black, fight back. If it’s brown, lie down.” In my opinion, many in Josephine County are realizing that we’re fighting a few harmful and costly black bears that have somehow made their way into County government. After watching County government closely for 13 years now, I can confidently say that people are growing bolder and no longer tolerating the recent corrupt behavior.
Inside whistleblowers are finally blowing the whistle. The Library is telling the true story to the media of all the ways they’ve been attacked in the last couple years. Citizens are exercising their constitutional rights to gather recall petition signatures and hold our local elected officials accountable through recall votes.
And the truth will always be more powerful than money and empty threats…as long as we’re not afraid to tell it.