june4 2020
free
VERNONIA’S
volume14 issue11
reflecting the spirit of our community
Columbia County
Official Addresses Voter
Registration Confusion
Investigations into
complaints show party
affiliation was not
changed without consent
By Scott Laird
A wave of complaints in
Oregon concerning voter registra-
tion and party affiliation surround-
ed this year’s primary election on
May 19.
Election officials across
the state say they have received
complaints that voters did not re-
ceive the correct ballot. Disgrun-
tled voters took to social media
and used word of mouth to spread
the claims, which, according to
state and local election officials,
appear to be unsubstantiated.
A call to Don Clack, Co-
lumbia County Elections Manag-
er, confirmed he has received an
unusually large number of com-
plaints this year.
Fortunately, Clack says,
all but one of those complaints
he investigated revealed the issue
was attributed to a lack of under-
standing about the voting process.
The “Motor Voter” process the
state has been using since Janu-
ary 2016 to automatically register
voters through the Department of
Motor Vehicles has also caused
some confusion.
“Yes, we have received
many complaints this year, pre-
dominantly from people regis-
tered as nonaffiliated with a spe-
cific party, believing they should
have received a party ballot,” said
Clack when contacted by Verno-
nia’s Voice. “I think a lot of people
confuse the primary election in
May, which is a nominating elec-
tion, with the general election
which takes place in November. I
also feel people believe that how
they vote is which party they are
affiliated with – they voted for X
party, and they always vote for X
party, so they must be registered
with the X party. Many of those
people have just never voted in a
primary election before, they only
vote in the Presidential election.”
A primary election, where
nominees are selected to represent
a party in a general election, is the
only election where party affilia-
tion matters, says Clack. “In other
elections – for school board, state
and local ballot measures or tax
levies, judge races, even our Coun-
ty Commissioner races – those
are nonpartisan elections and it
doesn’t matter what party you are
registered with. In Presidential,
U.S. Senate and House elections,
and state elections, voters can vote
across party lines, so everyone in
a voting district receives the same
ballot. Most complaints we re-
ceive are every two years during
the primary election.”
Clack says he investigates
every complaint he receives
concerning voter issues. He can
access and review voter records,
and will often email a screen shot
of an individual’s registration
information as recorded with the
VRFPD Plans
Budget After Voters
Approve Levy
Congratulations
Class of 2020
By Scott Laird
The Vernonia Rural Fire Protection District
(VRFPD) is quickly moving forward with plans on
how to responsibly spend additional funding they
will receive after voters approved an increased tax
levy on May 19 to help fund operations.
The VRFPD Board of Directors will review,
and hopefully adopt, their 2020-21 budget at a Bud-
get Hearing, scheduled for June 9. The new budget
takes effect July 1.
Vernonia Fire Chief Dean Smith, says the
District’s plans for using the funding are still be-
ing finalized. “We do have some things we have
to change and some things we want to update, and
we have a good idea of what we want to do going
forward.”
Smith said the VRFPD Board wanted to
express their appreciation for the support from the
community in passing the $1.24 per $1,000 of as-
sessed value levy. They also want the community to
know they will do their best to be financially respon-
sible with the community’s money.
The renewed funding will allow the District
to retain the Training Division Chief position, cur-
rently held by Will Steinweg.
In addition, Chief Smith said the District
will hire Rob Davis as an Operations Division Chief
and a third full-time responder. Davis was hired last
year on a one-year contract to serve as a part-time
Volunteer Recruitment and Retention Coordinator,
who shared that position with the Mist-Birkenfeld
RFPD. Davis will take regular duty shifts at VRFPD
and continue to focus on his volunteer coordination
responsibilities as well. “Rob is very eager, and he’s
a good worker who’s about productivity, which is
what I like about him,” said Chief Smith. “He’s
adapted well to our District. He also brings a lot of
ideas because he’s had a wide range of positions and
places he’s worked during his career. He already has
a good grasp of our volunteer needs and challenges.
continued on page 12
continued on page 5
See page 8
Oregon Broadens
COVID Reopening
City of Vernonia government
also expands reopening
Oregon Governor Kate Brown
released details of how counties can
begin to move to Phase II of reopening,
starting June 5. Columbia County has
submitted their application for June 6.
Along with continuing to meet
the Phase I requirements, counties must
be able to demonstrate they are success-
fully performing contact tracing and
containment, specifically:
• At least 95% of all new cases must have
been contact traced within 24 hours over
the previous 14 days.
• At least 70% of new COVID-19 posi-
tive cases must be traced to an existing
positive case over the previous 14 days.
continued on page 4
The Gadsden Flag is a Symbol. But Whose?
inside
How a Revolutionary War-
era flag evolved into an
anti-government symbol.
By Leah Sottile
High Country News
3
salem report
10
nehalem
native nursery
11
hobo hubris
The year was 2017, the
month was August. America was
241 years old, and totems of its rac-
ist past were crumbling. One of the
Northwest’s largest tributes to Con-
federate soldiers — an 8- foot-high
marble fountain erected in Helena,
Montana, in 1916 — was about to
come down, too. To protest its re-
moval, a small group of Montan-
ans rallied at the fountain, waving
signs and flags: Confederate flags, but
also the bright-yellow, unmistakable
Gadsden flag, the Revolutionary War
banner with a coiled rattlesnake at its
center atop the words “Don’t Tread on
Me.”
“Tyranny … you’re watching it
unfold right here,” one man told report-
ers.
Image by Jason Holley
That summer, Confederate
monuments were falling across the
country after a woman was killed by
a white supremacist at the Unite the
Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The Charlottesville demonstrators, too,
waved banners: Confederate, Nazi and,
again, the Gadsden flag.
Afterward, the Montana state
Legislature’s eight-person American
Indian Caucus authored a letter urging
removal of the Helena fountain.
“Public property in Montana
should not be used to promote
Nazism, fascism, totalitarian-
ism, separatism, or racism,”
they wrote.
According to the Hel-
ena protesters, removing the
fountain meant rewriting his-
tory. State Rep. Shane Morige-
au, one of the letter’s authors,
spoke out against that idea.
Morigeau — a Democrat who
is running for state auditor this
year and is an enrolled member
of the Confederated Salish and
Kootenai Tribes — says con-
text is everything. “We know what the
Confederacy stood for and what people
who fly the Confederate flag — what the
meaning is to them.”
But when the protesters waved
the Gadsden flag, Morigeau found the
message confusing. The bright yellow
banner is not a Civil War symbol; rather,
its forthright message read like a dare, a
continued on page 6