Rogue's Followup: Curry Begs State for Help

As we mentioned yesterday, the Rogue Pundit is serving us well as the blogger's conduit to Southern Oregon news. We learned that Jackson and Josephine Counties are making deep cuts to core services like public safety, and RP hinted that things were even worse in Curry County.

This is what worse looks like, reported via the Curry Pilot:

Commissioners in Curry County told the governor on Monday that they can't keep their citizens safe. Commissioners say it's because they don't have the money for any sheriff's deputies. That's after a tax levy to replace timber funding failed last week.

Curry County Commissioner Marlyn Schafer says they sent a letter off to the governor's office telling him they need additional state police stationed in the county because there won't be any deputies. She says that the letter indicates if there is a disaster or crime, the county can't do anything and the state needs to step in. Schafer says they communicated to the governor's office that "we expect the state to help us immediately."

Curry County commissioners haven't announced which county workers will lose their jobs. Commissioners are expected to meet Tuesday to work on a list of workers they must let go. They expect to have that list by the end of the week.

(Commissioner) La Bonté said the declaration was to draw the attention of the president and Congress to the fact it is an emergency.

"We're getting the message, especially from the president, they don't believe this is an emergency. We're hoping this will draw a little more attention," La Bonté said.

I guess if your thing is burning up Honda CRVs, you might like to know that there are probably a few in Curry that are going unprotected. And that may go as well for four other counties who will similarly declare an emergency, according to one of Curry's commissioners.

The ThirdWorldification of our country continues...