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WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2020
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APPEAL TRIBUNE
SENATE DISTRICT 9
Candidates focus
on fire recovery
Address: P.O. Box 13009, Salem, OR 97309
Phone: 503-399-6773
Fax: 503-399-6706
Email: sanews@salem.gannett.com
Web site: www.SilvertonAppeal.com
Staff
Capi Lynn
Salem Statesman Journal
USA TODAY NETWORK
Wildfire recovery has superseded
the reelection campaign for Oregon
State Sen. Fred Girod, who is being
challenged in District 9 by Green Par-
ty candidate Jim Hinsvark and Liber-
tarian Patrick Marnell.
“I owe it to the people
of my district to really
do everything I can to
work on the wildfire re-
covery part, and I’ve
really not campaigned
much,” Girod said. “I
will continue to do that.
Girod
I just think that’s where
my efforts should be.”
The heart of Senate
District 9 runs through
the Santiam Canyon,
which was decimated
by the wind-fueled Bea-
chie Creek Fire on Labor
Day. Nearly 500 homes
Hinsvark
were destroyed, includ-
ing Girod’s on the North
Santiam River about two miles down-
stream from Fishermen’s Bend.
His father built the house in 1968, a
year before Girod graduated from
Stayton High School. He’s lived there
with his wife, Lori, since 2005.
“For me, this is my home,” said Gi-
rod, a retired dentist whose practice
was in Stayton. “There’s a nickname
for people from the canyon. It’s can-
yon rats, and I’m proud of that.”
Advocating for rural interests
Through three full terms in the Ore-
gon Senate — and before that in the
House — he’s been an advocate for ru-
ral interests. His fiscal and social con-
servatism is in line with a district of
mostly small towns and a natural re-
source-based economy.
“People know how I’m going to
vote,” said Girod, who is currently the
Senate Minority Leader. “In my dis-
trict, the economic engines are timber
and agriculture and small towns. I will
do everything I can to help those three
entities.”
Girod has been criticized, along
with other Republicans, for staging a
walkout in the last Legislative session
over a proposed state carbon tax. The
GOP wants a climate bill without a
cap-and-trade system and wants it to
be referred to voters.
He was verbally attacked on social
media in the wake of his home burn-
ing down, and it didn’t sit well with
Hinsvark, one his challengers.
“I have seen posts of people attack-
ing Fred — some are brutal, all are
wrong,” Hinsvark wrote in a letter to
the editor published in the Statesman
Journal. “Go after his policies. Work
against him. Vote to remove him from
office. And right now, let him and all
the others work through their loss.”
Bringing respectful conversation
back
Hinsvark, an organic berry farmer,
is running for public office for the first
time, inspired by the GOP walkouts.
He half-jokingly told his son before
the most recent walkout that he
“might jump in” if the Republicans did
it again.
“The quorum part of the Legisla-
ture was meant so that the minority
wouldn’t be run over by the majority,”
Hinsvark said. “It’s not set up to be a
power play by the minority, and
that’s how they’re using it. In the
past, Democrats have used it, too.
“We have to be able to talk things
through, work things out and then
vote. That’s what democracy is.”
Hinsvark’s campaign slogan is
“Grow together.”
“We have to be able to grow back
together just like we grew apart,” he
said. “We have to bring respectful
conversation back into politics.”
Hinsvark said climate change
should be on everybody’s mind.
“I’ll admit it was my generation
and the ones right above me and be-
low me. We dropped the ball,” he
said. “Climate change is a society-
wide issue. That’s how it needs to be
fought and addressed. We need to
make changes in what we’re doing,
but do it in a way that is rational for
rural folks.”
Hinsvark’s 35-acre farm is be-
tween Woodburn and Mt. Angel. His
parents bought it in 1962 when he
was 8. They grow primarily marion-
berries and chesters, a variety of
blackberries. He’s proud that, for the
past 20 years, everything they’ve
grown has been sold within 100
miles of the farm.
Hinsvark looked across the board
at party interests and charted eight
issues that most people, no matter
what their political affiliation, want
to work on. Among those are a living
wage, campaign finance reform,
schools and health care.
“That’s the only way I see a way
forward, to find those things, work
on them and create some trust, and
then work from there,” Hinsvark
said.
Marnell, the other challenger for
the District 9 seat, declined an inter-
view request from the Statesman
Journal.
“I’m running on my reputation
and name recognition alone,” he
said.
Marnell is a traffic engineer who
lives in Hubbard. He ran unsuccess-
fully for House District 18 in 2016, a
race the late Vic Gilliam won by a
large margin.
Focusing on recovery
Girod has faced little challenge
the past two elections, but that’s not
why he’s put campaigning on the
backburner.
He’s one of six elected public offi-
cials on the Wildfire Economic Re-
covery Council, which is co-chaired
by Labor Commissioner Val Hoyle
and State Treasurer Tobias Read.
The council, which includes com-
munity leaders, federal delegates
and state advisory agencies, will
work to help counties implement
economic recovery solutions.
“Coordinating with FEMA and the
state is a little bit slower than we
wanted,” Girod said. “We’re trying to
expedite that a little bit. We’re work-
ing very closely with county com-
missioners, trying to streamline the
process so people don’t have to jump
through quite as many hoops as they
normally do to rebuild.”
Capi Lynn is a veteran reporter
for the Statesman Journal. Contact
her
at
clynn@StatesmanJour-
nal.com or 503-399-6710, or follow
her on Twitter @CapiLynn and
Facebook @CapiLynnSJ.
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State senators square off
Secretary of state contest
also features candidates
from two other parties
Connor Radnovich
Salem Statesman Journal
USA TODAY NETWORK
Four years ago, a Republican won the
race for Oregon’s secretary of state —
the first to do so since 1980.
Sen. Kim Thatcher, R-Keizer, is hop-
ing to repeat that success this election,
but also vying for the spot are Demo-
cratic Sen. Shemia Fagan of Portland
and minor party candidates Nathalie
Paravicini and Kyle Markley.
For Democrats, winning back control
of the Secretary of State’s office —
paired with Democratic incumbents
winning re-election in the other two
statewide races — would once again
give them control of every top elected
position in the state.
For Republicans, winning a state-
wide seat during an era where Demo-
crats are the dominant party in Oregon
would be seen as a huge victory.
Among the secretary of state’s re-
sponsibilities are overseeing Oregon’s
elections and auditing state agencies.
Maps
Continued from Page 1A
but the soil could recovery quickly.
The maps also show burn severity of
the Holiday Farm Fire (McKenzie River
east of Eugene), the Archie Creek Fire
(North Umpqua River, northeast of Ro-
seburg) and the Thielsen Fire near Dia-
mond Lake.
The maps, created with satellite data,
prioritizes analyzing how burned the
soil is so meteorologists and others can
determine areas of concern for land-
slides, debris flows and flash flooding. It
also provides a detailed understanding
of how severely the forest was burned
by assigning it four different categories:
unburned, low, moderate and high.
Burn severity categories
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In looking at the maps, green indi-
cates very little or no burn impact, while
light green denotes low severity — the
ground might be charred but the forest
canopy is intact.
Meanwhile, yellow and red indicates
more impacted forest.
“Moderate severity, which is the yel-
low on the maps, means that when you
drive or walk through there, a lot of the
trees are scorched and probably dead,
and the needles are brown. A lot of the
vegetation is gone and it doesn’t look
great, but the nice thing is that the nee-
dles provide some ground cover to slow
down erosion so that the soil can start
regenerating a little quicker, especially
in a moist place like Western Oregon,”
said Jess Clark, a communications spe-
cialist for the BEAR teams (Burned Area
Emergency Response) that created the
maps.
The red areas indicate the worst
burn.
“In the red areas, all of the needles
were consumed and all we’re seeing is
black sticks and snags,” he said. “Those
are where the soil cooked pretty hot and
it’s hard to grow vegetation back for a
while because there’s nothing to inter-
cept the rain that hits the ground.”
The map makes clear that the Little
North Santiam is likely to see some sig-
nificant risk for flooding, landslides and
debris flows that could impact Salem’s
drinking water given the river’s proxim-
ity to the Geren Island Water Treatment
Facility in Stayton.
They are first in line to re-
place the governor and
are a member of the State
Land Board.
As calls for greater
election security and vot-
Fagan
er participation continue
to grow louder, major
agency failings capture
headlines and a redis-
tricting fight looms on the
horizon in 2021, Oregon’s
secretary of state will
play a pivotal role in the
Thatcher
coming years.
“There’s a lot at stake
in this secretary of state
race,” said state political
analyst Jim Moore, pro-
fessor at Pacific Univer-
sity.
Republican Bev Clarno
Paravicini
currently serves as secre-
tary of state, having been
appointed to the position
after former Secretary of State Dennis
Richardson died of brain cancer in Feb-
ruary 2019. She pledged to not run for
the seat.
Moore said Fagan is favored in this
race, in large part due to the fact that
See SENATORS, Page 4A
Clark stressed that the maps were
best at showing the burn severity in a
larger area, and not down to a relatively
small pinpoint.
“It’s not a tool to zoom into your back-
yard,” he said. “They’re not perfect and
because of a lack of access and CO-
VID-19 limits, we haven’t seen literally
everything on the ground and in person.
But it’s a pretty good snapshot of an
area.”
Beachie Creek (192,631 acres)
Burn severity breakdown: Un-
burned: 8,462 acres (4%) | Low: 63,280
(33%) | Moderate: 100,920 (52%) | High:
19,968 (10%)
Lionshead (204,179 acres)
Burn severity breakdown: Un-
burned: 29,313 acres (14%); Low: 78,679
(39%); Moderate: 78,547 (38%); High:
17,639 (9%)
Riverside (137,792 acres
Burn severity breakdown: Un-
burned: 18,192 (13%) | Low: 47,548 (35%)
| Moderate: 55,118 (40%) | High: 16,934
(12%)
Holiday Farm (173,050 acres)
Burn severity breakdown: Un-
burned: 7,479 (4%) | Low: 42,233 (24%) |
Moderate: 107,234 (62%) | High: 16,104
(9%)
Archie Creek (131,419 acres)
Burn severity breakdown: Un-
burned: 11,682 (9%) | Low: 18,666 (14%) |
Moderate: 57,855 (44%) | High: 43,216
(33%)
Thielsen (9,921 acres)
Burn severity breakdown: Un-
burned: 914 (9%) | Low: 4,171 (42%) |
Moderate: 4,295 (43%) | High: 542 (5%)
Note: For a full-sized PDF of any of
the maps below, email Zach Urness at
zurness@statesmanjournal.com.
Zach Urness has been an outdoors re-
porter, photographer and videographer
in Oregon for 12 years.
Urness can be reached at zur-
ness@StatesmanJournal.com or (503)
399-6801. Find him on Twitter at
@ZachsORoutdoors.