Dwight Ellis portrays allegation by Jack Brown as a ‘campaign ploy’
From our weekly issue dated October 22, 2008
Jack Brown, candidate for the Josephine County Commission seat currently held by Dwight Ellis, is calling on Ellis to return $1,000 contributed to his campaign committee, Friends of Dwight Ellis, from Carling of America/Sequoia Partner LLC.
Brown said that documentation of the transaction (443464) is on the Secretary of State’s Website.
Said Brown in part, “This is the business that owns Paradise Ranch at 7000 Monument Drive, and it is hard up for money; the project there was recently given a sweet-heart deal by a 2 to 1 vote of the board of commissioners, allowing the developers to sell lots before they brought the infrastructure up to the county standards applied to other developers.
“Ellis was the swing-vote on that decision,” said Brown. “This should really anger anyone else involved in development. “It shows how who you know or how much money you throw around usually determines how you’ll fare with county government. That is one reason why I am running, because things like this have got to stop,” Brown said.
Ellis said that he has refused to look at Brown’s statement “because it’s trash; it’s a campaign ploy.” He said that he did receive a donation from Sequoia, but that it had nothing to do with Paradise Ranch.
“It’s a total fabrication,” Ellis said of Brown’s claim. He added that the county board approved the project final plat with the strict condition that the county be held harmless in the event of any problems.
Commissioner Jim Raffenburg, speaking to KAJO Radio provided the following:
“The original agreement was that they would put in half the infrastructure before (the board) would sign off on the final plat. Commissioners said, ‘No, we want a bond that shows us you can finish.’ They came back offering no bond, but a lot of speculative financial data.
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“They were proposing that they be allowed to sell the lots without building the infrastructure and then using the money as a surety to build infrastructure.
“The county could be sued, in a worst-case scenario,” Raffenburg said, and be forced to finish the infrastructure itself.
“A lot of money has been put up (on the project) and a lot of pressure was put on us – all three of us – to sign this,” Raffenburg continued indicating that money and politics were major factors.
Soon after taking office,” Raffenburg told KAJO, “forces line up to tell you how things are done. It happened to me soon after I got in. They offer you the golden ring of longevity if you go along. I didn’t.
“And you can see what happened to me.”
