Recall Election is on! Or is it? Resignations can call off election!
Recall now so that we can get three new commissioners who will:
– seek, listen and respect community input before making changes
– manage the budget much better to ensure Ashland’s financial stability
– maintain well what we have before expanding or creating new programs
– restore the local senior social services’ safety net
Signatures Verified!
Photo: Claudia Ballard
Download Ashland Recall Flyers: 2-sided half sheet flyer and Quarter page flyer
Even with limited times gathering signatures in the freezing holiday weather, we turned in plenty of signatures for verification ten days early. Many Ashlanders practically grabbed the petitions out of the gatherers hand to sign (three times!), and thanked us for being there. We appreciate your support.
Read former Budget Committee Member Mary Cody’s Mail Tribune’s Guest Opinion on city council working against citizens’ input here.
Read Budget Committee Member Shaun Moran’s Daily Tidings’ Guest Opinion on overspending and potential fiscal crisis for Ashland here.
Watch RVTV’s Tough Times with AshlandSOS – a half hour interview by Therese Swenson.
Available online at rvtv.sou.edu (click on RVTV Voices), (or in archives https://archive.org/details/PA5269211)
KSKQ broadcast 89.5 fm
Hear an hour interview with AshlandSOS by the Brain Labor Report.
Available online in archives here
SENIOR PROGRAM/CENTER
APRC latest actions:
Concerns about the direction APRC and the ad hoc senior advisory commission is going includes:
• Ad Hoc committee recommendations may sound positive; however, they are mostly conceptual. How APRC implements them down the road is what matters. APRC has already showed their hand in wanting to scale back (and outsource) social services (information/referral and outreach services) and expand recreation programs where revenue generation from younger seniors is more possible.
• APRC has passed the ad hoc committee’s initial recommendations without doing an adequate evaluation of the budget implications. If the budget is not increased, everything is certainly window dressing.
• The ad hoc recommended administration, record keeping and structure are geared toward a large city (over 100,000 population) rather than a city of Ashland’s size (21,000). APRC and the ad hoc committee have not considered the costs of building the bureaucracy, supporting computer program technologies and additional staffing it will require. It will direct staff to do paper/computer work instead of dedicating time to provide direct services to those most in need.
• APRC enhanced the senior program responsibilities, position, and manager’s role without review of APR’s overall structure in order to cut back personnel in other areas that used to have such responsibilities, e.g., recreation department.
• APRC adds highly paid staff to its organization which is already top heavy.
• The program and job descriptions are all set up to outsource the information/referral and outreach to regional agencies that have slim staffing. Local staff for such services are more efficient and effective.
• The community survey is not statistically sound, slanted toward desired results and under-represents social services needs.
• With the current legal actions against APRC – senior manager wrongful discharge and contract violations, age discrimination, and ethics violation – APRC should not rush (delay) re-organization actions until outcomes of such actions become clear.
