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Letter From, Hazen, Lee, Samuelson and Roberts

by Tryan Hartill

For a little clarification…

This letter is in response to Sam Patrick’s quote in yesterday’s Daily Astorian

Clatsop County Commissioner Sam Patrick has strong words for county leadership over its failure to put a disaster plan in place. “County management’s been asleep at the switch,” Patrick said Tuesday. He blasted county leadership for placing the burden of building a Disaster Mitigation Plan on Sheriff Tom Bergin and Emergency Operations Coordinator Gene Strong.

“The mitigation plan should be done in management’s office or County Planning,” Patrick said…........Patrick said the planning department has staff who are familiar with the mitigation issues, but the sheriff doesn’t. Patrick said Derickson needs to step up and own this problem.

Here is the Letter to the Community in response to the above article….

To the Editor and Community,

It’s a sad day when a community leader places blame (see The Daily Astorian’s January 16, 2008, article “Leaders ‘asleep at the switch’ on disaster plan”) rather than accepting responsibility. On October 22, 2006, Commissioner Sam Patrick made a motion to approve Sheriff Bergin’s request for an agreement to begin the Disaster Mitigation plan. There was no discussion about taking that oversight away from Sheriff Bergin at that time and the Sheriff’s request was approved unanimously. The grant issued for this work specifically identifies the Sheriff’s Office as the principal administrator of the Disaster Mitigation plan effort.

Commissioners then engaged in a series of discussions held between December 18, 2006, and June 13, 2007, to discuss who should be responsible for the Office of Emergency Management, including the development of the Disaster Mitigation Plan. These meetings concluded in June 2007 when the County Manager recommended that the Emergency Management Program remain under the supervision of Sheriff Bergin. A motion was made and seconded by Sam Patrick. Again, the motion passed unanimously.

The current effort to develop the Disaster Mitigation plan includes multiple County Departments, including the County Manager’s Office, Community Development, Public Works etc., all in cooperation with and under the direction of Sheriff Bergin. We have confidence in the Sheriff’s administration of this project and appreciate Tom Bergin’s leadership. To date, Sam Patrick has made no effort to address his concern with the Board of Commissioners and we see no need for the County Manager to intervene with Sheriff Bergin at this time. Nor has Sheriff Bergin requested this action.

Our County Manager has acted exactly as the Board of Commissioners directed and maintains our full support. Any assertion that Scott Derickson should have unilaterally inserted himself into the duties of our independently elected Sheriff, and against Board direction, is completely wrong. Scott Derickson has shown considerable professionalism, leadership, cooperation and strong character through some very difficult controversies.

Patricia Roberts, Chairperson

Jeff Hazen, County Commissioner

Richard Lee, County Commissioner

Ann Samuelson, County Commissioner

Jan 17, 01:49 pm | Tryan Hartill
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9 comments on this article (post your own)

1 On Jan 17, 03:03 pm, Patrick McGee wrote:

“Commissioners then engaged in a series of discussions held between December 18, 2006, and June 13, 2007, to discuss who should be responsible for the Office of Emergency Management, including the development of the Disaster Mitigation Plan. These meetings concluded in June 2007 when the County Manager recommended that the Emergency Management Program remain under the supervision of Sheriff Bergin. A motion was made and seconded by Sam Patrick. Again, the motion passed unanimously.”

Where can one find a record of those discussions as there seems to be no record in Commission Meeting or Work Session Minutes during that period?

2 On Jan 17, 07:02 pm, Bigfoot wrote:

Let me get this straight.
Sam Patrick makes a ruckus in a public meeting over Derickson not doing his job.

Bergin shrugs his shoulders and says everything is peachy and Derickson says everything is peachy.

What the hell is going on? Is Sam trying to invent trouble? After reading the Daily A editorial tonight, it sounds as if forrester and sam went to one meeting and everyone else went to another meeting.

Bizarre.

I bet Marquis set this whole thing up to cloud over something he did.

3 On Jan 17, 07:25 pm, THartill wrote:

There wasn’t a Public Meeting…the Daily A called Sam and got some quotes, then called Derickson and got some quotes. None of the quotes are on public record, just what the Daily A reported.

4 On Jan 19, 11:58 am, Patrick McGee wrote:

So, it’s just Lee, Roberts, Hazen, Samuelson saying they talked about it?

Wonder if Bergin, Derickson, can recall any conversation of substance on the issue.

There is no record of any kind of conversation about this issue in CCBofC minutes. Plenty of conversation about Josh Marquis though.

“The Sheriff”, contrary to Commission’s, some would say “Smoke Blowing”, says in his P.R., he’s been on it, with others for a long while.

And then, Editor Forrester, looks like, shot himself in the foot on his piece.

Somewhere in all this is a truth of some sort. Wonder if we will get it before the next major catastrophe to befall us?

5 On Jan 19, 01:53 pm, Carrie wrote:

Actually, Patrick, no. There’s the BOCC meeting June 13th in which the commissioners discussed their findings.

And, what difference does it make? The Act is called the DMA 2000 Act. A completely different administration, with a different county manager, with a different sheriff were obviously the ones who were first notified about this Act. The Sheriff gave an accounting of what has been transpiring for three years since this current administration has become aware of the importance of this Act to this area.

What more can current administrations do about what past administrations missed?

“The Sheriff”, contrary to Commission’s, some would say “Smoke Blowing”, says in his P.R., he’s been on it, with others for a long while.

I really can’t understand what this sentence is trying to say. The Sheriff’s accounting seems to complete/compliment the Commissioners’ statement, it would have to go through a convoluted twist to be seen as contrary.

6 On Jan 19, 02:50 pm, THartill wrote:

It’s in the June 13th Minutes…

Regarding the Approval of Clatsop County Emergency Operations Plan, Derickson gave the staff report and directed commissioners to page 487 of the packet for the language the Board requested. Sheriff Bergin thanked Brandi Hellisgo, Volunteer Coordinator and Chief Deputy Paul Williams for their work on the EOP. Derickson said the Sheriff’s Office has stepped up in meeting the County’s training needs benefiting the community.
Roberts made and Hazen seconded a motion to adopt the Resolution and Order to accept revisions to the adopted Emergency Operations Plan. Following discussion regarding who declares a state of emergency, the tabled R & O regarding where the EOP resides and the creation of a committee, motion was unanimously adopted.
Derickson said staff will make a recommendation that the EOP reside with the Sheriff’s Department. Lee made and Patrick seconded a motion that the EOP reside in the Sheriff’s Department. Motion was unanimously adopted.
In regards to the creation of a committee, Patrick made and Lee seconded a motion to dissolve the committee. Motion was unanimously adopted.

I don’t know what else you want regarding that Patrick.

I can tell you the truth. The county should have finished the project earlier, but hasn’t. All sorts of people going back 8 years are at fault.
By being behind, some agencies have lost the OPPORTUNITY for extra funds, these are not guaranteed funds, just the chance to apply and put the local applications against hundreds if not thousands of other applications around the country.

I am going to go much deeper into this over the next week because no one else wants to and I feel that people need to be informed of everything…...

The reasons why the Daily A wants to blame the current Commission and Leaders (minus 1 for some odd reason) and make it a much bigger deal than it actually is:

* To create controversy and sell more papers.

* An attempt to oust current leadership for the Josh issue.

* An attempt to oust current leadership for pro-LNG votes.

These 3 are not everything but most of it.

7 On Jan 19, 03:23 pm, THartill wrote:

Forgot to add…

I do think this is all going to work out for the best. The project will get done more quickly now that the spotlight is on it. However, the way it came out in the paper was less than spectacular. The paper has the resources to get this story right. I have spoken with and respect 3 reporters on their staff. And if those 3 were sent on a week long mission to find every fact about this whole mitigation project/storm monies/Bond St. Slide etc etc, I would completely trust their final product, if it wasn’t tampered with. This would have been a major asset to the community, we would all be informed and the current Mitigation Plan project would have enough spotlight to be finished posthaste.

8 On Jan 19, 03:35 pm, Patrick McGee wrote:

No big issue really and Tryan you are , hopefully, correct in attention being brought to it may cause some movement and none too soon either.

It’s interesting these 4 commissiners said they started talking about this usse December 2006 with, but one piece of docementation of June 13, 2007.

I thingk Forrester, like we all do sometimes, shot himself in the foot on that editorial.

9 On Jan 19, 04:18 pm, THartill wrote:

I’m sure there is more, but you can only look at 1 year of minutes online. There was something said about a contract between the County & the State of Oregon for FEMA disaster relief in the Feb 2007 meeting, but there are no details.

I’m sure you can go down and look through the Minutes back to 2006 and get a much better picture of what happened. You can even post something on it so we can understand also….I would do it, but I don’t have the time to check everything and it’s hard to get motivated to spend hours researching this stuff when I’m doing it for free.

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