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Commissioners decline to protect county departments

Mielke plan would have cemented them

By Stephanie Rice
Published: December 15, 2014, 4:00pm

A proposal by Clark County Commissioner Tom Mielke to cement county departments in advance of a new charter taking effect failed Tuesday, as Commissioner Jeanne Stewart said she could see the merits of the idea but couldn’t give her support.

Commissioner David Madore, who had earlier stated objections to Mielke’s proposal, reiterated Tuesday that voters approved a home-rule charter in November to establish a new form of government. That includes giving executive authority over departments to a county manager, he said.

The charter takes effect Jan. 1.

Mark McCauley, the current county administrator, will become county manager.

If Mielke’s ordinance had passed, McCauley would not have been able to consolidate any of a dozen departments, a power held, for example, by Vancouver City Manager Eric Holmes.

Madore said he trusts McCauley will work with the policymaking board to ensure the county operates at its most efficient.

During a public hearing, 13 people urged a “no” vote while two people expressed support.

A half-dozen people who signed up to testify left before their names were called, as the hourlong public hearing was the last topic of a meeting that ran nearly five hours.

Opponents expressed suspicion about the timing of Mielke’s proposal. They asked if Mielke, a commissioner since 2009, really thought it was essential to the well-being of the county to establish departments by ordinance, then why didn’t he suggest it earlier. They also questioned why commissioners would micromanage the county manager.

“We are not going, as the last four hours demonstrated, to solve all of our problems in this room,” said Garland Long of Vancouver.

Kathleen Hudziak of Vancouver told commissioners that they need to earn the trust of the voters.

“Just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s ethical,” she said.

Former Commissioner Ed Barnes, the first person to testify, said during his six months on the board, Madore and Mielke were always looking for ways to cut costs.

On Nov. 4, while he was still in office, Barnes, a Democrat, suggested dissolving the Department of Environmental Services because eliminating three positions — the director, finance manager and administrative assistant — would save the county $713,225 in the next two years in employee costs, a figure confirmed with the county budget office.

The work could be split between Public Works and Community Development, which did the work before the department was created in 2009, Barnes said.

Last year, Madore and Mielke, both Republicans, hired Don Benton, a Republican state senator, to run the department.

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That hire cost the county $250,000 in a settlement with Anita Largent, the interim director who sued the county, alleging unlawful hiring practices and discrimination.

Mielke denied that his proposal was about Benton.

Stewart, a Republican, said she would never consider an ordinance designed to protect one person’s job. She noted there are plenty of people skeptical of Mielke’s motives and still upset that Benton was hired. She said she believes voters approved the charter, which also expands the number of policymakers from three to five, to bring county government “back to balance.”

“People are angry,” she said. “They are angry about decisions made in the past.”

She said she does have a concern the charter may give too much power to the county manager, but said it will be up to McCauley to make sure that doesn’t happen.

She added the charter was approved by a wider margin than she had in her race against Democrat Craig Pridemore, whom she beat by fewer than 1,000 votes.

“I do value the will of the people,” she said.

She told Mielke she was sorry but she just couldn’t support it.

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