UN HIRES LOCAL WOMAN
When Hillary McBride started applying for positions with the United Nations,
she wasn’t expecting to be called back. Although extensively traveled and an
accomplished professional, she was the public relations rep for a small electric
utility, Emerald People’s Utility District. To her surprise the U.N. Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) flew her to Bonn, Germany during the
first week of July for an interview. A little over a month later, on Aug. 22, the
UNFCCC hired her as an associate communications officer.
The UNFCCC is the branch of the U.N. most involved in attempting to reduce
carbon emissions, regulating the carbon credit market and providing economic
incentives for countries to be more environmentally sustainable.
“I was pretty excited to get the job,” McBride said. “I just really did it as more
of an exploratory thing.”
“I started applying thinking I wasn’t going to get it,” she added, “but I proved
myself wrong.”
“Basically what the organization does is help the countries involved in the
Kyoto Protocol achieve their goals,” said McBride, who will help organize
communication campaigns designed to educate countries on how they can use U.N.
resources to reach their carbon emission reduction targets.
McBride’s new job requires her to relocate to Bonn, but she is no stranger to
living abroad, having visited over 25 different countries in Europe, Asia and the
Americas. She also studied and worked for three years in Japan. She moved to
Eugene seven years ago after
finishing a volunteer stint in
Southeast Asia.
“When you’re living
outside your comfort zone in
another country you really see
the magic of things,” she said.
“We’re looking forward to it
— it’s going to be a challenge
but we’re definitely looking
forward to it.”
“I am really excited to be a
part of the U.N.,” she said. “I
would like to stay in the
organization for the rest of my
career.” — Nils Holst
happening people
BY PAUL NEEVEL
HEATHER NIC AN FHLEISDEIR
“I’m Irish, Welsh and I’ve got a bit of Scotch in me,” says Heather Nic an Fhleisdeir,
quoting her grandmother. “She infused me with her culture and sense of humor.”
Born Heather Petty in Excelsior, Minn., she spent childhood summers with
grandma in South Dakota. She studied art in Minneapolis, then moved to L.A. to
enroll in the Otis Institute of the Parsons School of Design. In 1985 she became ill,
and doctors were unable to help. “They said I’d maybe live to be 30,” she notes.
Hearing a radio interview with an herbalist, she saw her within a week. “She gave
me a list, things I could eat:
garlic, onions, brown rice,
broccoli and turkey,” she
says. “My symptoms
turned around.” She left
school to pay medical bills,
got married, worked in
health-food stores and
relocated to Eugene in
1993. She found work as a
chef at Friendly Street
Market, studied at the
Oregon School of Herbal
Studies, and opened her
shop, Mrs. Thompson’s
Herbs, Gifts and Folklore in
1994. “Herbalism is a more
friendly, comfortable way
of caring for your health,”
she says. “It’s like
something you get from
your grandma or aunt.”
After a divorce, she kept
the shop name but
changed her own to Nic an
Fhleisdeir, a Gaelic version
of Fletcher, her grandma’s
name. Learn about classes,
Celtic imports, and more
at http://celticherbs.com
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COUNTY
BUDGET
QUESTIONS
County administrator Liane Richardson
authorized $46,800 to pay for 12 videos and
six “watercooler Skype chats” during the
same time period that county commissioners
were voting to not spend money on a video
series because county agencies from the
Sheriff’s Office to advocates for the
homeless are experiencing deep budget
cuts. Longtime Budget Committee chair
Scott Bartlett says his questions about the
expenditure are going unanswered.
According to county documents, Rick
Dancer Media Services proposed the videos
on “various topics to be decided by Lane
County and Rick Dancer.” Dancer is a
former journalist and former Republican
candidate for Oregon secretary of state. In
Dancer’s proposal, he writes “the stories
will set the record straight rather than
relying on public relations or the traditional
media to do this for you.”
The first two videos have covered the
Lane County budget and cuts to the Sheriff’s
Office.
On April 6, Judy Williams, a Lane
County budget specialist, sent an email to
Robert Lewis, the creator of the award-
winning video series that went unfunded in
the recent county budget, asking him to
propose 12 four-to-five minute informative
videos and six watercooler-type videos and
gave him seven days to come up with a
proposal. Lewis proposed 12 videos for
$14,640. In Dancer’s proposal the videos
cost $40,800.
Richardson chose to go with Dancer’s
proposal and he signed the contract in early
May, but it was not signed off on by the
acting county administrator until May 19
— two days after the Budget Committee
adjourned.
Questions about the proposal are going
unanswered. Bartlett wants to know why
the Budget Committee wasn’t told about
the Dancer video series proposal when it
was being told there was no money in the
budget for the previous video series. He
also questions the “watercooler” proposal,
as watercooler segments were one of
Dancer’s hallmarks as a KEZI television
news anchor.
Bartlett says Lane County has been
“stonewalling” his requests for more
information.
EW asked Richardson how the more
expensive proposal was chosen as well as
how the process of soliciting proposals
proceeded. Richardson replied via email
that she “had a full schedule of meetings the
last few days and do tomorrow as well” and
could not respond to questions.
Dancer responded to questions about the
videos with “I need to check with Lane
County, since they are my client and I am
contracted through them.”
EW filed a public records request with
Lane County in order to get more
information about the Rick Dancer video
series proposal. According to Judy Williams,
the county would charge EW $200 for each
machine searched for emails about the
proposal.
Under Oregon law, agencies can waive
fees for public records requests that are in
the public interest. Niel Laudati,
Springfield’s community relations manager,
says in response to an April 2010 public
records request from the R-G, “we provided
full access to more than 5,000 emails within
48 hours.” He says, “We always try to
provide media records requests quickly and
free of charge, since typically it is a benefit
to the public.” — Camilla Mortensen
WOLVES BACK
IN GUNSIGHTS
Reintroduced wolves are on the brink of
a blood bath. Activists are calling for a
boycott to save the wolves from outright
extermination in some key Western states.
The federal government’s wildlife
management strategy will allow wolves to
be slain in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho.
Open season began on Aug. 30 in Idaho,
where the up to 78 percent of the wolf
population is up for slaughter. And the other
states will follow in this decimation in the
next two weeks.
Brooks Fahy, executive director of the
Eugene-based national nonprofit Predator
Defense, says it’s important for Oregonians
to pay attention to what’s going on because
Oregon will eventually implement a hunting
decree on wolves as the population grows
too.
Predator Defense started the boycott
with the international animal advocacy
group Friends of Animals and is working to
get other nonprofits involved and to expand
its grassroots movement. The organizations
are boycotting these “killing” states and are
urging people to stop buying any products
from these states and cancel any plans to
visit them. They are calling for people to
write letters to state representatives,
congressmen, editors and even travel agents
explaining the boycott.
But Fahy says the American public is so
inundated with news of other things that it
has no idea about the impending wolf
slaughter. “This (boycott) is a last ditch
effort to stop or slow this thing down — or
to get the American public to wake up.”
Wolves, which lost protection under the
Endangered Species act in April thanks to a
congressional rider, are now subject to the
merciless killings of ranchers and hunters.
“The body count isn’t going to be just
the number of animals killed,” Fahy says.
“There is going to be an unforeseen death
toll. And in states like Idaho, this could
stand to wipe out the entire wolf population.”
He says many of the wolf pups, which are
about 4 to 5 months old right now, will not
be able to survive alone.
Fahy doesn’t want the wolves hunted at
all. Predators are beneficial, he says. A
recent study out of OSU shows that wolves
could play an important role in helping to
save other threatened species like the
Canada lynx. When apex predators such as
EUGENE WEEKLY SEPTEMBER 1, 2011 7