Letters to the Editor 11/10/2010

To the Editor:

The process that resulted in the selection of an economic development manager has been controversial. Two weeks ago The Nugget interviewed Mayor Lon Kellstrom who said his goal was to keep the council out of the search process to avoid bias. In other words, the entire process was engineered exclusively by mayor Kellstrom. Shortly thereafter I presented the following questions to the Mayor, the council, and City Manager Eileen Stein:

• Where does it say the mayor can keep the council out of the loop to avoid bias?

• Can the mayor unilaterally farm out contentious issues because the other councilors are biased and may not agree with him?

• Was there a board resolution delegating the council's powers and responsibilities to EDCO?

• Did the city manager set selection criteria for the economic development manager?

To date I've received no response other than an e-mail from City Attorney Steve Bryant to City Manager Eileen Stein that she sent to me with her comments. Mr. Bryant argues the city is not required to answer questions and to do so circumvents public record law and the fees the city can charge to provide documents. I've been told by the city manager that it will require eight hours of work at $32.33 per hour to respond to my questions and payment in advance is required.

Is this what you want from your city government? Do you think valid questions should be turned into a money-making opportunity? If not, please go to the council meeting this Thursday at 7 p.m. and tell the mayor and city manager how you want them to respond. In the alternative, call or e-mail each of them at your convenience.

Mike Morgan

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To the Editor:

Mayor Lon Kellstrom, by his own admission, acted alone in defining the hiring process for Sisters' economic development manager. His stated reason was to "keep the council at arm's length so as not to appear to have hired a friend of the council."

Whatever agreement was set forth, if any, is known only to the mayor and someone at EDCO. There is no record of any communication between the city and EDCO establishing goals, process or results. EDCO has refused to disclose any of the details of the selection process.

The end result of this secretive process cannot be verified by any letters or e-mails between EDCO and the City of Sisters. City Manager Stein has refused on three occasions to directly answer simple yes/no questions designed to determine if any such e-mails or letters exist.

One can only assume that there is no such communication. In other words, there is no evidence of any process, and there is no evidence to support the claim that Mac Hay was the person selected by EDCO.

Until some paper trail of what actually occurred is provided to the public, we have only the word of the mayor to justify this allocation of public funds, and the city council majority has given him cover by not demanding answers or requiring a standard consistent with what might be viewed as good public process. This process, if it can be called that, does not rise to the level of open, fair, or transparent government. This is troubling.

Ed Protas

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To the Editor:

Halloween is over. And it is over for me forever!

I chose to leave a bucket of candy on the porch with a sign that read "you're on your honor, take some and leave some."

Somebody in the neighborhood does not have any honor, only greed. I looked out to see how the supply was lasting and there was lots of candy left one minute and in the next few minutes somebody had dumped the entire bucket of candy in their bag, spilled one on the sidewalk, spilled a bowl of water that was there for the neighborhood cats and left the empty bucket.

That's the end of Halloween for this house. Get yours somewhere else! It only takes one to spoil it for everybody.

Diana Raske