I find it amusing that even the writer makes that commissioner sound like an old bitch, even though we all assumed it.

County sharpens words to skaters

Tuesday, April 29, 2008 By MICHAEL ANDERSEN, Columbian staff writer

Here’s what the eight signs posted around Clark County’s parking garage said last fall: “NO SKATEBOARDING NO LOITERING.”

This spring, a set of new, identically sized signs took their place: “NO SKATEBOARDING NO LOITERING BY THE ORDER OF THE GENERAL SERVICE DIRECTOR.”

Cost to taxpayers: $216, plus labor.

Why the change? It all started at a county meeting in November, when Commissioner Betty Sue Morris declared that skateboarders in the parking area were “going to crack their heads open.”

Morris, 66, was coming off a near collision with youngsters who had seemed to shoot from behind a wall, right in front of her car. There should be some signs, she said.

County Administrator Bill Barron replied that there already were — eight of them.

Moment of silence.

Then Barron told her what the signs said.

“Oh, that’s not enough,” Morris broke in.

A little more force, she said.

Barron, 63, is the county’s top unelected official, and scrupulously respectful to his three bosses.

“Whatever you say, Madam Commissioner,” he said.

And so new signs were ordered.

The county’s general services director, Mark McCauley, reports to Barron. A lanky certified public accountant with a graying goatee, glasses and a lopsided grin, he retired as a lieutenant colonel after 20 years in the U.S. Army and now oversees county property and various internal operations.

Among his duties: taking phone calls from employees who see skaters messing around in the parking garage.

Every few months, he says, he’ll hurry down from his sixth-floor office to shoo someone away from the structure.

McCauley said last week the county doesn’t really enforce the no-skating rule at night, once all employees and their cars have left the garage. No one has been seriously hurt in the structure yet, he said.

He thinks the new language on the signs is intended to be intimidating.

“If you ever meet up with the big, bad director of general services, it’s something that you’ll remember for the rest of your life,” said McCauley, 51.

Michael Andersen covers Clark County government: 360-735-4508 or michael.andersen@columbian.com.