COMMISSIONERS HECK & WALKER IGNORE VOTERS - CONDUCT ILLEGAL MEETING
By
SO News Writer John Marshall
June 5, 2015
©
NewsWithViews.com
Grants Pass, Oregon. —Not before the ink is even dry on the levy failure, two Josephine County Commissioners are already talking with a committee called SOS (securing our safety) to promote a statewide levy amendment added to the ballot. The SOS committees are not the initiators of this bill.
HJR 21 is a bill to implement a statewide levy forcing Josephine County and all counties under $2.00 to pay a minimum of $2.00 per $1000.
In section (b) (A) it states that if a tax is imposed to repay debt then an ad valorem property taxes may not be imposed under this subsection.
Commissioners Heck and Walkers must have disdain for the public and basically despise the no voters.
Commissioner Heck has such dist ain for the voters that he rode in back of the Oath-Keepers float in the Boatnik parade and then days later he’s in this meeting with Commissioner Walker who’s discussing county business without the general public’s knowledge in a (invite only) meeting concerning their plans to promote a statewide levy that would circumvent the voters’ wishes.
Former commissioner Sandi Cassanelli had this to say in a reply from my email, "If the chair and vice chair meet and discuss county business with no notice to the public, it is an illegal meeting.
The ORS are very specific about noticing the meeting 24 hours in advance to the public and meeting minutes must be taken”. She then said this, the problem is no one cares that they broke the law. In the past, the State has done nothing about such violations.
Hopefully with enough people calling them out on such violations, perhaps it will stir someone to enforce the law."
The attorneys general office which is supposed to enforce the law concerning these types of offenses is simply condoning this illegal activity by their inactions.
A common problem faced by Josephine County and other counties when trying to reign in corruption, is that the cronies simply won’t prosecute one of their own.
This measure to amend HJR 21 is not on the ballot yet, but now would be a good time to call your state reps and show your opposition to amend or implement HJR 21 and show your opposition to the voters being ignored.
Securing Our Safety is a non-profit 501(c)(3). Most of the county officials belong to this organization including; Commissioners, Cherryl Walker, Keith Heck, Jay Meredith the city finance director, DA Ryan Mulkins, Prosecutor Matt Corey, police Chief Bill Landis, Sheriff Daniel are the more notable. Update, SOS has removed Walker, Heck, and Sheriff Daniels, from their website per my request and are no longer involved in any committee.
SOS is a multi tasking committee which has many locally well known people on its various committees such as Chief Landis on the sobering committee, [*] Sheriff Daniel ironically on the hard rock mining committee, (*see below) Pat Fahey heads up the community research committee, Jay Meredith the city finance director is on the lottery committee and sales tax committee.
Finally, here’s a list available on their website of the board & officers of SOS.
The illegal meeting of these two commissioners was witnessed by me when I attended the meeting. Everyone saluted the flag as if they were in official government business. No minutes were taken and Commissioner Walker spoke about the levy and how the attendees had to just try harder next time. County business is supposed to be discussed and decisions made with the public in attendance. No public notice was ever issued. The general public was not present. Jay Meredith, Archie Lidey, and Cherryl Walker were the speakers.
When I arrived I was asked how I heard about the meeting and suspiciously asked who I was as if to say members only can attend. I replied I had an email sent to me from another friend so here I am. That email was not available to the public at large.
SOS as an organization has some rather valid ideas for alternative funding of our essential services of this county. This organization would be better served if certain county officials recused themselves so as to not appear to have a conflict of interest. The organization has now removed them.
For instance, the idea of retaining more of the lottery dollars in Josephine County as opposed to Salem handing it out to the progressive liberal north. The Justice of the peace idea and the timber committees’ idea can be combined to continually and easily fund the essential services of Josephine County.
Examples being, the lottery committee of SOS wants to retain more of the lottery dollars for Josephine County and that could account for a big chunk of the essential services needs. I sent an email to Cliff Thomason the head of that committee asking about the viability of these funds being used for essential services, here’s his response; It would provide a good base equal to a levy of .80 cents per 1000 assessed. The recent levy proposed $1.40. So the minimal level they were seeking would still be a shortfall. But asking for a levy of .60 cents (or about $10 per month would be more palatable. Indeed, this would be more reasonable for Josephine County property owners and residents.
See the following document for one of the products of their research: OREGON LOTTERY LOCAL CONTROL ACT – 2016 Text. The final product of our recommendation is that of the 67% of the profits that are unrestricted, 50% of the total profits should come back to each County for allocation to the greatest local needs in each County. Funds can be used in each County for public education, public safety, economic development, or local parks and wildlife.
The “Justice of the Peace Committee” has this idea, (from the website). The concept is simple. Under the current system, adjudication of citations and minor offenses takes place in the Circuit Court. Funds derived from fines levied by the Circuit Court are split between the issuing agency (i.e. Oregon State Patrol) and the State Government in Salem. If a Justice of the Peace Court were to be established, a substantial portion of the funds now going to the State Government in Salem could be retained in our county and allocated towards the provision of public safety services, and in that manner lessen the burden of providing those services which currently falls on the shoulders of the individual property owner.
Also the timber resource committee headed up by Jim Frick has a statement from the website saying; the county timber lands are an integral part of potential future funding of part of the criminal justice requirements.
All great ideas that could easily pass if the public was aware of these ideas and their policies with the different committees joining forces to pay for essential services, but the site appeared to be in contradiction of itself by supporting a sneaky statewide levy in defiance of voters, making all the organizations good intentions and ideas a moot point.
The people are not opposed to having law enforcement nor are the people anti-government, they are anti-corruption in government. The people would support police and sheriffs dept's. in a different manner as opposed to saddling the property owners with a burden of an economic system that is only designed to get worse. The proposed levy for the county would have only been treating the symptoms and not the root cause of the economy failures.
People can’t prevent this engineered economic collapse controlled by the banksters and corporations from happening, it’s already under way, and naturally with it comes the increase in crime and it will get much worse. You can’t fix this by throwing money at it; it’s designed like a giant vacuum with a bottomless pit. Jobs are desperately needed to offset the situation.
These alternative ideas for funding essential services should have ideally started after the first of eleven no votes from the voters. By now this would not be an issue.
As one unnamed individual stated to me, “decreasing crime isn’t about having more beds at the jail or more police on the streets, it’s about addressing the root cause of the failing economy and why criminal activity is on the rise because of it.”
He then said, “Property owners are not responsible for crime increases nor should they have to pay for it. The Federal Reserve is responsible; make them pay by abolishing it. If people control their own money then they prosper like Iceland has since they arrested their banksters.”
Correction; I may have been misled in an earlier article saying there is no crime wave according to Oregon Uniform Crime Reports. Which are the leading stats for crime in Oregon.
But according to Chief Landis, “there is indeed a rise in crime in the more impoverished areas which is not being reported or dealt with by the police or sheriffs’ office and so the Oregon Uniform Crime Statistics which indicate crime has steadily decreased in the last twenty years may not be wholly accurate due to under-reported, and under-responded to crime.”
At the same time the exaggerations and over dramatizations by pro-levy people stealing yard signs, with local police, sheriff, and pastors trying to convince the public of a massive crime wave to get the levy passed, comes off as fear-mongering (control by fear).
A small town in Georgia that requires all residents to be armed, has a very low crime rate and is one of the lowest in the country. Cities like Chicago and NY on the other hand where the populace is disarmed have the highest crime rate in the nation while possessing an overwhelming amount of police presence.
A valid point made by one of our readers said, “This is still an armed society and people should act like it instead of cowering because someone just doesn’t like guns and would rather have the police take care of the problem. Society has to stop pawning off their responsibilities as a citizen by asking government to solve their problems for them”.
While some of the population still retains some trust for the government, the number one cause of death in the twentieth century by a wide margin is democide. Death by government, not counting the war casualties stats totals 262,000,000 people in the twentieth century from 1900 to 1999.
When the economy is good, crimes decrease because of the availability of jobs. Criminals will always exist, but by having jobs available for the public, this will keep the otherwise law abiding citizens from committing crimes of self preservation, anger, and desperation.
A larger presence of law enforcement will help deter some small petty crime in the city with a little better response time, but police are not omnipresent in the county and cannot prevent crime, they can only respond to crime and prosecute the criminals. On the other hand, you as a citizen have power and can prevent crime by being armed. It happens every day across this country. Safety is the responsibility of the individual citizen in an armed society.
In a world of no guarantees where anything can happen, being totally safe is delusional, that’s why we are an armed society. The people are armed, not only to hold our rogue government in check, but to provide security for their families as well, especially when people are desperate for food and water, now or in the future upcoming economic collapse.
No amount of surveillance cameras (one million cameras in disarmed London alone doesn’t stop the rising crime rate) or police presence can ever replace an armed society’s effectiveness at deterring crime.
Have a look at the Swiss model of protection, which along with the Dutch model formed a basis for our own second amendment. A criminal would be committing suicide to attempt a major crime in Switzerland.
Recently, a gentleman that overheard a conversation I was having with two other gentleman about the levy interrupted the conversation to yell at me saying I was spewing lies and he said that if anything happened to his family, that he and I would be having a much different conversation. Well, he was already angry and yelling so how much different could it be?
So according to this angry, irrational man, people who voted against the levy are now responsible for his families’ safety if something should happen to them. It is this kind of ignorant, irrational behavior on behalf of some of the public that has me wondering if they even know that they live in an armed society and can legally protect themselves.
There are always options for safety like studying martial arts, getting stun guns, pepper spray, whistles, buy a gun and get proficient, get to know your neighbors, have neighborhood watch meetings, setting up a security parameter around your house with dogs, cameras, and no trespassing signs, If someone is so worried about security then at least attempt that much before they accuse the press and the public of making their family unsafe. If that situation exists in anyone’s family then they are the progenitors, not the lack of law enforcement.
In order to stem the tide of crime and poverty we have to create our own jobs locally that were purposely displaced or shut down by the banksters, and corporations. Jobs like timber, hemp farms, or other available resources for manufacturing will give people a way to make at least a living wage. This is a nationwide problem not just confined to Josephine County for example Detroit the once bustling city of the automobile industry is now a ghost town. The economic woes of this county have to be solved starting here at the county level, then back up to a state level and finally to the national level.
When people have extra money to spend then the job of collecting taxes is much easier. For instance, when JFK was in office he slashed taxes by 50% and the revenue more than doubled because the public had more disposable income.
Josephine County could recruit businesses here to provide jobs by lowering tax rates something that in the past they have refused to do and as a result Hyundai and Sony did not open a plant here. Those opportunities could have potentially helped supply a tax base needed for law enforcement and other services.
Times are tough and by being a retirement and tourist community with no jobs or industry, the county is bound to have shortfalls. If property taxes are raised then even retirees won’t move here to buy property and away goes more of the tax base.
A flat sales tax wouldn’t work right now in this county unless there were jobs, so people could buy homes, cars, and home grown products or any product for that matter to create money flow. The destruction of the middle class is by design and the Federal Reserve is orchestrating it.
The county commissioners could be focusing their energies on the alternatives and not how to undermine the voters by regurgitating a levy every year like a cat with a fur ball in its throat.
The SOS organization seems like a good intentioned, well meaning, and a much needed organization that could solve a lot of issues.
Illegal meetings that are currently not enforced, but should be by the Attorneys General office, are still illegal and wrong in the eyes of the public.
This kind of action innocent or not by elected servants are what creates the distrust among the residents and eventually will invalidate the chances of SOS and the public, to once and for all, settle the matter of funding essential services while ending a property tax burden that turns property owners into renters.
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SOS says they are straight and open (accountability and transparency) with the public but will the continued distrust for our elected officials prevail on them as well, because the public won’t commit to blind trust that would be foolish.
[*] Sheriff Daniel is on the hard rock mining committee of SOS while he allows BLM access to violate the Sugar Pine Mine owners’ rights to due process on a hard rock mine that has been legally in continuous operation since the early 1870s’. This is a dereliction of his duties to protect life, liberty, and property, and is a conflict of interest being on the hard rock mining committee. The owners to the claim also received threats from BLM that if they didn’t vacate they would burn down buildings, and by Daniels’ actions and inaction he’s condoning the non-jurisdictional, illegal behavior of BLM. This serious incident is still ongoing while Sheriff Daniel is making jokes at a rotary club meeting about how after the meeting, they are all going up to the mine and have a paint ball fight and he’ll bring the hotdogs.
Upcoming Articles:
NWV will reveal how your high paid public servants want to:
1-
Put meters on your well to monitor your water consumption.
2- The power company (working with the government) will
install (by force) a Smart
Meter on your house so they can monitor your electric consumption.
3- Fine you for burning wood to heat your home for polluting
the air
4- Charge
you for every mile you drive your gasoline or electric powered car.
5- Confiscate food storage from the people during a manufactured
or natural crisis.
6 - Create a snitch society to turn your neighbor in
for anything that the government deems inappropriate. (It's called, "See
something say Something")
7- Create Community
Oriented Policing.
All they need to accomplish this is your money and blind trust.
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Marshall is NWVs news writer for Josephine County
E-Mail: harpomatic@hotmail.com
