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Commissioner Patrick opts out of active participation in interview process

Wednesday evening four constituents of District Three interviewed for the open spot left after last month’s recall. The evening began with the Guy Boyington Building three quarters full and ended with about 15 people in the audience to hear the commissioner candidates give their answers to the sitting commissioners’ questions.

At the BOCC board meeting of April 23, Sheriff Tom Bergin made a suggestion that the process that the commissioners might use is the one he employs in which a limited number of questions are asked each of the candidates, they are asked the same questions so it would be easier to judge their responses and a response time limit be placed on the answers. According to Nicole Williams, assistant to county manager Scott Derickson, what was finally decided on was that the BOCC chair and staff came up with a list of questions that was emailed out to the board and members were asked to comment on the questions if they had any concerns and, if they had any, to add their own questions. They heard back from all the commissioners, who expressed their concerns or suggested other questions, except Patrick, and assumed he was content with the questions.

On the day that the interviews were to take place Williams talked with Commissioner Patrick and asked if he was satisfied with the questions. He replied that he wasn’t and he had questions he felt should be included. Williams said she told Patrick he should make sure to tell the Chair at the beginning of the meeting that he had additional questions he would like to ask. This suggests that it would allow the other board members time to see them since Patrick had seen all the other questions prior to the board meeting.

Patrick did not notify the Chair at the beginning of the meeting that he had questions. As the audio of the evening reflects, Patrick waited for it to be his turn to ask a question from the list of pre-agreed upon questions and then commented that he didn’t want to ask a question from that list but had some of his own. Chairman Roberts looked puzzled and said no, but would he please read a question from the list and Patrick declined. For the rest of the evening Patrick declined to ask any candidate questions, even when they pointedly addressed him.

After the meeting Commissioner Patrick explained that he would have liked a more interactive interview process with the candidates. He said he didn’t want to ask questions he didn’t approve of. His questions would have been focused on what he feels are real, immediate, issues facing communities at this time. “I would have liked to have seen what they would have done with a real problem,” he commented. For instance, he said, he would have liked to ask what kind of knowledge they have of the water issues confronting many of the communities in the area and what solutions do they purpose for problems for dike issues and the inability to get water because of restricted water availability. The other question he would have liked to ask was how would the commissioner candidate purpose the building of the jail be funded as well as maintained it after it was built?

Joe Gamm, a reporter for the Daily Astorian, asked Commissioner Patrick if his questions were directed specifically towards the skills or working knowledge of mainly two candidates, Dave Ambrose (who is a technician for Clatsop Water & Soil Conservation) and John Raichl (a retired Sheriff for Clatsop County)? Patrick responded no, he didn’t think so. He thought it would show how the candidates were able to problem solve. When NCO asked Patrick if the other commissioners were aware that he hadn’t submitted questions prior to Wednesday evening he said he didn’t think so, nor were they aware that he hadn’t approved of the questions that the staff had compiled with the other commissioners’ input.

Williams said that no one was aware that Patrick was dissatisfied with the questions until yesterday, even though the board members had been emailed repeatedly with the updated questions and asked for input on which questions they wanted included or deleted. Even as late as yesterday evening Patrick had the opportunity to rectify the situation by allowing the other board members an opportunity to look at his suggestion for questions at the beginning of the meeting, according to William’s suggestion to Patrick. There was an hour break between when the public spoke with the board and when the board reconvened for the interview process. Two of the board members evidenced surprise when Commissioner Patrick sprung his statement that he wanted to ask his own questions on them during the meeting with Chair Roberts looking perplexed when Patrick refused to ask the candidates a question.

Commissioner Hazen said that while he wasn’t surprised he was disappointed that Commissioner Patrick didn’t weigh in on it [the question selection process] ahead of time or let the other commissioners know that he had specific questions he wanted asked. Commissioner Samuelson said that each of the commissioners had over a week to look over the questions and submit their own or make recommendations. She was unaware of the fact that Commissioner Patrick hadn’t approved of the questions since they had agreed to use the email process to communicate to staff, and each other, what questions they were interested in using.

The Board of County Commissioners is under a time constraint to appoint a commissioner before 45th day that a vacancy has been declared. May 24, 2008, is the Charter deadline for the appointment. While the interview process was taking place, Chair Roberts explained to candidate Lundy when he asked how the commissioner was going to be chosen, board members were writing comments to each candidate’s response to the questions. The staff will then compile the comments and disperse them to all the board members to go over. The Board has tentatively set the date of May 14th to go over the comments in open session. They may, at that time, make a decision on who to appoint or they make it the following week on May 21. Both dates have been scheduled ahead of time as tentative appointment dates.

KMUN carried the interviews live. A synopsis of the interviews will be available soon along with the commissioners’ commissioners’ comments, PIR response time dependent.

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