Eugene weekly., July 14, 2011, Page 12, Image 12

Lane County: ‘Working for You’
“Research showed that people don’t
really know what Lane County does,”
according to public relations fi rm Cawood
Communications. Lane County hired
Cawood and branded itself with the slogan
“Working for You” to solve that problem.
The county started a series of explanatory
videos on the county website — from the
District Attorney Offi ce’s “Protecting
the Victims” to Lane County Waste
Management’s “Hazards and Nuisances.”
That series was “zeroed out” in the
most recent county budget, according to
Commissioner Sorenson.
A lot of things were zeroed out or cut
dramatically in the budget process. County
employees were laid off; services from
animal control to communities in need
were threatened. Unions have been asked
for concessions to meet a multi-million-
dollar budget shortfall. On July 7 the
sheriff’s offi ce announced that it would cut
84 jail beds in order to meet county budget
requirements. The commissioners did not
ask the jail to cut the beds; Lane County
Sheriff Tom Turner made the cut without
fi rst notifying the board.
But Lane County found the money to
pay almost $50,000 to former news anchor
and one time Republican candidate for
secretary of state Rick Dancer to make
videos about Lane County. Sorenson, who
didn’t know about the contract with Dancer
or the planned videos, said the board didn’t
vote on the money.
According to the Lane Manual, the
county administrator can execute “all
contracts and agreements not exceeding
$100,000 nor three years in length.” Unlike
contracts authorized by the board, the
county administrator’s contracts do not
need to be discussed in a public meeting.
Commissioner Bozievich said he
couldn’t be positive, “but I think that was
initiated by the county administrator within
her budget.” He said the new series is a
continuation of the public outreach of the
“Working for You” series (see http://vimeo.
com/25829160).
Commissioner Handy said the previous
video series cut out at the recommendation
of County Administrator Liane Richardson
was similar in cost to the Rick Dancer
series, and called the board’s discussion
of cutting the award-winning “Working
for You” series during budget talks a
“charade.”
Handy said there was “no public process,
and without any Budget Committee input
this same county administrator grants about
the same amount of money to yet another
well-known, right-wing friend for a video
series designed to persuade the public that
union members make too much money and
should make concessions to balance Lane
County’s budget.”
The new series has a working title of
“Your Lane, Your Voice, Your Government,”
and according to information from Lane
County Public Information Offi cer Amber
Fossen, Dancer was contracted to do 12
videos for $40,800 and six “water coolers”
— live-streaming chats — for $6,000, for
a total of $46,800. The water coolers will
be live panel discussions on major topics.
The videos will be available on Vimeo,
YouTube and the county’s Facebook page.
Fossen said the county contracted with
Dancer “last fi scal year, utilizing money
12 JULY 14, 2011
EUGENE WEEKLY
saved in county administration.”
In the six-minute video Administrator
Richardson,
who
authorized
the
expenditure for the series, said “whenever
you’re talking about benefi ts it’s hard,
when you talk about health insurance it’s
harder.”
The video takes aim at unions and
workers associations, which have been
asked to take cuts in health insurance,
while employees have been asked to take
15 unpaid furlough days, in order that the
county save money. Jim Steiner, council
representative for the county’s 680-member
American Federation of State, County and
Municipal Employees local (AFSCME),
said those cuts hit the most vulnerable
workers at the county, and he questions the
choice to try to “balance the budget on the
backs on the folks making the least amount
of money.” Steiner said that “80 percent
of our membership are women. Many are
single parents working in order to provide
health insurance for their children.”
Richardson and the video go on to
place blame on the Endangered Species-
listed northern spotted owl for the county’s
fi nancial woes.
The fi rst Sorenson and fellow
Commissioner Handy heard of the series
was after EW found it posted on Bozievich’s
Facebook page. The county budget took
“hundreds of thousands of hits,” said
Sorenson, but within a few days it was
“signing an agreement for a video series
and has the county administrator talking
about her view of what the county should
do with the budget.” Sorenson said, “That’s
not a really good use of our money.”
Commissioner Leiken, like Bozievich,
was apparently aware of the video series.
He responded to posts on Dancer’s
Facebook page where he was promoting the
video: “Timber revenues is what kept the
county in business years ago and I believe
past leadership were thinking that either
timber harvest or the Secure Rural Schools
Act would not run out.” He continued,
“United States (is) importing huge amounts
of timber from Canada and South America
that we should be harvesting here.”
Doug Heiken of Oregon Wild questioned
this assumption that logging is the fi x for
budget woes. “If timber payments did fund
the counties, even modest increases in the
possible money they could get from timber
sales is very small,” Heiken said. “The
county funding does not come from timber
sales; it hasn’t for 20 years.”
Leiken said, “Earlier in the year we did
adopt a social media policy, so clearly this
follows within that guideline.”
Hopping and leaping
on a Moonshadow
Lane County has begun another
diffi cult process — redistricting. Every
10 years, following the U.S. Census, the
county redraws voting districts. This year
the process has started under a cloud of
suspicion.
The Oregon secretary of state’s
offi ce requires district boundaries to be
contiguous, utilize existing geographic
or political boundaries, not divide
communities of common interest, and be
connected by transportation links. Districts
must be of equal population. They cannot
favor any political party, incumbent elected
offi cial or other person and not be “drawn
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