The Board of Josephine County Commissioners met Wednesday, Feb. 19 for a weekly business session at Anne G. Basker Auditorium in Grants Pass.
Among the agenda items were the establishment of the Voluntary Resignation Program, extending the embargo on new mineral exploration permits, resetting terms and appointments to the Budget Committee and Illinois Valley Airport Advisory Committee.
Board Chair Andreas Blech said he had been working on the Voluntary Resignation Program for three weeks and sought his peers’ support in advancing the program without collaboration from Human Resources.
Blech cited “significant shortcomings” the county has faced in meeting financial obligations recently while explaining his motivation behind establishing “a mechanism to be built for voluntary resignation of employees that meet certain criteria.”
“I believe that approximately 80% of the county’s budget is spent on personnel, so it’s a significant amount of money,” Blech noted. “To pay for those people, a lot of the funding for the county has come from SRS money and other sources – timber receipts on O&C lands and that, as we know, has been going away and it’s probably not coming back in any kind of significant way in the near future.”
Commissioner Ron Smith signaled his support of the program by saying, “I think it’s something that’s good to look at because of the economic climate within the whole country right now.”
“It’s just kind of a way to help the county with some budget issues that we’re going to be facing,” added Vice Chair Chris Barnett.
Another action taken at the meeting was resetting the terms and appointments on the JoCo Budget Committee and Illinois Valley Airport Advisory Committee.
“The intent here is that we as a board believe that committees and commissions and advisory boards are important to Josephine County in the matter of making recommendations,” said Blech. “However, in the past certain committees have been not performing 100% in terms of their reporting to the commissioners as well as appointments haven’t been made and records haven’t been made according to their bylaws.
“So the objective here is to reset the appointments on the boards. The commissions will continue to function as they have before but we’re looking at reappointing or appointing new positions to new people to those positions. We’re asking those that are on those boards now to reapply to go back onto the boards that they were on.”
“I think it’s something that’s necessary so that committees and advisory committees can perform what they’re supposed to perform – advising the county commissioners,” Smith opined.
Barnett added that another goal was to stagger term expirations so that there is always a member on these committees that has years of experience.
A one-year prohibition on mining leases was also approved by the board, which legal counsel Wally Hicks explained the rationale behind.
“On Oct. 25, 2023 board order 2023-006 suspended the acceptance and processing of applications for mineral exploration permits, mining leases and mining permits for a period of one year,” Hicks remarked. “These are all parts of a process by which applicants can obtain access to county-owned property for the purpose of mineral exploration, mineral leasing and mining permitting, so that’s all spelled out in the Josephine County Code, specifically in Chapter 5.15.
“The Board of County Commissioners is in the process of looking to potentially revise Josephine County Code Section 5.15 and so as part of that process, the board is considering today a one-year suspension of the processing of mineral applications and there is one specific exception carved out in the order which will be processed separately, so the suspension will remain in effect for one year following the passage of the order unless revoked or extended by formal act of the Board of County Commissioners.”
There will not be a business session this week due to scheduling conflicts that prevented the board from achieving a quorum. The commissioners voted to formally cancel the meeting during their Feb. 19 session.