october5 2017
free
VERNONIA’S
volume11 issue19
www.vernoniasvoice.com
reflecting the spirit of our community
Spencer Park Picnic Shelter Goes Up
The picnic shelter project at
Spencer Park is making great progress,
thanks to the hard work of city staff and a
bunch of dedicated volunteers.
The shelter, which is being built
from reclaimed lumber that came from
the Washington Grade School when it was
demolished, will be named in honor of
long time, and beloved, Vernonia volunteer
Terry Schaumburg when it is complete.
City staff, including Ben Fousek,
James McMahon, and Adam Copenhaver,
have worked throughout the spring and
summer to cut the lumber to size, pre-
drill holes, fabricate metal brackets, and
build the trusses that will support the roof.
The design plans were created by John
Blumthal, who volunteered his time and
expertise through Architects Without Borders.
During two weekends in late September and
early October, volunteers and city staff gathered to
install the huge main support beams, with the help
of Mike Pihl and his logging equipment, as well as
place the trusses for the roof structure. Volunteers
included several members of the Free Wheelers
group, including Joe Hammons, Brian Fennel,
and Desmond Hines, as well as Whelan Easley and
some of his construction crew.
Parks Committee member Casey Mitchell,
who organized the construction of the shelter, said
Mike Pihl stepped up at the last minute to provide
the heavy lifting needed to raise the large beams,
and said Pihl was pleased that the loader used for
the job was a piece of equipment Terry Schuamburg
used to operate when he worked for Mike Pihl
Logging.
Presentation Challenges
Corporate Forestry Practices
Oregon’s timber industry
is dominated by corporate
owners who don’t pay
their fair share of taxes,
says Chuck Willer of the
Coast Range Association
By Scott Laird
inside
6
conversation
on aging
9
meet the
exchange students
10
vhs fall sports
A recent public presenta-
tion by Chuck Willer, the Execu-
tive Director of the Coast Range
Association, questioned current
forestry management practices, tax laws, and the local eco-
nomic impact of corporate logging in Oregon - specifically
in Oregon’s Coast Range region.
The presentation, attended by about 20 people, was
held on September 13 at the Vernonia Schools Commons and
was hosted by local environmental activist Michael Calhoun.
Willer used a power point slide show based on years
of research and data his organization has compiled to demon-
strate his belief that corporate ownership of timberlands has
caused a reduction in harvest levels, negatively impacted tax
revenues and state resources, caused additional harm to the
environment, and negatively affected local rural economies.
In his presentation Willer looks at the role of corpo-
rate monopolies and their control of not just the timber land
and supply, but also in the reduction of mills and a loss of lo-
cal control over markets for raw timber and finished lumber.
“An example would be that mills like to gear up for
consistent log size,” explained Willer. “Now the story out
there is that they don’t like big trees and the reason they don’t
want big trees is because they’re geared up for the planta-
tion trees Wall Street owns and they like a certain diameter
to come in consistently. It’s not that they can’t mill a larger
tree, and that might be what a small landowner has – six or
seven big trees, but they don’t want them. This is an example,
I believe, of the limited market for logs now, because of the
concentration of automation in mills where small landowners
don’t get a fair shake.”
Willer presented statistics from several reports and
analytical studies the Coast Range Association has prepared
that look at land ownership, taxation, and the length of crop
rotation and timber yields.
Willer discussed Oregon’s current revenue crisis and
pointed to several key changes in how the timber industry
is taxed. According to Willer, the change in 1993, when the
state legislature redefined the Harvest Tax so that 80% is paid
at the time of harvest, the passage of Measure 50 in 1998
which froze all local taxes at 1996 levels, and the passage in
1998 of HB 3575 which implemented a “land only” tax, all
led to Oregon implementing a new tax system which reduced
Corporate Forest taxes for local governments from 2007-
2012 by 86% - a five year revenue loss of over a half billion
dollars.
Willer says the decreased tax revenue has led to a
crisis in rural Oregon in public health and public services,
especially at the county level, that includes a reduction of law
enforcement personnel and health care – especially mental
health care, and an ever growing disparity in class, owner-
ship, power, and wealth.
Willer also discussed how corporate management
practices had affected production and pointed to de-unioniz-
ing, outsourced production, and how the corporate theory of
financial returns has led to short rotation management and the
liquidation of productive forests. “...very short rotations (40-
50 years) means reductions in production per acre per year
from substantial (20 percent) to large (50 percent or more,”
said Willer, quoting a report prepared by the U.S. Department
of Agriculture.
Willer shared a hypothetical model that the Coast
Range Association prepared that compared a Wall Street
managed forest on a 45 year production rotation that would
continued on page 12