this was the front page article in the Courier tonight...you NEED to read this. Gilbertson up to his antics. Hare and others say sheriffs allegation that commissioner yanked funding to manipulate voters is false May 9, 2014 By Melissa McRobbie of the Daily Courier Comments (No comments posted.) Josephine County Sheriff Gil Gilbertson has accused a county commissioner of playing a shell game with taxpayer money two years ago in an effort to drum up support for a public safety tax levy. Several current and former county officials, however, say the sheriffs allegation is way off base. At an April 1 candidates forum in Cave Junction, Gilbertson charged that Commissioner Simon Hare had informed him of a plan to transfer money away from the Sheriffs Office during a previous election year — a move the sheriff says was intended to persuade voters to support a proposed public safety levy. In a subsequent interview with the Daily Courier, the sheriff did not waver from the allegation and said the conversation occurred in the spring of 2012. Gilbertsons statement in Cave Junction was captured on camera and posted to YouTube by local videographer Dale Matthews. In the video, Gilbertson says, We were going for a levy at the time, and one of the commissioners said, Sheriff, I want you to get rid of patrol. Well, I almost fell out of my chair cause thats our No. 1 job … So this commissioner knew I had $500,000 — about five deputies — for patrol. These were his words: Im going to take $500,000 from you, Im going to give it to the district attorney and juvenile justice. That will make the people vote yes. At the prompting of an audience member, Gilbertson clarified that the commissioner was Hare. Gilbertson said Hare told him he would give the money back to the Sheriffs Office after the election and instructed the sheriff not to tell the public about the plan. Hare adamantly denies Gilbertsons claim, and several other current and former county leaders interviewed for this story rejected the notion that there was any attempt to deceive voters in 2012. There was indeed a reallocation of $500,000 away from the Sheriffs Office prior to the May election that year, and nearly that amount — $425,000 in public works money — was moved to the sheriffs budget after the election. However, Hare and other leaders say those actions were prompted by specific circumstances at the time, including a new state law that affected the countys budgeting process. I wouldnt mind saying that the allegations that the sheriff made are completely false, and there is no way to substantiate anything hes talking about, Hare said in a recent interview. Additionally, Hare noted the sheriffs statement incorrectly implies that Hare had the power to move the money on his own. In fact, he said, such actions must be approved by the full Board of Commissioners. He also pointed out that if Gilbertsons allegation was true, the sheriff would be equally complicit because he didnt come forward two years ago. Why wait so long to bring it up as an issue? I dont get the motivation. I dont understand any of it, Hare said. The sheriff said he has mentioned the conversation with Hare to various people over time and wasnt trying to keep it a secret. In fact, his statement at the Cave Junction forum came in response to a question posed by Mark Seligman, one of eight candidates running against Hare for commissioner. Seligman told the Daily Courier he asked about the incident because Gilbertson had mentioned it to him during a casual conversation. SIMON HARE and GIL GILBERTSON Sheriff short on specifics Gilbertsons startling accusation is a hefty one to make during an election season in a county with a population long distrustful of government. The stakes are high, with Gilbertson and Hare both running for re-election, and voters considering Measure 17-59, a five-year levy that would fund jail operations and reopen the Juvenile Justice Center, as well as free up about $2 million for sheriffs patrols and increased staffing at the District Attorneys Office. In an interview with the Daily Courier, Gilbertson repeated his account of what happened in 2012, although he said he regrets the timing because it looks like an election-year attack on Hare. Its going to look like Im just picking on him. Id be willing to stand a lie detector on this, he said. Gilbertson said the conversation with Hare occurred during an informal meeting between himself, Hare, District Attorney Stephen Campbell and several other people. He could not provide an approximate date for the meeting, nor the location or the identities of the other people who were there. In a subsequent interview, he clarified that the conversation happened in the months prior to the May 2012 election, but he still could not say where it was or who else was present. We were in a meeting of people that were interested in developing the levy, he said. Gilbertson said he chatted with Campbell after the meeting and that both were disturbed by Hares comments. However, Campbell told the newspaper he wasnt there for any such discussion with Hare. I wasnt present when anyone said that, Campbell said. That would obviously have bothered me. That levy went before voters on May 15, 2012, and was soundly rejected. If it had passed, the county would have collected $1.99 per $1,000 of assessed value from property owners to offset the loss of federal timber payments. After the measures defeat, nearly two-thirds of the sheriffs staff was laid off, dozens of inmates were released from jail, the Juvenile Justice Center closed and the district attorney lost four of his nine prosecutors. The money transfer The Daily Courier reviewed minutes from a number of Board of Commissioners meetings in the spring of 2012 to examine the reallocations of the $500,000 before the election and the $425,000 afterward. Both changes were part of the budgeting process for the approaching fiscal year, which would begin July 1, 2012. Josephine County Chief Financial Officer Rosemary Padgett said the mechanics of those reallocations can be understood by considering the countys annual budget timeline and a new state law that had just been approved. In March 2012, the state Legislature approved House Bill 4175, which allowed certain counties, including Josephine, to transfer federal forest reserve money traditionally set aside for roads to public safety agencies for the purpose of rural patrols. County commissioners subsequently approved the reallocation of $500,000 away from the Sheriffs Office in March knowing it would likely be replaced later with the roads money. Of that $500,000, $350,000 was given to the district attorney to pay for two prosecutors and two legal secretaries. The other $150,000 went to juvenile justice to fund one probation officer and one detention bed, according to minutes from a March 29, 2012, meeting. The minutes noted that the board would decide on the reallocation of the roads funds after the May election. Padgett said in a recent interview that the county couldnt approve the $425,000 roads money transfer until after the election because if the levy had passed, the Sheriffs Office wouldnt need that money. What people dont understand is we start working our budgets in February and March … If there might be legislation or there might be a levy, we dont budget that until we know its a fact, she said. After the levy failed, the roads money was indeed transferred to the Sheriffs Office, enabling it to keep three patrol deputies on the road in addition to its three contract deputies, so-called because they work on a contractual basis to patrol federal forests, area waterways and the city of Cave Junction. All expenses related to the contract deputies, including salaries and benefits, are paid by the agencies that hold the contracts. The situation was far from ideal — three patrol deputies is next to nothing when it comes to providing law enforcement in a county the size of Josephine. But it was better than zero, which is what Gilbertson and commissioners predicted if the levy failed. Statements before the election In news articles published in April 2012, the sheriff was quoted as saying that without the levy, he would be the only Sheriffs Office employee available to regularly respond to emergency calls. In an opinion piece written by Hare and then-commissioners Don Reedy and Harold Haugen that was published in the Daily Courier on April 27, 2012, the commissioners laid out what would happen if the levy failed, with one section reading: No patrols in the county. Sheriff Gilbertson will respond to all calls personally and only in the case of life-threatening emergencies. It is unclear why such representations were made when there was little likelihood, due to the roads money, that the sheriff would end up with no money for patrols. When asked about their opinion piece, Hare and Reedy said they could not recall their reasoning for saying there would be no patrols, noting that the piece was written two years ago. Hare conceded that the statement about zero patrols didnt make sense because the roads money was there. Padgett pointed out that Gilbertson also would have been aware of that. He always knew that he would either have the levy or the road dollars, she said. Reedy is firm that there was no coordinated effort to mislead voters, calling Gilbertsons accusation absolutely ridiculous. He said the $500,000 funding reallocation in March was simply to accommodate important needs at the District Attorneys Office and the juvenile department. Its a balancing act, Reedy said. We tried to balance it as best we could … Simon Hare and I and Harold Haugen made those decisions based on our best judgment. He noted that the drop in federal timber subsidies in 2012 devastated county public safety departments across the board, not just the Sheriffs Office. Its just a matter of which pot gets empty first, Reedy said. He said Gilbertsons account of what happened also doesnt make sense because Reedy himself was the boards liaison to the Sheriffs Office at that time, not Hare. Nobody was trying to do an end run around (Gilbertsons) budget, Reedy said. We allocated all the dollars we could to satisfy as many people as we could. Nobody was happy. ——— Reach reporter Melissa McRobbie at 541-474-3721 or mmcrobbie@thedailycourier
Posted on: Sat, 10 May 2014 00:37:59 +0000
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