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League may try to revamp county board Commissioner claims move is just politics By Dani Dodge The League of Women Voters will decide next week whether to push for a charter amendment that would increase the number of county commissioners from three to seven and make the $58,000-a-year jobs voluntary. "This is important because we are wasting $300,000 a year on paying three politicians (and their staffs) to fiddle with administrative functions instead of leaving that to one trained professional person," said Bill Mansfield, chairman of the League�s charter review committee. "My reason for wanting to do this is because it�s fundamentally unsound to mix the administrative and legislative functions." Both the Ashland and Rogue Valley Leagues took a position last month that the board should be made up of five or more members elected on a nonpartisan basis. The official League position states "the League supports considering other options to full-time paid commissioners." "We had a committee that studied it for a year," said Jean Milgram, president of the League of Rogue Valley. "We had this same position 15 years ago, and the committee was updating it. "When we updated it, we found there was more feeling than ever to bring this about." Mansfield, an attorney and former Medford city councilman, said after the League updated its position, he "took the bull by the horn" and wrote up a draft charter amendment so League members could get an idea of what it would look like. The draft could change but currently calls for a seven-member "county council" whose members could be paid up to $200 a month each. The League�s charter review committee will hold a private meeting next week to decide whether to pursue the amendment. If the League decides to go forward, it would either ask county commissioners to put the charter amendment on the ballot or put it on the ballot itself by gathering about 4,000 signatures, which is 6 percent of the number of people who voted in the governor�s election two years ago. A charter can be changed only by a vote of the people. If voters passed the amendment, the three seated commissioners would continue in their duties until the following regular election, when the new seven-member county council would be elected. County Commissioner Jack Walker said he sees no reason to change the commission�s structure. "We�ve got a system that works," Walker said. "An efficient running county. We�ve got internal and external audits that show we either meet or exceed the efficiencies of every other county on this state. "Why would you want to change that?" Walker said he believes the people who want to change the board�s makeup are those who don�t agree with the board�s pro-property-rights stances. "There is no doubt in my mind it�s a futile effort based on the fact that a number of elections have taken place where they were trying to put a more liberal view on the commission and it hasn�t worked," Walker said. "So they are trying to get in the back door." But Milgram and Mansfield dispute Walker�s contention that politics has anything to do with their position. "It�s just a better way to run a county," Milgram said. "Pretty much all the experts agree on that, although the politicians don�t." Mansfield and Milgram said they believe commissioners spend too much time on administrative functions and that decision-making should be separated from the day-to-day running of the county. "The commissioners spend most of their time schmoozing people," Mansfield said. "They sit in their office and respond to questions about potholes. We shouldn�t be paying legislators to do that." This isn�t the first time someone has tried to change the county�s structure. In 1995, attorney Joe Charter filed a petition calling for seven part-time commissioners instead of the three full-timers. But he never gathered enough signatures to put the issue on the ballot. "I didn�t want to spend the rest of my life at the little table at the mall saying, �Hey, do you want to sign my petitions?� " Charter said. "But I think it can be done and eventually it will be done." Reach reporter Dani Dodge at 776-4471, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.