Hare's Epic "text joke" Fail

[Scrapper]

Hare is a scumbag. Always has been a scumbag. Is in the perfect job for being a scumbag.

BBQ and Scrapper, any thoughts on the topic?

I repeat....

Meh. Just more of Jo Co's ongoing drama.
Sadly, I feel it's going to get much worse before it gets better.
I'm glad I no longer call it 'home'.
Now if I could just get my parents out of there.

[GPnative]

The latest installment of Hare's epic text joke fail:

Hare's offensive texts apology falls flat
By Jim Moore of the Daily Courier

The main target of a public apology from Josephine County Commissioner Simon Hare is not impressed. "It seemed definitely to appeal to the public if you ask me," said Doug Deakins.

Hare sent an email to multiple recipients on Saturday, apologizing for his behavior the night of Dec. 5 at the Cedarwood Saloon. That night, Hare sent two suggestive text messages from a cellphone belonging to Stefani Deakins, the wife of Doug Deakins. Hare said he thought the phone belonged to a friend of his. Hare did not know who would receive the texts. The recipients turned out to be the Deakinses' 18-year-old daughter and 21-year-old niece.

Last Wednesday, Doug Deakins, a Grants Pass resident who works as a helicopter pilot with Swanson Aviation, attended a public meeting and chastised Hare for his behavior. Later that day, Hare told the Daily Courier that he apologized to Deakins the night of the incident. However, both Doug and Stefani Deakins dispute that and said that Hare was belligerent rather than apologetic.

Hare said he thought the cellphone belonged to his friend, Jennifer Putnam, who was at the same table as the Deakinses, and he thought he was pulling a prank on Putnam.

Putnam supported Hare's contention that he apologized that night.

Doug Deakins made his public comments at Wednesday's commissioners' meeting. After the meeting, Hare left messages and sent texts to Stefani Deakins asking to meet with her and Doug Deakins, but they declined.

On Monday, Doug Deakins told the Daily Courier that on Friday Hare sent him an apology via text. That text also stated Hare would be willing to meet with Deakins in person. Deakins said that he thanked Hare for the apology by replying to the text. In the same text, Deakins said he told Hare to contact him if he actually wanted to meet. "He has not contacted me," Deakins said.

Hare is out of his office for two weeks and did not immediately return a message seeking comment for this report.
The controversy has sparked other outrage throughout the community.

Members of a local organization called We're For a Constitutional Government are publicly calling for Hare to resign.

"We're not going to organize or initiate a formal campaign, but we wanted to alert the public," said Jim Rafferty, a spokesman for the group. He also said Hare would be doing the right thing by resigning.

Another potential issue is possible ill will toward the three-member board of commissioners in general, which includes Chairwoman Cherryl Walker and Commissioner Keith Heck.

Hare addressed that in his apology: "I am also sorry that in the minds of some people, because of my position within this organization, that it reflects negatively on our county and this board."

Walker said that, as of this morning, the only repercussion she had seen or heard at the board level was the call to action by Rafferty's organization.

Walker said that Hare may have been referring to a conversation she had with Hare immediately following last week's board meeting, in which she asked Hare for his version of the controversial events.

Walker said she also told Hare: "We have a good board. We're trying to build credibility and trust and the behavior of any of one of us reflects on the board. We have to set a standard."

In Hare's lengthy apology, he said he is "sorry that this 'personal issue' was made very public and in some cases construed into something very far from the truth."

Hare also wrote, "When I was made aware of how my stupid prank went terribly wrong I apologized. I will admit, I did not provide that apology in a way that was easily appreciated. I have since made amends with the family, and I'm told that all has been understood to be a tragic mistake and everything has been forgiven."

Monday morning, however, Doug Deakins said, "The apology seems to be about the text and not about the behavior of an elected official."

Deakins added that he believes Hare's behavior is unbecoming of a public official. If Hare were to resign over the issue it would be all right with Deakins, but he said he won't initiate a recall effort.

[GPnative]

And the Courier's editor is getting in on the action with his opinion piece.

Mistakes were made, but no lessons learned

A 2,000-year-old apocryphal tale of a prominent person being too close to scandal, without actually participating in the scandal, gave rise to the adage "Caesar's wife must be above suspicion."

This comes to mind when reading the Daily Courier's report last week about Simon Hare's bad night at a local tavern, where he grabbed a cellphone he thought belonged to a friend and sent text messages that can only be described as lewd. Those messages were intended for random recipients, the commissioner admits — possibly someone he didn't even know.

OK, so maybe it was just an example of sophomoric humor. However, the commissioner's ill-advised prank took a detour when it turned out the phone he used actually belonged to someone else — a woman he apparently did not know. The recipients of the offensive text messages were complete strangers.

Subsequently, the man who is the husband of the phone's owner and the father of one of the recipients of the inappropriate texts confronted Hare in a public commissioners' meeting. At that moment, the incident went from being a private misunderstanding to a public scandal. Now, various people, who were Hare critics to begin with, are calling for his resignation.

Nothing that the commissioner did was a breach of the public trust. He did not embezzle public funds. He did not approve legislation that would benefit himself financially. The only damage that has been done is to his own political career — if all of this had happened in October instead of December, his political career would likely already be over.

Most disturbing, however, is that a public "apology" he issued over the weekend shows little remorse and even less understanding about why people are upset by all of this.

"It gives me pause to think about a culture that so quickly wants to vilify a stupid prank gone wrong," Hare writes in his open letter. "Sadly, I think there will always be a few people that feel good by watching someone else stumble."

Just the opposite. Most of us are pained to watch this play out. We wish the commissioner had not stumbled. But we also wish he had learned from his mistake rather than blaming others, as the above passage from his apology letter seems to do.
During his single term as a county commissioner, Hare has proven he is a skilled administrator. When he was re-elected last month, the voters knew they were electing a commissioner, not a pope. However, leadership involves many intangibles — and Hare's intangibles suffered mightily last week.

In today's modern world, we've pretty much given up on holding our political leaders to the "Caesar's wife" standard of being completely removed from suspicion. However, neither do we want them to be so deserving of suspicion.

Kevin Widdison

[Lucy]

I find it crazy that this is getting so much attention. We in River City and JoCo have a much bigger problem looming on our horizon... no funding for our criminal justice system.

[minuteman]

It just shows how much the "wackos" will do to destroy government. These are the same ones who elected Hare in the first place because they thought Dave Toler was too much of an environmentalist, even though Toler was one of the more competent commissioners we had had in a long time. Hare's track record is completely void of accomplishment. He was behind the failed ordinances even though he backed out at the last minute to appease his backers. He repeatedly said law enforcement was the number one priority, yet refused to support any of the proposed levies (even the one where he set the amount at $1.48). He claims to have helped the fairgrounds, yet all he did was threaten to close it if they didn't at least break even.

His personal life indicates that he has never grown up. He drinks too much, loses his vehicle, plays childish games, and even peed in his pants at a public function. Boy do we make great decisions on our county commissioners!

[Big Rock]