COQUILLE — It was standing room only in the Coos County Board of Commissioners courtroom Friday just 10 minutes before the county’s officials elected in 2008 were sworn into office. So many people tried to squeeze in that officials had to delay and move the 10 a.m. ceremony upstairs to the jury assembly room.

Attendees offered congratulations to the winners, but in one business day after the announcement that 22 road department employees would be laid off, many were looking for answers.

Commissioner Kevin Stufflebean, who is also serving as interim roadmaster, wasn’t in the courthouse Friday during the ceremony. His schedule in the Commissioners Office said he was in a meeting in Coos Bay all morning. Outgoing Commissioner John Griffith wasn’t there either.

That left frustrated road department employees to turn on Commissioner Nikki Whitty. Ten to 15 employees went downstairs and huddled in and around her office asking mostly polite, but pointed questions about the county’s decision to let them go.

“Why would you lay off 22 people based on a projected budget?” one employee asked. He was referring to an outline of future budgets Stufflebean provided to the board.

Many wondered why the board had not waited until Bob Main officially took office this month to consider layoffs. Whitty and Stufflebean have maintained they didn’t want to saddle Main with a decision in which he didn’t have all the information.

“It’s not fair to put that on Bob’s back,” Whitty said.

Main did not appreciate the favor.

“I was not involved with the executive session, but with the limited information I have, I don’t believe I would have made that decision,” he said.

Whitty also said the decision didn’t need commissioners votes, but Stufflebean decided to bring the issue to the board members to keep them informed.

“Terminations do not have to have board approval, “ she said.

Workers pressed more, asking if the commissioners department liaison appointments would shift with a new commissioner on board. Whitty said for the most part she and Stufflebean would keep their oversight duties, but Main would pick up the county’s law enforcement departments. She added that Main had told her he didn’t want to be the Road Department or Assessor’s Office liaison.

When her questioners said that is not what they heard from him recently, Whitty left her office with a trail of people on her heels and walked out in the hall and stopped  in front of the commissioner’s office where Main was talking to people after the ceremony to ask him again if that was what he said.

Main said he never told her that and he would be happy to take on the road department.

“He’s changed his tune now, ” Whitty said, returning to her office.

American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 2936 spokesman David Jennings asked Whitty if the decision to let the 22 employees go was up for discussion.

“Wouldn’t it be reasonable to reopen this issue?” he asked.

“No, ” was Whitty’s immediate response.

She added later that the planned spending on new equipment for the department still was in question and no final decision has been made regarding if and how much would be spent on that.

Maintenance worker Adam Wideman, who will lose his job in three weeks, said he didn’t know how the department would be able to maintain roads with so few employees left. He, too, suggested the decision needed a second look.

“We have been trying to complete work for the last two years with less staff than ever,” he said before joining his coworkers in Whitty’s office. “We are barely able to keep up with current staffing.”