One of the dumbest comments that was made last night at the commissioner's, sheriff and "stake holders" meeting regarding the jail was we had to build a jail first to see how much it cost to operate the facility. This comment was made by County Commissioner Henry Heimuller and had been previously stated by Commissioner Tony Hyde. How stupid does the County Commissioners actually think the voters are. The Commissioners never made those comments prior to the jail being built. The comment from Lifetime Commissioner Tony Hyde was the jail will be fully funded by the renting out of beds to the Federal Marshals. He state in public meetings (Commissioner meeting) that I personally attended that there would be no tax dollars used to fund the jail.

Hyde made a comment that there were other counties in Oregon that were having the same problem that we were concerning jails and that many counties could not afford to operate their jails. They most likely jumped on the band wagon along with Tony Hyde and Columbia County and built a huge jail that most counties could not afford at the time.

The meeting was held last night at the fairgrounds complex and was billed as a public meeting. Although the public could attend they were not allowed to speak. The only people who were allowed to speak were the stake holders and that was the Commissioners, the Sheriff, and City Councils from around the County. The building had horrible acoustics, you could not hear the meeting as it took place, the building was cold, and the round table was set directly under the heater so those in attendance sat in a noticeably cold room. Why didn't they hold the meeting at the library, or the Soil and water District hall, or a school auditorium?

I find the term stake holders offensive. Everybody that pays taxes in the county are stake holders not just elected officials. The taxpayers are the ones that footed the bill to build the jail and has footed the bill ever since and are the ones who have been asking for more money to fund the jail through a levy that was voted down by 4-2. And are the ones that will be asked again to fund the jail come May 2014.

I think that the town hall meetings that are being set up should come before any decisions regarding jail funding is proposed. If the pro-jail people really want a levy passed, then they should seek out opinions and find out why people voted the levy down. They could then address the issue better.

I strongly believe that the taxpayers are simply tired of being duped and deceived. I believe the taxpayers are still angry about the hospital fiasco which stole millions from  taxpayers and now the County Commissioners, (who were a guilty party of the theft from the taxpayers) want the taxpayers to trust them once again and to fund millions to fix their obvious list of failed boondoggles. The taxpayers are fed up and rightly so. People do not have the kind of money that Tony Hyde wants to run things, why should he care? Tony has a steady job with completely paid costs, complete benefits, Pers, medical and cracks down over $100,000 per year combined.

The meeting was a complete waste of time, there were about 24 people attending which many were jail/sheriff employees on duty sheriffs, retired and a few regular citizens.

Sheriff Dickerson is a pretty good guy, he unfortunately inherited this problem from a huge gorilla in the room Tony Hyde. Remember Hyde is the Commissioner who made the comment that the taxpayers are a drain on the county's finances while the corporations pay their share. Maybe if Hyde had not given away tax money to US Gypsum, Teeven Brothers, Pacific Stainless, Morse Brothers aka Knife River, PGE, the failed Ethanol plant, and now the crude oil company and others, he sealed deals awarding jobs to out of town contractors while people in Columbia County desperately needed jobs. If his loyalty was directed to the citizens of Columbia County there would be enough tax money collected for us to fund the jail.

People need to wake up and get rid of the likes of Tony Hyde and replace these guys with people who actually give a shit about the people of Columbia County rather than their own life long career and ego.