By Emily Bonsant • Of the News-Register • 

Complaints filed against YFPD attorney and board president

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Comments

Manila

I really wish that the NR would do thorough reporting on this issue. First, when the recall petition was filed, it was filed against three YFPD Board members not just Jim Phillips. That recall effort failed when the petitioner - Lauren Randolph - couldn't get enough signatures on the petition to actually proceed with a recall. It is prudent for the Fire Board Chairman to at least first check with the attorney representing the District to find out how to proceed with the recall responses, etc. As I understand it, the billing from the attorney to the District was $28.50(seems reasonable!). Seems reasonable for an attorney to be able to tell the Board Chairman that all three Board members would need to retain their own Counsel doesn't it? In addition, the Ethics complaint filed by Randolph has no documentation with it to back up her claims. Further, that complaint also names the Yamhill Fire Protection District. Thus, consulting with the District's attorney would once again seem prudent to make sure that the District is well represented against the baseless claims put forth by Randolph. Finally, it would be really good if Board Member Peasley would stop feeding false information to Randolph and get on board with his fellow Board members to move the District ahead. Is he a member of the Board or not? If so, then get with the program. Randolph is simply a buddy of criminally charged former Fire Chief Trampas Bergstrom. She thinks she's doing him a favor but is only bringing further embarrassment to him. The District is well positioned to move ahead, and the community is clearly desiring that to occur. Randolph needs to stop wasting time and money of the state, county, fire district, and the community in her vendetta.

Concerned Yamhill Citizen

The Recall didn't fail. The Recall effort learned that it would cost the Fire District a lot of money to hold a recall election, so the effort did not move forward. The billing of the attorney was thousands of dollars, not a small amount. This is public record and covered in the audit. Jim Phillips still continues to make decisions without a Board vote, nor even conversations with the other Board members regarding district funds, hence the Secretary of State conducting an investigation. They wouldn't spend the time and money on the investigation if there wasn't validity to the complaint.

manila

@Concerned Yamhill Citizen. You've provided more misinformation. The letter from the County Clerk (public information) says that the recall didn't proceed for lack of valid signatures - period. You can't tell me that Lauren Randolph didn't know that the recall would cost the YFPD money before she filed it. The accounting records of YFPD also show that the attorney billing was not "thousands of dollars". Also, the Ethics complaint filed IS NOT WITH THE SECRETARY OF STATE. It is with the Oregon Ethics Commission. FYI, the Oregon Ethics Commission does a preliminary review of EVERY complaint filed to determine whether there is validity to the complaint or not. The steps to file a complaint are simply an online form filled out with whatever someone wants to dream up - in this case, Lauren Randolph. So OGEC is doing a standard preliminary review of the complaint. Don't make any bigger deal out of it then it is. They are certainly spending time and resources (money) reviewing the baseless claims of Randolph - but have not yet determined if there is anything valid to the complaint. This is standard procedure. If Randolph and Peasley were smart, they'd find something constructive to spend their time on and stop wasting the resources of our fire district on distractions. They are not helping Bergstrom, the Fire District, and certainly not helping the community who are ready to move forward as the criminal proceedings against Bergstrom play out. Randolph and Peasley have not contributed a single positive thing to the Fire District and have only made things for Bergstrom worse.

Kathy

Nice job, Manila. 100% correct in your comments. Thank You!!

Jeb Bladine

Previous News-Register stories reported all details of the three recall petitions. A January N-R story reported the chief petitioner's belief that enough signatures could have been collected, but a recall election "would not be a responsible use of taxpayer dollars." It appears that by January, however, the deadline for collecting recall petition signatures had passed.

The News-Register allows subscribers to use pseudonyms in posting comments while encouraging people to use real names. People with active public participation in controversial public stories should use their real names in posting comments about those stories.

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