The BCC Weekly – Taking the “Blind” out of the BCC
Google AI says that “A whitepaper is a detailed, authoritative, and research-based report that explains a complex issue, presents a solution, or provides technical information about a product or service. It’s a marketing and educational tool designed to establish expertise and credibility, and it often includes an introduction, problem/solution sections, and a conclusion.”
The “whitepaper” that was authored and released by Commissioners Blech and Barnett last week in rebuttal to the recall petitions launched against them was anything but this definition.
Countless false statements, misleading statements, and highly questionable calculations can be found in this three-page paper recently released by the two commissioners. The version that Commissioner Blech personally emailed out to several select recipients last week showed the following citation at the end, “This statement was prepared by Commissioners Andreas Blech and Chris Barnett, Josephine County, Oregon 9/14/25 v2.03.”
One major focus of the whitepaper is a point that appears on the recall petitions for both Blech and Barnett. This point is concerns over approving “a voluntary employee resignation program costing over $700,000 in related payoffs without appropriate justification.” The whitepaper states, “participating employees were paid $724,000” and it went on to attempt to explain why this was a money saving move.
I personally spent 10 years as the Finance Director of the City of Grants Pass, and the assumptions used in the whitepaper analysis are highly flawed. And I can dive into the financial weeds with the best of them, but the following are the big picture reasons why the analysis is both flawed and incomplete.
The “whitepaper” suggested that the County is saving over $700,000 per year from the buyout program (voluntary resignation program) and the County is saving over $800,000 per year from eliminating the following director positions: Public Works Director, Public Health Director, Community Development Director, and Juvenile Justice Director. This implies that these positions will never be refilled, and that 100% of the cost of all of these salaries and benefits are annual savings going forward. These are not accurate statements in my opinion, for several reasons.
For many of the employees that participated in the buyout program or the Directors that were fired or eliminated in the budget by the Commissioners, some of those positions have been or will eventually be refilled. As just one of several examples, both commissioners Blech and Smith have stated in recent weeks that the BCC intends to create or fill a records management officer type of position. That was one of the positions that the County lost in the voluntary resignation program.
And shortly after the buyouts happened, former Juvenile Justice Director Jim Goodwin requested the County hire someone in his department to replace one of the employees from the buyout because Juvenile Justice has minimum staffing and coverage requirements. Shortly after this request the Commissioners demoted Mr. Goodwin, he resigned due to the harmful decisions being made by the Commissioners, and it’s unclear if that position Goodwin requested was ever refilled.
One other example is the County lost the Finance/HR Director in the buyouts. Clearly the County can’t go without having a top manager over those departments, so in one way or another the County has had to refill this major position. In fact, the current County Finance Director just asked to refill a position similar to an assistant finance director position, similar to the position that she used to hold before she was promoted to the director. So it appears that the County’s former HR/Finance Director position has been refilled by a couple different promotions and the rehiring of a similar position.
And often in restructuring of departments, when one Director now has to take over the responsibility of managing an additional department, usually that comes with a bump upwards in pay and benefits for taking on additional responsibilities. And sometimes positions are refilled with a different classification position with slightly different responsibilities, essentially partially refilling that lost position. None of this is factored into the Commissioners’ whitepaper analysis.
Also not factored into the whitepaper analysis is that some of the positions lost in the buyout were positions funded through state revenue sources other than local taxpayer funds and revenue-generating capabilities of lost Director positions may be partially lost. Public works, largely funded by state gas tax revenue sharing, reportedly had several positions lost in the buyouts, and the Public Works Director position eliminated was also not funded from local tax dollars. This means the County did not and is not saving any local taxpayer funds from these positions. Also the Public Works Director shortly after he was fired without explanation suggested that during his tenure he secured many millions of grants for public works projects. Who is going to pick up the slack on generating grant revenue, the commissioners who are now partially filling the role of Public Works director? What happens when new commissioners are eventually elected that don’t want to effectively work as the Public Works director as Commissioner Blech seems to be doing right now? Grant applications and administration are an important role in many department director positions, and the loss of those directors could also mean the loss of grant revenues that fund certain County services.
And what the BCC has not commented on, for legal reasons, is that towards the end of last year an internal investigation by an outside legal firm found that two of the previous commissioners retaliated and harassed two of the department directors that Blech fired this year. They have both threatened to sue, which could be a liability to the County in the millions for these personnel actions.
I will maintain that until the BCC provides an analysis of all the departments that lost personnel in the voluntary resignation program, how those positions were/are funded, and how many of those positions have been refilled in whole or in part, a proper “savings” analysis cannot be done. I have requested this detail in public records requests earlier this year, and so far the County has refused to provide this information.
The most absurd statement in the “whitepaper” is that the recall is being backed and pushed by “Indivisible … a national anti-Trump far left organization.” The “whitepaper” goes into significant detail about this national organization, presumably to make the recall look like it’s being led and arranged by the non-dominant political party in Josephine County or the “left” as the whitepaper states.
The reality is, according to interviews I’ve had with leaders of the recall committee, the majority of the leaders of the recall committee are republicans and the chief petitioner of the recalls never even heard of the group Indivisible before filing the recall petitions. Not only are there several republicans leading this recall, but there are also a few Josephine County Republican Precinct Committee Persons (PCPs) that are actively supporting the recalls.
News reporters that write for Commissioner Chris Barnett’s various “news” Facebook pages such as Josephine County News, Josephine County Tribune, and Real Live News Southern Oregon have stated that Rogue Indivisible and one other local Indivisible chapter are responsible for funding and organizing these recalls. Secretary of State business filings show that Rogue Indivisible hasn’t been an active organization for years, and the Chairperson of Rogue Indivisible released videos in the last week that claims the group is just getting reorganized after years of inactivity and the group doesn’t even have a bank account at this time. They’ve supposedly raised $500 or less this year to support the rallies they hold, and these rallies have nothing to do with the recalls. Campaign finance reports with the Secretary of State ORESTAR system confirm that no donations have come from any far-left groups, as many of the supporters of the commissioners and the commissioners themselves have claimed.
Doubling down on the conspiracy theories is the Josephine County Republican Central Committee (JCRCC), who recently sent out an email saying the JCRCC Chair himself is being threatened by a recall attempt within the party ranks. After reporting being threatened by an internal recall attempt, last Wednesday September 17th an official email from the JCRCC was also sent out and titled “Exposing and Opposing the JoCo Commissioner Recall Attempt.”
The official email from the JCRCC repeated all the statements in the whitepaper and added significantly to the whitepaper conspiracy theories by saying in detail how “The new recall is actually a Leftist Take Over Attempt of Josephine County by Rogue Indivisible (the local branch of Indivisible).” This is an interesting move by the Chair of the JCRCC who claims to be under a recall himself, given that his voting PCP members that he serves under never even held a vote to determine whether to support or oppose these current Commissioner recalls.
While there are several other false statements contained within the “whitepaper,” one more example is the whitepaper statement, “Moreover, the recall process itself is being manipulated. Petition signatures are being gathered under false pretenses, with paid canvassers downplaying the proponents’ backgrounds and motives.” According to an interview of leaders of the recall committee “Restore Jo Co PAC” this week, they have never paid for any canvassers to date and are claiming many people are seeking them out to sign because so many people are upset with the actions of commissioners this year.
Commissioners, writers for Commissioner Barnett’s “news” pages, the JCRCC, and supporters of the Commissioners better check their research sources. Because after all, publishing false statements in an election is illegal under state law.