North Coast Oregon

Articles listed under the tag: Josh Marquis

D.A. most likely asked the Oregon Dept. Of Justice for Investigation of Lee

by Tryan Hartill

According to today’s article in the Daily Astorian, the Oregon Dept. of Justice is investigating Richard Lee.

Tom Bergin said the investigation has been going on for 2 weeks.

NorthCoastOregon was not able to speak with Page McBeth, the investigator in charge of the case, but did talk to the Justice Dept. Spokeswoman Stephanie Soden. She said that private citizens don’t go directly to them.

“Either the District Attorney or the Sheriff will turn a case over to us.”

“Usually it’s the District Attorney, and we work with them to see if we have to get involved with a case”, Soden said.

NorthCoastOregon asked Josh Marquis if the District Attorney office turned the case in and he said “I have no comment on this”.

Sheriff Tom Bergin said, “The Sheriff’s Office was not the one who brought it to DOJ because the allegations were not brought to us.”

Time to go sign the Petition

by Tryan Hartill

Update

Independent DA Committee gathers over 2800 signatures.

After a good number are deemed invalid by the Elections office, it still looks like they have gathered more than double the number of valid signatures required.

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It appears that the signature team is falling a bit behind gathering enough people to sign the petition. According to the Daily Astorian they have collected about 800 as of 8am this morning.

As Tom Freel mentioned this morning on CoastWatch, he supports getting the petition on the ballot, but will vote no for the petition itself. I agree completely. And would recommend heading down to sign up before 3pm today.

Petition Discussion

by Tryan Hartill

The folks over at Independentda.com are getting ready for an all out signature drive on Monday morning.

Judge Grove from Columbia County will hear Nick Z’s petition challenge at 9am. If he turns the challenge down, it looks like they can start gathering signatures at 11am….they have till 5pm on Wed. to gather 1,196 valid signatures. Using past results as a guide, anywhere from 10%-30% of signatures are ruled invalid by elections offices. So it looks like they will need upwards of 1,500 names on the sheets they turn in.

Clatsop County Democrats just sent out a mass email that discusses the petition drive.

The Committee to Retain the Independence of the Office of the District Attorney has less than three days to collect 1,196 signatures to place a county charter amendment on the November ballot. The bi-partisan committee chaired by Clatsop Democrats chair Larry Taylor, has identified over a dozen signature collection points in order to make this happen…...

A crucial two days were removed from the signature collection period due to a frivolous objection lodged at 4:00 pm on Friday August 3. Although seven business days were available to register objections, this effort was clearly intended to derail the process. The objection was non-specific, and if justice prevails, will earn the sponsor a fine for contempt. Fortunately, this circumstance had been foreseen by the committee, and Judge Grove from Columbia County is set to rule on the objection at 9:00 am on Monday August 6, clearing the way to collect signatures by 11:00 am.

The amendment would restore the county District Attorney’s salary to where it was prior to the removal of the stipend by the county commissioners. The amendment ties the salary of the District Attorney to the compensation of circuit judges, removing the compensation from the realm of petty politics. This is crucial because there will be a point in the future when current District Attorney Josh Marquis will leave office, and Clatsop County will need to attract a reputable replacement, which will be challenging if the compensation is subject to politics.

This effort has been reported in and lauded by the Daily Astorian, the Eugene Register Guard, and statewide in a Sunday article and editorial by the Oregonian.

The Baker City Herald has a short write up on the DA pay issue. Interesting that their DA doesn’t get a stipend but gets a $12,000 package for acting as the Juvenile Dept. Head.

Josh Marquis has 2 fresh posts up at Coastda.com. One discusses the petition drive and one talks about the recent NDAA election.

Now down to the petition challenge itself. Does anyone know anything about these things? Does Nick’s challenge have merit? I see one of the issues he has is that it doesn’t include the cost of compensation to the taxpayers. If he is right on this, can the wording on the Charter Amendment be changed to include that on the spot and then the Judge can rule on it, or is there more to it than that?

Nick Zafiratos Challenges Charter Amendment Ballot Title

by Tryan Hartill

Update

The Register Guard has also come out in favor of eliminating stipends and paying D.A.’s a higher salary.

Gotta run right now. More later…..

Charter Amendment Timeline

by Tryan Hartill

Josh Marquis has been quoted in many places as saying that the idea for the Charter change was not his and that he has no involvement with the Committee. While neither of these can be proven false, recent documents released by a records request by Nick Zafiratos bring doubt into the picture.

Up first is what Josh has to say about the request itself.

Next is a email from Mike Burton who discusses tying DA pay to Judges.

Here is Josh’s reply.

2 weeks later the subject pops up again when Sam Patrick brings it up. The first was the early afternoon on June 4th.

Will post more later.

Oregonian Editors jump into the local D.A. Ruckus

by Tryan Hartill

The Board calls for an ending to stipends and for the State to pay a decent wage:

It always was just a matter of time before outspoken and aggressive Clatsop County District Attorney Josh Marquis rubbed other local elected officials the wrong way.
Last month, for reasons no one seems willing or able to fully explain, Clatsop County commissioners voted 4-1 to eliminate the county’s share of Marquis’ salary, abruptly docking the DA of 15 percent of his pay, or $13,500 a year. Marquis’ $79,000 annual salary is now less than his chief deputy’s.
Marquis says the commissioners lopped off his county supplement as political payback after his wife, Cindy Price, ran against Commissioner Richard Lee in the past election. The four commissioners who slashed Marquis’ salary (Lee voted no) offered various justifications, but it’s clear they have personal and political differences with Marquis.

You’d like to think the top law enforcement officer in every Oregon county would have some protection from petty politics. But Oregon is operating with an archaic system that supposes a combination of state and local pay for district attorneys. The state pays a base salary of $94,332 for DAs in the nine counties of more than 100,000 people, and $79,512 for the DAs in the 27 less-populated counties. Most of the counties provide pay supplements, ranging from a few thousand dollars a year to up to $47,000 a year in Multnomah County. There’s a problem here that goes beyond Marquis’ dust-up with the Clatsop commissioners….....

I find it odd that the Board says that no one can come up with a reason why Josh’s stipend was cut and then goes on to say that the State should pay for someone who is a State employee…..the same reason Jeff gave.

Other News

• An Astoria couple has been charged with child neglect and criminal mis-treatment after they were believed to be duct-taping a child to different places around the house.

• Fans of pet-renting (betcha never heard that word before) are cheering for a new start-up company in California. They charge $100 a year for a sign-up fee and someone can rent a pet for $50 a month and return it when they want.

• Researches in Texas have released a paper that studies why men and woman have sex. And as one may have guessed almost all the reasons are the same. The top 3 for both men and women were attraction, physical pleasure and “It feels good”. The bottom 2 reasons for both men and women (out of 237 reasons) was of course “Someone offered me money or drugs” and “I wanted to give someone a STD”.
• Rupert Murdoch has agreed to a deal to buy Dow Jones & Co.

More D.A. Talk

by Tryan Hartill

Update

H/T to Scott, who reported that the Judge ruled in favor of the folks pushing the Charter change.

This time we move to Yamhill County D.A. Bradly Berry who has jumped into the national spotlight the last few days.

Back in Feb. of this year, two 7th graders were seen slapping girls butts at lunch time. The incident was reported to the principle. From there it went to the police and then to the D.A. The District Attorney eventually charged them with felony sex abuse. Both boys faced jail sentences and would be required to register as sex offenders. Since then the charges have been down-graded to Misdemeanor sex abuse.

Recently the police reports have became public. Here is a link to the most interesting one. You may develop a headache after reading this since half of it is scratched out. But one thing becomes perfectly clear…..many girls were doing the exact same thing. Another tidbit on this is that numerous girls were interviewed and every girl that told the boys to stop after the first time wasn’t bothered again.

The parents of the two boys are going into debt to pay legal fees, but plan to fight it all the way to the end.

The trial is scheduled for sometime in August. This will defiantly be a National Media event.

• In other D.A. news, the Opinion page in the Daily Astorian has gone bonkers. A few of the interesting tidbits:

Cassandra Profita’s Friday story about the departure of high quality legal talent from the district attorney’s office says it all. By stripping away the county stipend from the district attorney’s salary, commissioners implicitly devalued the mission of county prosectors.

Now as you all know, I think the D.A. deserves some type of stipend, but I think a contract is also needed to clear this stuff up. But I have no idea where he came up with this. The departing legal talent were asked point blank why they were leaving and neither said it was because of Josh losing his stipend. Either he is reading a different article, or he has created his own reality.

Continued…..

Only two groups can be applauding this turn of events. They are criminals and the criminal defense bar – most notably the Astoria lawyer who lives on drunken driving cases.

What does he mean by “Applauding”? It isn’t clear, but being completely honest, I’d say 1/2 of the people that I talk to about this issue are behind the Commissioners and half are behind Josh. None of which are criminals (that I know of) and none are defense attorneys. Maybe I only hang out with the “Cool people”.

Continued…..

Ann Samuelson at least should remember the bad old days of the late 1970s when part of the county jail was shut and the distrrict attorney prosecuted only certain crimes. That decimation of services led to a new county tax base and adoption of the home rule charter. This editorial page tirelessly championed both of those measures.

Yes, you are not seeing things, that is the second mis-spelled word in a 220 word opinion piece. It seems that Steve is so worked up about this, he forgot to use the spell checker.

Be that as it may, what does something that happened 30 years ago have to do with our current situation? Can someone please explain?

• And even more D.A. News! Josh has a new post up that discusses his Attorneys leaving. I’d say that this is actually one of the fairest write ups about the whole situation.

Charter Committee will appeal the Election Clerk ruling

by Tryan Hartill

From Independentda.com:

The bipartisan members of the Committee to Retain the Independence of the Office of District Attorney were told Monday by Clatsop County Clerk Nicole Williams that she would not accept their petition, based on the opinion of a specially hired Portland law firm that the law which allows counties to supplement the District Attorney’s salary is not a “general law.”

The Committee, made up of current and former chairs of the County Democrat and Republican party and others, said they intend to use the legal avenues provided in Oregon law to appeal the decision of the clerk to the Circuit Court of Clatsop County…..the Committee, which includes an experienced retired attorney, is confident that the provision in Oregon’s Constitution that a County’s charter “unless otherwise provided by general law . . . shall not affect . . . the compensation . . . of the District Attorney” ensures that a County government may not nullify action taken by the State legislature in this respect. Under Oregon Revised Statute 8.830, the State expressly authorizes Counties to supplement the compensation of the District Attorney and the proposed Amendment does just that and only that…....The proposed Amendment does not in any way affect the District Attorney’s compensation established by the State. Rather, it provides for permanent supplemental pay criteria for the Office of District Attorney as provided by Oregon law. That the proposed Amendment may affect supplemental compensation of the District Attorney in this way complies in all respects with the Oregon law.

As I noted yesterday, the way the Section is written, there is no way to clarify what exactly it means.

If the Circuit Court upholds the ruling by the County Clerk, then this most likely will make it’s way to the next level. If they rule that the Charter can be Amended, then we will probably see it on the ballot, unless some anti-Charter Amendment folks come up with some money and or lawyers to take it to the next level.

I guess the main question I have is if this is a conflict of interest for the local Circuit Court to rule on this issue.

What do you think?

In other news….

• The Bradwood Landing Project has dropped a bit of a bombshell…..they are in talks with TransCanada to build the gas pipeline from Bradwood landing to Mollalla instead of going north and connecting near Longview.

• University of Oregon is canceling it’s wrestling program and re-instating it’s baseball program.

• In a story that somehow makes me think of the word “bling”, a woman is told she has to move seats on a bus or face getting kicked off. It seems the driver was distracted by her rather large cleavage.

• Rats are turning into delicacies in China. Some restaurants are charging $18 a plate for a 2 pound “rat banquet”.

A bit of News....And why are tanned people more attractive?

by Tryan Hartill

UPDATE

Clatsop County Elections Clerk has issued an opinion on the County Charter change regarding the District Attorney pay:

Clatsop County Clerk Nicole Williams issued a letter today stating that the initiative petition to amend the county charter to provide an annual salary for the district attorney does not comply with requirements of the Oregon Constitution. Chief petitioners Hans Olsen, Myrna Patrick and Lawrence Taylor filed the proposed petition with the county clerk last Tuesday to require that the district attorney’s annual salary be not less than 90 percent of the annual salary of a Clatsop County circuit judge.

Under Oregon law, the county clerk is required to review whether a petition complies with certain procedural requirements of the Oregon Constitution within five business days.

Williams found that the prospective petition does not comply with Section 10, Article VI of the Oregon Constitution, the provision that allows counties to set up their governments under home rule. Williams retained independent legal counsel John M. Junkin of the Portland law firm Bullivant House Bailey PC, who issued a legal opinion to Williams confirming her decision. Williams noted that the Board of Commissioners was not involved nor was consulted in the process.

The constitutional provision defines what authorities the county has under home rule and set limits on what a county charter may do. The provision states that, “except as expressly provided by general law, a county charter shall not affect the selection, tenure, compensation, powers or duties prescribed by law for judges in their judicial capacity, for justices of the peace or for district attorneys.”

The proposed charter amendment would affect the district attorney’s salary by expressly providing for a minimum salary of no less than 90 percent of the annual salary of the Clatsop County Circuit judge, which would violate the Constitution, Junkin wrote in his opinion to the county clerk.

Hit the link for a full explanation along with documents…..

I have been out in the sun over the last week or so and wonder why most people view those that are slightly tanned to be more attractive?

Some may say that they prefer light skinned or dark skinned folks to be more attractive, but the overwhelming majority views people that are slightly tanned to be more attractive. With computer imaging it’s even easier to prove it. Many studies have been done and every race (black, white and whatever)points to photos of other people who just have a slight tan and say they are the most attractive.

Going back to primitive times, I can see why this would make a difference. Would you want a mate who sat in a cave all day and pasty white, or one that was out in the sun, either working (hunting, or whatever) or having fun?

Does this hold true today or is it something else?

Now for some news bites…..

Sex

This is an older article, but is worth noting. Steven Landsburg, who wrote a book titled “More Sex is Safer Sex” has a short review about his book:

Consider Martin, a charming and generally prudent young man with a limited sexual history, who has been gently flirting with his coworker Joan. As last week’s office party approached, both Joan and Martin silently and separately entertained the prospect that they just might be going home together. Unfortunately, Fate, through its agents at the Centers for Disease Control, intervened. The morning of the party, Martin happened to notice one of those CDC-sponsored subway ads touting the virtues of abstinence. Chastened, he decided to stay home. In Martin’s absence, Joan hooked up with the equally charming but considerably less prudent Maxwell – and Joan got AIDS.

When the cautious Martin withdraws from the mating game, he makes it easier for the reckless Maxwell to prey on the hapless Joan. If those subway ads are more effective against Martin than against Maxwell, they are a threat to Joan’s safety.

Steven’s whole argument is that if those that only have sex with 2 or less partners per year, had a few more, it would displace the “sluts” in the sex pool.
Not that I buy this argument, but it is still an interesting read. Here is the link to the story. (if it asks for a user ID and password, enter Dailykos for the ID and Dailykos for the password…)

DA Pay

I’m sure you have all read about the Charter Amendment that is in the works to tie the District Attorneys pay to 90% of the Circuit Judge pay.

But the $20,000 question is, is it legal?

According to Article VI Section 10 of the Oregon Constitution:

Except as expressly provided by general law, a county charter shall not affect the selection, tenure, compensation, powers or duties prescribed by law for judges in their judicial capacity, for justices of the peace or for district attorneys.

If you ask me, this statement is about as clear as mud. If the intent of this Section is to keep the Counties from dictating the State salary, then the Amendment is probably legal. If the Section was added so that the “Total pay” of the D.A.’s and Judges couldn’t be changed, then it’s unconstitutional. The only way to decide this is to take it to the Oregon Supreme Court and get a ruling.

Pot Smoking Terrorists

Not only is a admitted pot smoker still the Principle of Vernonia High School, but now he is also bankrolling terrorists around the world. Or according to our “Drug Czar” John Walters:

John P. Walters, President Bush’s drug czar, said the people who plant and tend the gardens are terrorists who wouldn’t hesitate to help other terrorists get into the country with the aim of causing mass casualties…......”Don’t buy drugs. They fund violence and terror”....... “These people are armed; they’re dangerous,” he said. He called them “violent criminal terrorists.”

Lets hope that the Vernonia Principal was not (gasp!) growing it himself…..

Other News

• Casey Harris of Astoria was killed in a car wreck near Toutle Washington.

• Oregon State police sergeants are suing the State for not recieving enough pay. One of them patrols Clatsop County.

• New York City is planning on a pilot program to charge each car $8 to enter Manhattan. And the Feds are going to pay them to do it! (Hundreds of Millions of Dollars…makes you feel good to send all that money to the Feds huh!)

Clatsop Commission votes 4-1 for the Recommended Budget

by Tryan Hartill

Sam Patrick makes a motion to give Josh his stipend and it dies for lack of a second. He also made a motion to reinstate the staff for the District Attorney’s office. (Anyone know what this was about? Didn’t the D.A. office get 2 staff members?....) And it also died for lack of a second.

In other news the Commission voted to give Bill Harris another term on the Planning Commission and voted to accept Mike Attio (Sp?) to another seat as a new member.

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