april4 2019
free
VERNONIA’S
volume13 issue7
reflecting the spirit of our community
UNWC Hosts Speaker
on Oregon Forest Practices
Council Approves Rate Reduction
Oregon Wild’s Jason Gonzales
wants to protect Oregonians
with stronger regulations in
the logging industry
After months of speculation, a
large reduction to the city utility rate is
one step closer to becoming a reality for
Vernonia citizens.
The City Council voted on
April 1 (No, this was not a prank!) to ap-
prove a recommendation from the Rate
Review Committee which would lower
water and sewer rates by $22.66. The
vote authorizes city staff to include the
new rate as part of the proposed budget,
which the Council will begin discuss-
ing next week. If included in the final
budget, the new rate will take effect on
July 1, 2019.
The Rate Review Committee
has been meeting during the last several
years prior to starting the budget pro-
cess in order to examine current rates
and make adjustments as needed to
ensure the city is collecting the proper
funds needed to operate the system.
The Review Committee considers data
By Scott Laird
The Upper Nehalem Watershed
Council (UNWC) hosted a free presen-
tation by Jason Gonzales, a community
and campaign organizer with Oregon
Wild. The presentation, which was open
to the public and was attended by over
25 people, focused on logging poli-
cies and Oregon’s Forest Practices Act
(OFPA). Gonzales said Oregon’s log-
ging laws are considered the weakest in
the region. His presentation focused on
three significant issues – current logging
practices that damage streams and rivers,
the impacts of aerial spraying, and car-
bon storage and climate change. He said
stronger forest protections are good for
communities, drinking water, and carbon
sequestration.
Gonzales’ presentation took a
practical but forceful approach, ground-
ed in a broad knowledge of industrial
logging practices and their impacts. He
sited numerous scientific studies in mak-
ing his points, but was also very prag-
matic about the importance of the timber
industry in Oregon’s economy and real-
istic about its impact on the environment.
inside
“There are other uses of our land that are
also harming our drinking water and poi-
soning our air,” he said. “ I happen to
work in forests. I think it’s beneficial for
Oregon to keep a lot of this landscape as
working forests. But for the past 80 years
it’s been overdone and what we’ve been
left with is a landscape that is degraded.”
In Oregon about 40% of forest-
land is owned by logging corporations,
private families, the State of Oregon,
counties, and tribes. Those lands fall un-
der the jurisdiction
of the OFPA, first
passed in 1972.
Since then the
OFPA has received
only minor up-
dates and revisions
and has not taken
into account new
scientific studies
about how log-
ging impacts water
quality and stream
flows, wildlife and
fish populations, and carbon storage.
Washington, California, and Idaho all
have stronger environmental protections
to safeguard their states against harmful
logging practices.
Oregon Wild, a statewide non-
profit formerly known as the Oregon
Natural Resources Council, has been
working in Oregon on a number of en-
vironmental and conservation issues for
over 25 years. They have helped protect
Oregon’s wildlife and old growth for-
ests, assisted in passing legislation to es-
tablish more wilderness area in Oregon,
worked to help designate a portion of the
Nehalem River as a State Scenic Water-
way, and helped organize communities to
protect their right to clean drinking water
and notification about the aerial spraying
of harmful herbicides near them.
may election
candidates
10
columbia county
reads 2019
11
vms eighth
grade projects
serves.
Last year the Rate Reduction
Review led to a smaller reduction in
city utility rates of $5.
The City recently paid off a
sewer loan which was costing rate pay-
ers about $22 per month. The Rate
Review Committee also recommended
a decrease of $1.20 to the water base
rate, and slight increases to the water
repayment fee ($0.30), sewer base rate
($0.25), and sewer consumption rate
($0.15). The overall recommended net
reduction is $22.66.
The rate reduction is the culmi-
nation of years of work by several City
Administrators, past and current City
Council members, members of the citi-
zen Public Works Committee, and City
staff. A dedicated effort by City officials
and citizens to examine rates using real
data has given the City the ability to
tightly manage funds and payoff several
loans early.
Painter Case Ends in Guilty Plea
A painful and
tragic ordeal for the
Rainier
community
and the family of fallen
Rainier Police Chief
Ralph Painter has finally
reached a conclusion af-
ter eight long years.
Daniel Butts,
in court for a plea hear-
ing on March 26, 2019,
pleaded guilty to Ag-
gravated Murder for intentionally caus-
ing the death of Rainier Police Chief
Ralph Painter on January 5, 2011 in
Rainier. Butts also pled guilty to inten-
tionally attempting to kill former Clats-
kanie Police Chief Marvin Hoover, and
a civilian witness who was attempting
to provide aid to Painter, during the
continued on page 9
same incident.
Columbia County
District Attorney Jeff
Auxier announced the
plea agreement, which
sentenced Butts to life in
prison with the chance
for parole after 40 years.
The agreement guaran-
tees that Butts will not be
eligible for early release
and will only be quali-
fied to apply for parole, which must
then be approved, if he reaches the age
of 70.
Butts, 29 of Kalama, Washing-
ton, will be in the custody of the Oregon
Department of Corrections (DOC), but
will serve his sentence at the Oregon
State Hospital until he is deemed fit to
continued on page 7
Racism in Oregon: An Egregious History
Part I: Oregon has a long
and ugly legacy of racism that
reaches back to the first days
of its settlement
By Scott Laird
3
on usage, number of customers, costs
Recommendation for $22.66
reduction added to budget proposal to operate the system, and needed re-
In 1844 George Washing-
ton Bush joined a party of friends and
neighbors from Missouri and traveled
the Oregon Trail heading west. Bush
was in search of a better life and more
opportunities for his family, including
his five sons, in the expansive Oregon
Territory, which included what is now
Washington, Idaho, and parts of Wyo-
ming and Montana. Bush and his party
were among the first large wagon trains
to head for the Willamette Valley. Tales
of Oregon’s fertile farmland had been
drifting back east for several years.
Bush was educated by Quak-
ers in Philadelphia as a young man and
joined the U.S. Army to fight in the War
of 1812, serving under General Andrew
Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans.
He had previously traveled west in the
1820s, working as a voyageur for the
Hudson’s Bay Company transporting
goods and passengers between trading
posts, before settling in Missouri where
be became a wealthy and successful
farmer. His Missouri neighbors respect-
ed him and encouraged him to join their
westward trek thinking his prior experi-
ences and knowledge about the region
would be useful.
Bush and his small party joined
a wagon train of 74 wagons, led by
Cornelius Gilliam, departing from In-
dependence, Missouri in May of 1844,
like hundreds of thousands of other em-
igrants would in the following decades.
Bush carried seeds and trees, farming
implements, and herds of stock on the
trip, even helping to fund the supplies
of several families in his party. During
their trip west, the party experienced
the usual hardships, including rivers
swollen by heavy rains, and several
families in the party ran short of provi-
sions; Bush helped at least 20 families
during the trip with his own money and
supplies.
After traveling 2,000 miles the
party reached The Dalles on the Co-
lumbia River in the Oregon Territory to
find an unexpected and deeply disturb-
ing truth... Bush would not be allowed
to settle in Oregon with his neighbors
and traveling companions. The previ-
ous year Oregon Territory citizens had
barred Negroes from settling there. And
George Washington Bush was black.
***
Oregon’s shameful history
of early racism is not something
most Oregonians want to look at, and
certainly not discuss openly. That racist
heritage has been covered up and left out
of most text books and history lessons.
continued on page 7