By Nicole Montesano • Staff Writer • 

Commissioners engineer takeover of Parks Board; two resign in protest

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Comments

Oregonian

They're shameless.

The irony here is the fact that the commissioners' recommendations to the park board are as unqualified to run parks as the commissioners are to run a county.

Jean

if you leave your mail in ballot on the kitchen counter and never fill it out....this is what we get.

MBert70

More crap from Lindsey & Mary. Vote them OUT!!!

Shrt22y

Scre another one for our common sense county commissioners

Joel R

Oh the drama of it all!

madmacs

What does "Monetizing" the parks look like? Sounds like either charging fees to use stuff we already paid for or having a fire sale to some of our commissioner's cronies. Our County Commission is a clown car.

Sunrise

Every time we think it can't get any worse, they pull out another example of just how off the rails this group can go. Another example of nepotism(Berschauer's husband and George's daughter), quid pro quo(top campaign contributor), and corruption (ignoring recommendations from the people that are qualified to make recommendations for the Park's board). Worse, on the same day we get a recap of the expensive lawsuits that are dogging the county. Every single person in that white house needs to be gone - all of them. Time for people who actually govern, administrators who actually administrate, and people who will stand up for honest and productive government. So much time, money, and lost opportunity wasted! It's in the millions!

Bizzyditchaz

This is some incredible hubris. Like I told a friend recently about applying for positions on county boards, they will laugh as they toss applicants in the trash and appoint whom they already had in mind for the positions.
Our BOC is a joke and an embarrassment to our community.

Jean

charging a fee for the parks? Really? What's next? Renaming the parks after confederate traitors? or famous white supremacists?

YamCoCan

Sunrise is RIGHT ON. Nepotism, cronyism, corruption... They ignore policy and law, creating new policies to meet their narrow preferences rather than the livability of the county. They bully challengers and intimidate staff to ensure things keep going their way. Yamhill county needs to draw a line!

Mac Runner

They espouse ideals of "small government" - more like small-minded government. This is what happens when people don't pay attention to politics and actually vote in local elections. They are corrupt and shameless.

Culbert

There are two significant errors and one misunderstanding that need to be corrected in this article. Thus, I have written a detailed reply to the editor and hope it gets published. I also understand that a related article is being prepared for the Tuesday edition.
Jim Culbert, Chair
Yamhill County Parks and Recreation Advisory Board

YamCoCan

Culbert, could you elaborate here?

Loretta

Even the title is slanted! Have you never heard of neutrality? You influence the reader to a negative space just by the title. How about something like “changes in parks board”? And furthermore the whole article spins that direction till you wade through it to get to facts. I have to say though, when it comes to our commissioners, facts don’t seem to matter to some of you. You don’t seem to bother to look at the issues or their points of view, but instead no matter what they say you automatically disagree. That used to be called “throwing the baby out with the bath water”.

TLewis

I wonder if we will ever get rational adults on the commision again. Looks like the "Dunning-Kruger" effect has taken over.

YamCoCan

Even park board members now have to be partisan. Everyone see the writing that Cooke will be the next "chosen" BOC candidate to replace Starrett? Daughter of Kathy George, Berschauer supporter. They're appointing her to positions now so they can claim she's experienced... hand revealed.

SteRob

I keep trying to figure out the underlying historical action of a government replacing qualified, informed, experienced people with unqualified, uninformed and inexperienced people--I think it had something to do with a revolution somewhere, like people who forget (or never learn about history) are doomed to repeat it. In our case our shameful commissioners unashamedly practice nepotism and a replacement theory that says"in order to have the boards agree with me and do what I want them to do, we must replace them with people who don't really know anything". I'm so frustrated. There's no collaboration, or betterment of our community or making maximum use of all the experts in their fields. Shame on Lindsey's husband, friends, financial benefactors for replacing honorable experienced people that understand what's needed and advocate for our community. But then it's impossible to educate a board that is neither humble (knows that they don't know and seeks information from experts), nor understanding of the county and it's citizens and what it's future will look like. Shame on Johnston, Berschauer and Starett. Nepotism, greed, selfishness, shameless.

Culbert

I have written to the N-R pointing out two factual errors and one misunderstanding. As of Tuesday's N-R edition, the N-R has not acknowledged those points. What follows is what I wrote to the N-R:
1. Although this may be the opinion of some individuals, the Parks Board in its consideration of Parks Board applicants NEVER decided nor even stated that ANY of the Parks Board applicants were NOT qualified.
2, In response to the Commissioner's action on Thursday, I wrote a personal letter to the News-Register from my perspective as Parks Board Chair. That letter was not published, but was liberally and accurately quoted in the article. However, I want to clarify that my letter did not come from the Parks Board, but from me personally, and may not reflect the opinions of any other Parks Board member, past or present.
3. The Parks Board DID NOT REJECT the applications of applicants Cloyd, Hall, and Cooke. Other than the Board's three unanimously recommended applicants, the only other action taken on a specific application was to defer a recommendation on applicant McCarthy because she had told us that she was not sure she could consistently attend Parks Board meetings at this time because she is caring for the needs of a family member. Because the Parks Board had not yet interviewed two other applicants, and had also been informed of the interests of three more persons who had not yet submitted applications, our desire was to postpone any other recommendations until those other individuals could also be interviewed. This is why only three applicants were recommended.

YamCoCan

I appreciate those points of clarification, Culbert. Are you saying that some appointments, including Michael Firestone, were done without even properly applying or being considered by the parks board?

tagup

Interesting hiring process when you are selected for a position without even applying.

Oregonian

tagup - that's called being drafted.

Surprising that anyone would want to draft someone into a role they didn't know existed in a place they were unaware of.

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