Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 01-20-26_TUESDAY_7AM

Episode Date: January 20, 2026

Former state Senator Herman Baertschiger talks about what he consoders the true good ol boy network in Jo County...he believes department heads in many cases have actively worked to undermine political control of Jo County government.

This hour of the Bill Myers Show podcast is proudly sponsored by Klausur drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for more than 50 years. Find out more about them at Klausor drilling.com. Bill Myers Show on KMED and KMED HD1, Eagle Point, Medford, KBXG grants pass. Pebble in Your Shoe Tuesday, and we were talking credit cards. There are other things going on this morning, too, but I'll take your calls on Pebble in Your Shoe Tuesday. A credit card rate capped at 10%. There's proposal.

There's legislation ready for it. Tommy I.Ello says, don't do it. Don't do it. And yet it sounds really appealing, but, yeah, probably would reduce the availability of your credit. There's a part of me that says maybe that would be a good thing. Yeah, I know there goes the consumer economy. But anyway, Vicki, go ahead.

You have a take on this? Go ahead. Welcome. Good morning, Bill. Yeah, you know, I don't have credit cards. I have a debit card that I rarely use. but I have one. And a lot of the places nowadays, like motels and stuff,

they don't want to take cash, you have to use a card. Well, when COVID was going on for those two years, a lot of people couldn't go to work. They couldn't go to their bank. They couldn't get, you know, what they needed. So a lot of people did online shopping. And using their credit cards for bills, which I totally understand. I mean, it was a rough time, and you do what you have to do.

but I think it relates, it's almost like having a gambling problem. You had people that had access to money that wasn't coming out of their bank, wasn't coming out of their pocket physically. So everything was put on credit cards, credit cards, credit cards. And now it's almost a necessity for some people to be able to pay their bills on credit, but they'll never be out of debt. I had a friend that had 20 credit cards, and she ended up having to get, like, a credit card debt counselor

to help her get out of debt. And it took her a couple of years to do it, but she was able to. But to me, it's like a gambling problem. The credit, the credit issue, yeah, it's a good point. Thank you for the call. Dave, you don't have any credit cards, but I don't think you're capable of having that, given your economic situation. I'm not saying all credit is bad, but credit cards, I agree with the last caller, their form of gambling, and that it's actually evil.

Like, I don't buy lottery tickets. I don't gamble. Of course, I don't have the money to gamble. Well, well, you don't care about the children, though, because remember, they always sell the lottery. because it's for the children, it's for education, things like that. Well, to me, the credit cards are evil because they create debt slaves. And, you know, I'm anti-slavery of any form, and credit cards are a form of debt slavery. Well, you know, when you think about it, though, our money is a credit money sort of system.

It's borrowed into existence, too. So I guess that, you know, we're a debt slave right from the get-go here, are we? All right. Thanks, Dave. Cherry, a delight to hear from you. I'm glad you're feeling better after the flu and Joe's surgery and things like that. What's going on with you these days, huh? Welcome. Oh, boy, well, to get to the credit card business, I have several credit cards, and I only use a couple of them occasionally. And when the bill comes, it's all paid off. I don't pay a day, you know, if it's $400, I pay $400. Yeah, me too.

That's how I do it if I do it. And I've got a debit card that I use all the time for everything, mostly. And that works out beautifully because it takes it right from the bank immediately, and that's it. Yeah, the thing is, though, you really don't like using debit cards for online purchases. The problem with that is that, from what I understand, there aren't as many consumer protections on fraud on the debit card as there are the credit cards. part, I believe. Isn't that true? That's correct, but I did once pay a publishing company $12,000, and I got it all back because it was fraud, and I approved it, and I wrote letters, and it took, you know, a bit of time, but I won't do that again, but you're right on the debit. There isn't the protection,

but my bank is great, and they will do it. better. Yeah. Because Joe's a vet and they do a lot to protect us and they're just, you know, it's a great thing. But to get back to movies and fun things like that,

we just saw the running man, the brand new one. Oh yeah. It's so over the top. I can't even express it. Who's the star in the new running man? I haven't paid much attention to the movies lately. I really don't remember

name, but he looks like Bruce Willis a little bit. Okay. And he's very young. He's like 28 years old. I don't know. But he's, he was really, really, really good. He's a family man. He's got a wife and a baby, and the baby's got cancer, and he wants to get money. So he wants to get the money to get the surgery, right? Get the treatment. Okay. And so he went on this terrible game show, you know, which is no. notorious for being bad. But he went on it anyway, and most people only make like 29 days,

and he was supposed to make the whole thing. And without going into the, I don't even remember if he made it or not. Well, just tell me if you liked the movie. Did you like it? I kind of did. It was a really, really fast-paced action. Good. And then we saw Afterburn with Dave Bautista, and he's a beast. And that was really circuitous. I'm not sure I like that. Yeah, what is Joe doing in the background?

Is he retching? Is he? No, no. He's moaning and groaning. Oh. Okay. All right. Well, thanks for the latest reviews.

We'll have to talk more about that a little bit later. You know, the one thing that I'm concerned about, I know, you've been doing a lot of online watching of things. I find Netflix unwatchable for the most part lately because, you know, 90% of it, I swear, are drug cartel kind of shows. It's like, is that all we make right now in the United States? Are drug cartels or stupid woke comedies? I know. I know.

It's so, well, I don't have Netflix. I just have the dish and all of them. Yeah, well, I'm ready to cancel the Netflix again. But anyway, but great, great to hear from you, okay? Five minutes after seven, we'll continue with your calls. Now more with Bill Meyer. Standing by former state senator Harmon Beardshiger. We're going to be talking about the real good old boy network, along with a lot of other things, political in Josephine County.

And we have Francine. Francine, you wanted to the way in on the credit card conversation from last hour. There is talk about capping the rates at 10 percent. And Tommy Iiello from National Taxpayers Union saying, hey, this would mean that a lot of credit would disappear for folks. How are you handling that? Huh? Go ahead. Well, first of all, I have good credit.

I'm very low income, but I pay my bills, and I have good credit. My credit card is I'm pretty close to the max out. It keeps going up and down. You know, I pay it off for a while and something comes up. For example, I decided when I went to get my glasses, you know, to get checked for glasses, I was given an option for a type of glasses that I think might work for me, but I had to pay $300 for them. And I don't have $300 to shell out. So, thank goodness I have a credit card.

And, you know, now, one of the, I want to add this thing in here, just a little explanation. One of the reasons I am so low income is because I, over the past maybe 30, 40 years, I have experienced two really severe setbacks in my life that were directly the result of big pharma and that's all I'll go into right now. But so it is not because I couldn't keep it together. It's because I... Yeah, but overall, but overall though, you know, one thing that does concern me is that a lot of people get credit cards because it's really not so good to use a debit card in online purchases, okay? And I think that there should be just as many protections on a debit card as there are for credit cards, in my opinion. Well, that would...

I agree with you, but here's how I get it. around that. Okay? I have two checking accounts. One is my regular checking account. The other one, I keep a very low amount of money in there, and then when I need to pay a bill, make a purchase or something along those lines, I put, I transfer that much money into it and I make my purchase. And that protects my, me from having somebody come in and clean me out. That's a, that's actually a very good idea. Thanks for sharing that strategy, okay? Yeah. All right. Appreciate it. All the best. It's 13 minutes after 7.

Normally, I always talk to you a former state senator, Herman Berchiger, 730 or so on Tuesdays, on pebble in your shoe Tuesdays. But there's always a pebble in your shoe, and we're going to be getting into more of them right now. Herman, welcome back. It's going to be a bit extended today. Good to have you on. Yeah, it's good to be here. Well, it's really good to be here because I'm inside the house of the wood stove,

and I poked my nose out a little bit ago. and yeah, I think I'm going to be with the dog today in the house. I don't blame you. It's right. It was like 26 at my house this morning. Now, when it comes to some politics, first off some news, I talked to Ed Deal, state representative Ed Deal, a few minutes ago off air, and he is going to be making an announcement tomorrow on whether or not.

And, of course, the rumor has it that he's going to be running for governor. And you never served with him. And he wasn't in the legislature when you were a senator, right? He wasn't there at that time. That's correct. Yeah, I've never met the man, but I've heard a lot of good things about him. And he certainly is surrounded by a lot of energy being so successful with gathering signatures for this petition to repeal the gas tax. So those are all positive things.

Yeah. Yeah. And, of course, a big thing, can the money come into it? Of course, I don't know, is money a big of a deal, as big of a deal in a primary or not? What do you think about that in your experience? Well, it just depends on the primary. Yeah. So, you know, you've got to win the primary to go to the general.

This is true. So it can be. Now, the challenge being a state rep running, though, if he does, I'm saying if he does choose to run, is that the rules don't allow state reps to raise money while they're in office. Isn't that true? No, why they're in session. But they're going to be in session pretty soon. Yeah, but only for a month.

Okay. All right, so you don't think that is a fatal flaw? No, I don't see that as a problem. And you've got to remember, you can have third groups raising money and stuff on your behalf. You just can't raise it in your own pack. Okay. There's a ways to work around things. All right.

Well, the way it's been described to me from people who know Ed Deal is that he has very good executive skills. And, boy, that is really something that Oregon can use, wouldn't you think? Someone who could actually run the agencies and actually get things done properly, someone who has those kind of, that skill set. That would be great to have. Oh, not only that, though, the other set you'll have to have in this is you'll have to really have a good political sense, you're going to have the House and the Senate against you. So in a lot of respects, you're a lame duck, your entire team term. And the worst case scenario is they pick up a few more seats and then they can override your vetoes.

What does it take to override a veto in Salem? I think it's two-thirds. I think, but don't hold me to that because it could be four-favis. but I think it's two-thirds. All right. Now, let us take a little focus here to the director. What is it? The Chief Director of Prosperity, is that his title?

Former Senator Tim Knoe from the Bend area? Can I have an opportunity to have a short laugh? Okay. Go right ahead. Yeah, because, you know, Senator Knoe, I served with him for eight years. He was in the House first, and then he came into the Senate the same year. I did. And the first thing, right out of the gate is a freshman senator. He ran against Ted Ferrioli, who was the caucus leader, miserably failed. And my experience with Canope is I always felt

he wasn't on the team, okay? And the reason I say that is it seems like conversations in our caucus, he would be texting and stuff. And when we get out of the caucus meeting, it felt like the Democrats already knew what we were talking about. I've wondered about that. I also remember when you were leading the walkout a number of years ago on the cap and trade, the cap and trade deal. And wasn't he, the gentleman who kind of appointing themselves, well, I'm going to stay here and be a liaison. Wasn't he the one that did that, if I recall, correctly? Emissary. Yeah, the emissary. Yeah, that's right. I'll be the emissary. I'm going to stay here in Salem while the rest of you people, you can go out there and walk out, but I'll be

here just to make sure that you can get your message through. I'm thinking, wait a minute, I thought that the Senate leader was the one that would make that decision. I did a press release saying that he is in no way the caucus's emissary. So, yeah, and then when we finally got him to deny quorum, he immediately went to every, you know, every news media outlet, and all of a sudden he was giving interviews left and right and without any consent from the caucus. And he was like he was representing the caucus. So we had some, him and I have had some, let's say, strangeful conversations over the years.

I would imagine so. I guess in other words, Senator, former Senator Knoe is what we would say in party politics, squishy. Would that be fair? Well, yeah, and so you have to ask your question. Why is Tina? First of all, why is Tina Kotech appointing a Republican? Well, this happens a lot. So when Republicans do favors for the Democrats, they get rewarded. And it's usually a few years after. because they don't want to make it look so obvious.

Hang on a second, Bill. Yeah, I think your dog is out there saying, throw another log on the fire. Yeah, that's exactly. He wants out. Anyways, so, you know, it's happened before, and so you kind of ask yourself, why would she pick?

Yeah, well, in other words, this is a favor, this is giving back a favor, you don't really make a lot of money as a state senator or a state rep, but if you carry some Democrat water and you're a cooperative, then you end up, who was the, was it Ferrioli that ended up getting that Northwest Power gig? That always seems to be the big plum, right? Right, so, you know, I don't know what he did to deserve this and probably never will. I did talk to some former members of the caucus. They had their ideas, but there were so many things that we can't put our fingers on which one.

But anyway, so, yeah, so Tim, you know, he's in the legislature for 20 years, something like that, 16, 20 years, maybe more 12. Anyway, doesn't matter. And so that's very low pay. So your purrs is pretty bad. But all you have to do is what, get a nice gig for the final three or four years. And then that ends up determining what your retirement is, not the 20 years of low pay as a senator or a state rep, right? Right.

And so my question, knowing Tim, his background and what he's done in his life, what does him qualifications to be prosperity? prosperity. When you want somebody that's been very prosperous in their own life? Oh, no, no, no. You have to understand. Prosperous means carrying water for the Democratic Party when necessary, being a good ally, okay? So he's going to advise the governor on what we can do in Oregon to make it a better business environment. Is he going to tell her, oh, well, let's start with repeal the grocery seat tax because that drove a lot of businesses out. Well, you know what I think. Reducing income tax and how about how about getting

rid of a bunch of these environmental policies like the one that charges companies that put carbon in the air? Is that what he's going to do? Is he going to advise those kind of things? Somehow I doubt that. But you know what I think that Tim Kudop's real role will be? what's that when Tina Kotech's economic plan fails he's the fault he's the fault guy blame it on him

blame it on that see those Republicans they don't have any good ideas Herman you know we brought in we brought in Tim Knope he'll have all these great ideas none of them worked so what I think

what my crystal ball says they'll come up with all this economic development development money. So let's give startup businesses free money to start up. That's not what's driving businesses out of Oregon. What's driving the businesses out of Oregon are taxes and livability for their employees, period. And yet on the other hand, the news is that Oregon is the number one country, or number one state rather, in the entire country for people to move in on. This is according to

a study from U-Haul that we just have, you know, people are... Move in or move out? Well, they're claiming that it's moving in, that they're actually moving in. That they... People are moving in? Yeah. Oh, God, I've got to put my house up for sale. But you see, that's what I was wondering.

I have a feeling that we could be witnessing here what's more of this. People are redistributing themselves into places where they feel more comfortable. The reds get redders. The blues get bluer. I'm warning if that might be what we're really looking at right now. Oh, my goodness. Oh, there's something to that. It kind of is happening in some places.

Yeah, for sure. And some of the red states are getting a little purple, like Texas. Yeah, boy. I hate to see that happen, too. 724. Hey, Herman, I'll be right back here with you just a minute. And we have a lot of other things we've got to talk about, including what is the real good old boy network in Joe County,

if you're game for that coming up. Need a roof that performs and lasts? Stephen will pure talk. You're hearing the Bill Myers Show on 1063 KMED. Now Bill wants to hear from you. 541-770-5633. That's 770 KMED. Yeah, I always want to hear from you.

I don't know. We might just hold the calls here at the moment. I am talking with former state senator Herman Berchiger. And we wanted to get into something. Before I even get into that, price of gold, the stock market is sliding today, down several hundred points from the way it is looking, the Dow Jones. Gold has soared two and a three-quarters percent. It's at 4723 an ounce right now, as we speak in the futures. Silver at 93-46. Now, whether you're looking to buy or sell, I always recommend you talk with the recognized experts,

and that's Jay Austin & Company, gold and silver buyers in Ashland, at 1632, Ashland Street. National and Sixth and G in downtown Grants Pass. Great people down there, and they will help you stack and or sell, as the case might be. And I'm one of these people that are thinking, yeah, could it just keep soaring parabolicly? Maybe not parabolic. There's going to be, you know, lurches and pullbacks and sores, and, you know, that's just the way things are kind of going right now. But ultimately, I think that this is just a referential. him on the United States dollar and Western finance in general.

And the hunt is on for real assets. Get those real assets or make some money on those assets that you've been stacking for a while with Jay Austin. And that is fortune reserve.com. That's fortune reserve.com. All right, Herman. We were talking about some politics. We were talking about some politics.

And we wanted to, well, I had an email last week from the paralegal folks or some paralegal folks. and they were referring to you as you and John West and various other people's as members of the Good Old Boy Network in Josephine County. And you were a little irritated about that. And I thought it was kind of interesting because you're saying that the good old boy network in Josephine County does exist, but it's not the way you think. It's not the people who have actually been in the elected offices. Would that be a fair assessment of where we really are these days? Who's the paralegal group?

Well, I don't know. It's kind of one of those. It's pretty obvious. They made it clear that they're paralegals, and they've made this. They've made this a stick. I don't know their name or the person's name that wrote me. That's a problem nowadays.

Anybody can be anybody they want. But anyways, so what prompts me to talk about this is Ron Smith, you know, he did it. an interview last Tuesday. And it was kind of interesting because I believe that the reporter just taped everything and then wrote everything he said, which is pretty amazing. Yeah, this Daily Courier. It was an interesting Daily Courier interview, and he spoke freely, is all he did.

And, you know, Ron and I disagree on a lot of things. You know, I don't think he's doing his job. He says he, you know, on appointing the commissioners. he says that he doesn't like the process. Well, that's the process that's spelled out in the charter. So whether you like it or not, you're stuck with it, you know. So anyways, and then, you know, he made comments in there that, I don't know. You know, he talks around, oh, there's back room deal.

And let's see, what did he say here? recuse myself from the whole thing already, and I'm sticking to my guns because I thought that the best for the people, Josephine County, because no matter who I would appoint, it would have looked like a backroom deal. Well, so now he's pushed it off to the electric, the other elected officials, it'll look the same way, I guess. The left or right. They're all. Nobody would have been happy. So now we're going to leave it to the six elected officials. you know and then he says he says in there that he doesn't want to kick former commissioners because they can never get reelected and this is a way they can get in office he's so sadly mistaken i was elected three times i've never lost an election he's lost i don't know eight or 10 before he got in there, so I don't know what he's talking about. But anyway, let's get down into the meat and potato. And wasn't there one part of that interview with the Daily Courier in which he kind of,

well, he kind of let the cat out of the bag, really, about what happened, what's really running Joe County? Right, and that's what I'm going to get to right now. Okay. So let's, he talked about the scum club. So the Scum Club was named by Sandy Cassanelli, I believe, and she bought it. And I want to make sure that we understand that is the scum, like scum on the drain, right? Scum Club.

Yeah, S-B-U-M. Mm-hmm. Scum. Okay. So, you know, I kind of knew it existed. I, of course, you don't get invited to their meetings, but it's former, or not former, it's department heads that meet on a regular basis. And all the department had sheriff's office, public works, and just all the departments.

And then they're coming up with policies and suggestions, and they're all, and they're giving them the commissioners. But they're not doing it in an open meeting setting. That's what really bothered me. So they would come to my office and, in a very force of ways, they do this, do that, do this. And I say, hey, you need to bring that to an open meeting and suggest it to the board. And they just really didn't want to do that. Okay, so you've opened up, so you've opened up the can here, and why don't you hang on here through the news break,

and then we'll continue that conversation, all right, about where this is going. So we're talking about the scum club, so to speak, and what might be really the so-called good old boy or good old girls club in Joe County. That'll be coming up on the Bill Maher show. Oh, dead battery. for the text inspires 2426. Hi, I'm Mike with Southern Oregon Small Engine, and I'm on KMED. 738, I'm back with former state senator, former state,

and also former Josephine County Commissioner, Herman, Bert, Bairt, Sugar. Well, I talk for a living here, Herman. I can have to drink a little more coffee this morning here. But, yeah, we always shoot the breeze on various issues of political import here. And by the way, if you're just joining me, Ed Deal, State Rep, Ed Deal is going to be announcing tomorrow night at 6 o'clock or getting together for a big announcement, the rumor is that he would be running for Governor 2 as a Republican. Interesting deal, so we'll, no pun intended, but we'll see how that ends up working. But what Herman and I have been talking about then

is the good old boy network of Josephine County. And what really is it? And if you talk with the conventional folks, they'll pretty much say, well, it's the people who have been in and out of the Josephine County Commission over years or elected officials. And Commissioner Ron Smith and Herman, well, Herman, you disagree on a lot of things, but you did agree with Commissioner Ron Smith, one statement in the Daily Courier when it came to some of the stuff going on behind the scenes with, what was it called the Scum Club, or what's that term again? Yeah, the Scum Club, and that was the name given by Commissioner Cassinalli. Now, one of the questions the reporter asked, directors who were fired, this is you're talking about community development, public health, and public works, and Commissioner Smith says yes. Then he goes on, he says, the Scum Club was a group of tightly knit directors that did everything they could to deceive and stop the commissioners from doing. their job. And they work behind the scenes, and they work closely together to keep whatever they could to keep their little castles that they build within county government. Do you understand

what I'm saying? When you're a department head just like that, it's awful easy to start not following procedure and doing things this way and doing things that way. I don't know if I can say this because of some litigation we have there here, but there were problems. There were problems in community developed. There were problems in public health, and there were problems in public works. That's a quote from Commissioner Smith. I absolutely agree with what he said there. I will tell you about, and I was always known.

So there was some department heads that, didn't attend, and there were some that kind of attended, but there was, you know, one of them was the one that attended a lot was the one that just filed a recall petition against Andreas Bleck and Chris Barnett. So I always felt like I was, I was working, they were working against me. When we were, we were trying to redo all the points. policies of Josephine County because they're antiquated. They were constantly in my office, and I'd say, bring your suggestions to our workshop meetings so you can be put on the record. So it's interesting that Commissioner Ron Smith is all upset and hot and bothered over

backroom deals, when it seems like the greatest backroom deals that we have in Josephine County are lifers, hired staff, people who are department heads or whatever it is, who are there for years and years who probably, well, it's not all that different from Washington, D.C., right? Where they kind of look at, they look at the congressmen or the senators. It's like, I don't care about you. You're going to be gone in a year or two, and we're going to be here forever. They kind of look at Josephine County government as theirs rather than the actually politically elected commissioners.

Is that kind of where you're going on this? That's exactly. It's the Josephine County swamp, and I think it works like that. in a lot of counties, unfortunately. Now, I'm going to tell you the day the fight began. Okay. I'll tell you. It actually began on one single day.

The real fight with myself and Commissioner West. So we had an opening for emergency management and the IT director. We decided to merge them together. We put out for it. We had multiple people apply across the country, and we were down to two. And so we had Commissioner DeYoung, Commissioner West, myself. What you do is you throw out a bunch and you come down, you know, with each one of you have two. Then you lay those on the table and, oh, yeah, okay.

So now we're down to two finalists, okay? So the day we're down to two finalists, and it was a gentleman from Idaho that had an IT position over there and some emergency management background. And then we had Mr. Sellers, who used to work for me in the Senate. Now, he's your former chief of staff, right? Right. And I said multiple times, you know, I said he's my pick. And unfortunately, I have the luxury of working with him for eight years and have more experience with him than anybody.

I can't take that away, so I do have a bias. Okay. You can't take it away. So anyways, I walk out of my office into the meeting room and these department heads, the sheriff and public works and I don't know, I forget who else. Anyways, our HR director had these packets. Had three packets for the commissioners. HR director had a packet and these directors had packets. And I looked at the packet.

And the packet was a series of questions. and then you scored the question, okay? And I started reading it, and I said, JJ, J.J. Schofield, those are, I said, what is this? He says, oh, well, this is how we do it. So we're going to ask these questions to the, and then you just score them, and then we'll take all the score sheets, and then whoever has the highest score, that's who will hire. Okay, now, do you mind me interrupting here for a moment here, Herman? No.

Okay. What are the department heads doing with coming up with score sheets and then telling the county commissioners, the actual bosses, the elected leaders of Josephine County, how we do it here? Exactly. So I said, I said, Mr. Schofield, go pick up all the packets. I said the charter says that the county commissioners hire the department head. and that's who's going to hire the department heads is the three county commissioners. Commissioner Young got up, said he doesn't want to participate, and he left. So it was down to John and I. Some of the department heads left. Some of them stayed. And we continued with the interview.

And what was really interesting with that interview, you know, John West is just, he hasn't been in office very long. and so I made a motion to hire Michael Sellers, and I was, I'm like, boy, I hope this goes okay, because of Commissioner West wants the other guy, we don't have a tiebreaker here. Right. And the way Commissioner West was interviewing the other guy, I'm like, oh, I think he likes the other guy. But John West decided to vote for Mr. Sellers, and we hired him. It blew the top off of everybody.

Why do you think they, now Michael is on administrative leave right now, isn't that right? Right. And to be quite honest with you, I have no idea with the details. I've talked to Michael one time, but nothing about the details of why he's off. So I don't even know what's going on. Yeah, but there is an investigation being done. But I don't know if it has anything to do with what got him selected, though. I don't think that's what we're talking about.

No, it had nothing to do what got him selected. And to be quite honest, why I was there, I thought he did a fabulous job. But, you know, I do have a bias. And, you know, you're... Well, I mean, we all have biases. I think that it's important, though, to admit when we have them. That's all, okay? But after that day, everything was scrutinized.

And that's when... And, you know, you've seen them. the articles of the courier and cronyism and this and that. It was never ending after that bill. It was constant attack, constant attack. And then we were trying to work on these policies because they're antiquated and they weren't up to state statute and stuff. And it was just an absolute fight to get anything done.

You know, because all they have to do is. drag their feet, drag their feet, drag their feet. So what we were really looking at here, a lot of the so-called controversy in Josephine County is coming from staffers or the lifetime people, the ones who aren't elected in many cases, thinking that they're the ones that are supposed to be determining policy, at least I'm intimating this from what you're saying there, when it's supposed to be the county commission. So the county commission gets all the hell or takes all the income,

with influence, undue influence from hired help, so to speak. Is that fair? Is that what we're dealing with in many cases in Joe County? Yeah, and you know, you would ask for questions. You know, you'd ask questions, and you wouldn't get answers or you'd get wrong answers, and it was just a little, it was just a fight all the time. Now, fast forward to today, so back then, the department had, wanted to be in charge of everything.

Who's going to be in charge of selecting the next commissioners? The department heads. Yeah. voila. Wala. Now the department heads, though, are many of them are elected officials, though, correct? They're all elected officials. No, not all of, not all department heads are, but most of them.

Well, the ones that are, no, the ones are in the selection process are elected officials. but they're also department heads, but not all departments are elected positions. So the department heads who are elected officials would really like to truly have control over the county commission because those county commissioners that they end up selecting will be in charge of their budgeting, right? Yes, so do they want somebody that will ask questions and scrutinize things, or do they want to have people serving that they'll just say yes. Yes. Do we want people serving as county commissioners who will have the HR head, let's say,

or other people come up here? Here's how we score. Here's how we choose, you know, employees, et cetera, et cetera, or that you want to hire. And this is how we've done it instead of the county commissioners themselves deciding. Yeah, it's just, you know, they just, look what just happened to that. let me see if I can get this name right. Two guys in a truck, I think it is.

So what they do for a living is they go around and they pick up trash for people hiring to pick up trash and they take it to the dump. Okay. So the county commissioners agreed to give them a community develop, not a community develop. Anyway, it's a grant for business, startup businesses. So they gave them a grant. I believe the dollar amount was $65,000. They could buy a new dump truck to do all this. Well, somebody came in and said, I don't think that's right.

It's in competition with our sanitation service. And so the finance director... Is this something which happened recently? I'm not familiar with this. It just happened recently. The finance director took it upon them ourselves to stop payment on the check. So the guys go out and buy the truck, and now the check won't clear. And I'm thinking to myself, my God, it's a board order.

The commissioners, granted, that's a board order. So the board ordered this, but the finance director decided that we're going to, decided to make that decision, whether or not it's a right or wrong decision to have made the grant, right? Exactly. It needs to come back to the board. Okay. It needs to come back to the board. And if there's a violation of a grant assurance or something, maybe there's, that maybe there is a violation of a franchise agreement, then the board has to claw it back. The finance director can't just do it on themselves. But you're saying that this is an example of what afflicts Josephine County often. Yes. You've got to. have process, whether you like it or not, and it has to take place in a public setting.

The only exception of that is when you're dealing with employees' discipline or lawsuits or real estate transactions, then you can kind of have it outside. You have to announce what the issue is, but the conversation can be in a closed door for various reasons. Other than that, that's only exceptions, Bill. And that's what used to get me so mad. People would come, you know, department heads would come to my office with suggestions on policy. And I'd say bring it to a board meeting.

So the public has an opportunity to hear it. But the department heads would choose to want it behind the scenes. Right. I would get a draft. I'd get a draft of the policy. And I'm like, well, this isn't what we discussed. well, so-and-so came in and they wanted this changed, and so-and-so came in, they wanted this change. And I said, I don't care if they want to change, come to a meeting and tell us what you want changed,

and we're going to discuss it. And if we agree with it, fine, we'll change it. If we don't agree with it, we're not going to change it. So the same people that have been, and elected officials and non-elected officials, that have been in charge of a policy behind the scenes here for quite some time. Oh, decades. And this is why, like I say, it's nothing new. The late commissioner Sandy Cassinelli termed at the scum club, and that name stuck, apparently.

So apparently, the commissioners are the ones that pay the political penalty, usually. And that's what we're looking at here with the recall. Absolutely. Right? Absolutely. What will it take, then, in your opinion? Now, you've already made it clear that you know that these people are not going to choose you for this county commission opening. Right, you've made this clear.

You know. Okay. I mean, that's what my tea leaves say. They don't want somebody experience. Now, what's interesting in the article from Commissioner Smith, he attributes most of the things he did wrong, like he gave up his power to hire and fire people. Yeah, that was with Andreas Black, right? And then the mistakes that they did.

that board had made and with the library and the 4-age and all this. He attributes all of that because none of the three of them really had any experience. And so now we're going to hire somebody, we're going to appoint somebody that doesn't have any experience. Which, of course, the other elected officials or department heads, as the case might be, will absolutely love. That's exactly what they would want, intimating here. where you're going. Yeah, because they'll lead them around by their nose. And this is the concern that I was raising that the last thing that Josephine County needs is yet another greenhorn, you know, in the system at this point.

Technically, technically in charge, but led by the people who are unelected, really? Well, elected and unelected, but not elected to the Board of County. The Board of the County Commissioners have the sole responsibility of all the decisions in Josephine County, period. Whether you like them or not, whether they're experienced or not, that's what basically the charter says, okay? They don't like it. They know better.

They've been here long. And you know what? In some respects, they are right. But how it needs to work is they need to come to the meetings or the commissioners need to reach out. Like, I don't know everything that goes on in the fairgrounds or the parks or in facilities or whatever. And I would reach out and I would always say, hey, how does this work? You know, how does your budget work?

Because budgets are very complicated. Money coming in, money coming out, move money over here, green dollars, blue dollars, red dollars. Can't use it for this, can you? So I'd bring in department heads and I'd say, how does this work? You know, I don't know everything. I just know that there's a process. Now you tell me how it works. But that's not really how it goes in Josephine County, I'm afraid.

So how can Josephine County be reformed to an extent where hired help and the other department heads elected or non-elected as the case might be know their place and keep the discussions about the guns. government in open session so everybody knows about it rather than the real backroom deals, like what you're been describing here. You've got to have strong leaders, and that's, you know, when West showed up to the scene, he didn't have any experience. He was a little bit like a... Bull and a China shop. Yeah.

But he was a number guy. So, you know, I'm more of a policy guy. I have more experience in policy and politics than John did. John was good. He did a hold of those budgets and numbers, and he would ask them questions that they didn't like having to answer. So when I first went in there, there was myself, Commissioner DeYoung and Commissioner Fowler, and we were in COVID, and we all got along pretty good. We're on the same page with COVID, which basically was, hey, not the county's responsibility to tell you what to do. This should be a conversation between you and your doctor. The three of us were unified in that.

Our public health director did not like that. And we were constantly hit by bombs, you know. Next thing I'd read in the, I would read in the courier. And we got reaper trucks at the hospital and the board because we have so many bodies. And I'm like, how come you didn't tell me we had reaper? How come I have to read about this in the newspaper? So I always felt like we were set up, you know what I mean? But then when Commissioner Fowler left to Commissioner West, West didn't have a problem taken on, you know, the local guard, I call it.

And so now we had two. You had me and John, and we kind of took them on. and boy, well, you know the rest of the story. And if you don't know the rest of the story, just pick up the last four years of the, or the last three years of the courier. But really what has to happen is that, now, would having an administrator, an official administrator like Jackson County has, would that be helpful for Josephine County?

It all depends through the administrator. I don't think we have the money, and or the population for it. I think before I go to that, I would go back to the old county judge and two part-time county commissioners. So that's what the smaller counties in eastern Oregon have. So the county judge is a person that the commissioner also has a vote,

but also is full-time and kind of an administrator, okay? Okay, I get that. All right. And then you have two part-time commissioners just come in for policy and, you know, if they have to make some decisions on county ordinances and stuff like that. All right. Former State Senator Herman Beardshager, former county commissioner, too. We're talking about the so-called good old boy or the Scum Club in Joe County that seems

to have been doing a lot of work behind the scenes. Hi, did you have a question or comment with Herman about this? Hi. Good morning, caller. Well, I have kind of a question. I have an acquaintance-slash friend that lives up in Josephine County that has been paying his taxes for the last three years through cash. Unfortunately, he had a flood in his basement. They said he hadn't been paying his taxes. He went to go down to get his receipts. They were all destroyed. Long story short, he's going to be out all that money from the last three years. I was curious if any callers have had maybe a similar issue happened. And it sounds like somebody in the finance department was, for lack of a term, just taking the cash and not turning it in. He's scared to go on the air because he doesn't want to get in trouble. But I was curious, just to pose a question out there, if Herman's heard any of this happening or anyone in Josephine County's have this happen to themselves as well.

All right. I appreciate the call. I don't know if you can comment on that or not, Herman. That's an interesting. Well, yeah, I can because if we're not paying their taxes, it'll be recorded in the treasurer's office. treasurer is also the tax collector um and and so if it's recorded paid there um then a person would be fine if it's recorded not paid um do you have the correspondence between the uh does the treasurer did the treasurer give out correspondence so yeah he took off he took off

so I don't know. Yeah, that's what I would do. You know, I, you know, there's a paper trail somewhere, Bill. All right. Well, interesting conversation, Herman. Thanks for sharing it. And so actually you and Commissioner Smith found something to agree on. And it was in that Daily Courier conversation.

All right. Are you good? And what do you think comes next out of this? the concern that I'm going to have is that we're still going to have undue influence from the staff and the hired help rather than commissioners actually directing as ordered by the charter ordering what's what actually happens in the county for good or for bad you know whatever it is whatever you think about the commissioner that may be you know in the seat right now they're supposed to be the power correct that yep there's supposed to be the power what happens next in this do you think though where we're headed I don't, you know, Bill, I hate that when I say, you know, but I'm working on that. But I will tell you, I believe right now that the other elected officials should be selecting commissioner, because the 30 days have ran out that Commissioner Black has resigned. They are, the charter says after 30 days, if the other two commissioners can't come up,

with somebody, they need to pick someone. And now you'll have two commissioners again, because Barnett will be gone here soon. So you'll have whoever they pick plus Commissioner Smith, and those two will have to pick the third commissioner. They have 30 days to do that. If they do not do that, then the other elected officials will weigh in again. what it seems like they're doing is the other elected officials are just going to go and pick two right away and i don't think that's right and we're working on some legal opinions right now so i will

see where that goes all right and keep me in the room okay herman i appreciate that i will thanks again All right.