STATE
6A — THE OBSERVER
TUESDAY, MAY 11, 2021
Grants to Black Oregonians
resume after state sett les lawsuit
John Day logging company lawsuit leads
to settlement to distribute $5.3 million
By JAMIE GOLDBERG
The Oregonian/OregonLive
SALEM — Oregon
once again began dis-
tributing grants last
week through its unique
$62 million coronavirus
relief fund for Black
Oregonians.
Organizers of the fund
distributed $49.5 mil-
lion to Black Oregonians,
Black-owned businesses
and Black-led nonprofi ts
across 31 Oregon counties
last fall, but they agreed to
hand over their remaining
funds to a federal court
and stop allocating grant
money in December after
a John Day logging com-
pany and Portland coff ee
shop challenged the con-
stitutionality of the state
fund.
The state and orga-
nizers of the fund reached
a settlement with John Day
logging company Great
Northern Resources in
March, allowing them to
recoup $5.3 million from
the court to distribute to
Black Oregonians.
Fund organizers began
distributing that money
last week. They are using
the funds to provide grants
to people and organiza-
tions that applied for sup-
port late last year but
never received funding
due to the legal case. The
fund is not accepting new
grant applications.
“We are working as fast
as possible to notify appli-
cants and distribute awards,
while ensuring security and
compliance,” said Anthony
Jordan, president of The
Contingent, the nonprofi t
administering the grants.
As part of the settlement,
Oregon is also using its own
risk fund to pay grants to up
to 1,252 non-Black appli-
cants that sought funding
through the program before
Dec. 8. The court is con-
tinuing to hold an additional
$3.5 million deposited by
fund organizers until the
state pays out those grants.
While the state and fund
organizers reached a settle-
ment with Great Northern
Resources, the constitu-
tionality of the fund may
still be litigated through a
separate ongoing lawsuit
brought against the fund by
Maria Garcia, the Mexican
American owner of a down-
town Portland coff ee shop.
Approximately $42,000,
the maximum grant that
Garcia would have qualifi ed
for if she were eligible for
a grant through the fund, is
still being held by the court
while that case continues.
Oregon lawmakers voted
last July to set aside 4.5% of
the federal pandemic relief
money received by the state
to seed the fund. Oregon
appears to have been the
only state that allocated fed-
eral coronavirus relief dollars
to individuals and business
owners of a specifi c race.
Oregon’s embatt led state forester quits
Consultant’s report,
department critics
highlight agency
problems
By TED SICKINGER
The Oregonian/OregonLive
SALEM — Peter Daugh-
erty, Oregon’s state for-
ester and the leader of the
long-struggling Depart-
ment of Forestry, has sub-
mitted his resignation to the
state board that oversees
the department, eff ective
May 31.
Daugherty has led the
agency since 2016, and his
tenure has been marked by
deep fi nancial problems
within the department, a
dysfunctional relationship
with the Board of Forestry
and the loss of state law-
makers’ confi dence, even
as the agency is looking for
a massive infusion of new
resources to better respond
to the state’s increasingly
severe wildfi re seasons. The
Oregonian/OregonLive in
recent years documented
many of the agency’s trou-
bles in its Failing Forestry
series.
Daugherty’s resigna-
tion comes in the wake of
a scathing report from an
outside accounting consul-
tant, MGO, that described a
fundamental lack of fi nan-
cial controls and oversight
within the agency. The
report was reviewed in a
hearing this week before
the Natural Resources sub-
committee of Ways and
Means, prompting some
incredulity from law-
makers, who said they were
aware of the problems in
general but found details
the fi rm uncovered eye-
opening and troubling.
His resignation also
comes after Gov. Kate
Brown was able to remake
the state forestry board,
which is responsible for
hiring and fi ring the state
forester. The previous
board had put Daugherty
on what amounted to a per-
formance improvement
plan, but the new board
chair, Jim Kelly, said it was
time for a change.
“You cannot have an
eff ective state forester
unless they have the confi -
dence of the governor and
the legislature,” Kelly said,
“and clearly that isn’t the
case with Peter.”
At the hearing
Wednesday, May 5, Sen.
Kathleen Taylor, D-Port-
land, laid a good deal of
the blame for the agency’s
problems on the Board of
Forestry.
“It’s no secret that I’m
not a supporter of having
a Board of Forestry,” she
said. ‘I don’t support that.
I believe the Legislature
should be overseeing the
straw for Daugherty. In his
resignation letter, he said
he had discussed the deci-
sion with the governor’s
offi ce and decided it would
be in the best interest of
the newly reconstituted
board and the department
to select a new state for-
ester. Daugherty said his
last eff ective day in offi ce
would be May 28.
In an email to staff ,
Daugherty said leading the
department had been the
highlight of his long career
in forestry. He said the
“Oregon faces enormous
challenges on our forests to
protect water quality, manage
fi re, and respond to climate
change. I hope the board can
take this moment to turn the
page and move the agency into
the 21st Century.”
— Bob Van Dyk, the Oregon policy director of the Wild
Salmon Center,
Department of Forestry.
The board has been given
this awesome responsibility
by the public ... and I’m
concerned the board did not
do its duties of overseeing
the department.”
Rep. Jeff Reardon,
D-Portland, said MGO’s
report was just the begin-
ning of the actions that
need to be taken.
Rep. Paul Holvey, D-Eu-
gene, said many of the
shortcomings called out in
the report had been noted
in an audit of the depart-
ment by the Secretary of
State in 2015.
“We are six years later
dealing with the same
damn issue and I don’t see
any improvement,” he said.
“And so either the Legis-
lature needs to step in and
do something dramatic or
… I really appreciate (the
report), but it just solidi-
fi es and exemplifi es what
we’ve been dealing with
for years. I’m just so frus-
trated that I don’t see any
improvement.”
The airing of the report
may have been the last
agency’s “executive team
is committed to supporting
the transition and helping
prepare Oregon’s next State
Forester for the challenges
and rewards that come with
this role, both of which are
immense.”
The board’s control over
the employment of the state
forester left the governor’s
offi ce and legislators with
less control as the agen-
cy’s fi nances spun out of
control in recent years and
the board took no defi n-
itive action. Lawmakers
had, however, demanded
that Daugherty begin sub-
mitting monthly fi nancial
reports to the co-chairs
of the Ways and Means
Committee.
Brown, meanwhile, also
expressed deep frustration
last fall with her inability to
remake the board and bring
stronger fi nancial exper-
tise to its ranks, as law-
makers from timber-de-
pendent counties joined
Republicans to kill her slate
of board nominees. That
changed this spring, as the
Senate confi rmed three of
her nominees to the board,
eff ectively remaking it.
“The board will soon
meet to discuss leadership
during this time of tran-
sition,” said Liz Merah, a
spokesperson for Brown.
“While the board has statu-
tory authority in appointing
the State Forester, the gov-
ernor is interested in a
national search for someone
who can further drive the
agency as a national leader
in fi ghting wildfi res, while
at the same time adapting
to new technology and
changing conditions on the
ground.”
Merah said there were
no severance payments
accompanying Daugherty’s
departure. His salary was
just over $182,000 a year.
Reached at his home
in Eastern Oregon, Kelly,
the new board chair, said
Daugherty’s decision to
resign was reached mutu-
ally and the board would
look to hire an interim
replacement with strong
fi nancial expertise, as the
agency needs to get its
fi nancial house in order
before it can do anything
else eff ectively.
Kelly said he thinks
the dynamics on the board
already have changed.
“There’s reason to
believe we have the chance
to create a highly functional
board and have that trust
reestablished,” he said.
Bob Van Dyk, the
Oregon policy director of
the Wild Salmon Center,
and a frequent critic of the
department, said Daugh-
erty’s departure was long
overdue.
“Under Daugherty’s
leadership, critical voices
on the Board of Forestry
were marginalized and bul-
lied,” he said in an emailed
statement. “Oregon faces
enormous challenges on
our forests to protect water
quality, manage fi re, and
respond to climate change.
I hope the board can take
this moment to turn the
page and move the agency
into the 21st Century.”
STATE NEWS BRIEFS
Prineville Reservoir fi rst
Oregon park to get ‘dark
sky’ nod
PRINEVILLE, —
Prineville Reservoir State
Park has been certifi ed
as an International Dark
Sky Park and is the fi rst
Oregon park to make the
list of the places around
the world with the least
nighttime light pollution.
The certifi cation rec-
ognizes the exceptional
quality of the park’s night
skies as well as eff orts to
install environmentally
responsible lighting and
educate the public about
light pollution.
Prineville Reservoir
joins only 174 locations
worldwide to have fol-
lowed the rigorous appli-
cation program.
The park’s location in
central Oregon makes it
more critical as a place to
enjoy star-gazing without
light pollution, according
to the Dark-Sky Associ-
ation. To compete for the
designation, park staff had
to replace harsh outdoor
lights with soft yellow and
red lighting to reduce sky-
glow, the Oregon Parks
and Recreation Depart-
ment said in a statement.
The designation will
bring tourists from
light-polluted cities and
should attract astrono-
mers of all levels, said
Bill Kowalik, chair of the
Oregon Chapter of the
International Dark-Sky
Association.
Second police offi cer
indicted in BLM fl ag
vandalism case
FOREST GROVE —
A second Forest Grove
police offi cer is facing a
criminal charge in the case
of an offi cer accused of
vandalizing a home where
a Black Lives Matter fl ag
was displayed last fall.
Offi cer Bradley Schuetz
was indicted Thursday,
May 6, by a grand jury on
one count of offi cial mis-
conduct, The Oregonian/
OregonLive reported. He
was arrested, cited and
released, police said.
Schuetz picked up
offi cer Steven Teets from
the crime scene on Oct.
31, 2020, and drove him
home instead of arresting
him, investigators said.
Teets faces charges of
second-degree criminal
mischief and second-de-
gree disorderly conduct
for allegedly walking into
the driveway of a Forest
Grove couple’s home, set-
ting off the alarm on their
truck, hitting the Black
Lives Matter fl ag outside
their garage and kicking
their front door.
The residents called
police and another offi cer
arrived and identi-
fi ed Teets. Schuetz then
responded and took Teets
home, investigators said.
Teets was off -duty at
the time. Schuetz was on
duty.
Teets has been on
administrative duty while
the Washington County
Sheriff ’s Offi ce investi-
gated the incident. Schuetz
is on paid leave.
Oregon Forest Service
to reduce wild horse
population
PRINEVILLE — The
U.S. Forest Service will
reduce the wild horse pop-
ulation east of Prineville
to a level horse advo-
cates say could lead to the
herd’s elimination.
The most recent esti-
mate of wild horses on the
Big Summit Wild Horse
Territory of the Ochoco
National Forest puts the
population between 130
and 150, Oregon Public
Broadcasting reported.
The management plan
approved Friday, May 7,
will decrease the herd to
47-57 horses total over the
next fi ve years. Offi cials
say “excess” horses will
be captured and put up for
adoption.
“We want to make
sure that we manage this
herd for its genetic via-
bility,” said Kassidy Kern,
public aff airs offi cer for
the Ochoco National
Forest and Crooked River
National Grassland.
The agency will use
contraception and steril-
ization to limit population.
The Forest Service said it
will not euthanize horses
as part of this plan.
— Associated Press
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