At the Monday, July 20, briefing, all three Mason County commissioners agreed to reduce the number of regularly scheduled commission meetings from four to two per month.

There was no coherent explanation given for the decision and no legitimate reason for it exists, since these meetings have been held remotely since July 7th. Additionally, there was no legitimate reason for the commissioners to continue restricting in-person public attendance at meetings since attendance was at commissioner discretion since July 7th.

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During the hiring freeze of 2017, county commissioners eliminated three staff positions so they could fill three new positions in the Support Services Department. As a result, one of the employees laid off was a highly qualified and well respected grant writer and contract manager. Some citizens questioned the wisdom of eliminating a revenue generating position during a budget crunch, but those voices fell on deaf ears.

Scratch the surface of any long term problem in Mason County and you’ll find a past action (or inaction) by the Board of County Commissioners that either created the condition or made it worse than it needed to be.

With few exceptions, the most important part of any public meeting is the public comment segment. On any issue, County Commissioners have unlimited time to opine from their bully pulpit, but the public is limited to only 3 minutes per person, 15 minutes total. In practice, however, there is no time limit on public comments and the commissioners know this, so why the pretense?

I don’t believe we are doing the public any justice by withholding a general area in a county which covid-19 positive cases have been identified. I believe other communities have benefited by dodging or frequenting a little less areas where cases have been Identified. It may have some affect on business or at least maybe people will practice a little better covid-19 hygiene practices knowing that the virus has hit closer to home in their community thus maybe saving hospitalizations or lives. Identify the area in the county not the the names of the infected.

Anonymous, Belfair

I attended the regularly scheduled meeting of the BOCC today to try and stop our commissioners from giving away $30,000 to a private citizen who filed a lawsuit against the county that included the following allegation: “On April 10, 2019 Plaintiff made a request for public records from Defendant for which the Defendant intentionally and in bad faith, denied said records in an effort to conceal from Plaintiff records of significant importance relating to a proposed gravel mine application on Hood Canal.”

“I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today” is a line made famous by the portly character, ‘Wimpy,’ in the comic strip, ‘Popeye.’ But the funny part is not that payment be deferred, but the understanding that payment will never be forthcoming.

County 2020 budget numbers are based on the first full year of accounting using Cash Basis accounting, as adopted in July 2018 (Resolution #48-18).