NEWS BRIEFS
confines of difficulty and pettiness,” she
said. Piercy noted the city’s 150th birthday
this year.
“We aren’t just any community,” Piercy
said. “We are on the move. We are
Eugene.”
— Alan Pittman
LANE COUNTY VS.
PARVIN GRAVEL
MINE
Parvin Butte neighbors who have been
fighting the destruction of the scenic
butte that sits in the middle of rural
Dexter had a day in court Jan. 5 when
Lost Creek Rock products, owned by
Greg Demers and Norman and Melvin
McDougal, came before Lane County
Hearings Official Gary Darnielle to
appeal the fines they have accrued mining
Parvin without a site review.
Lane County says LCRP needs a site
review in order to mine under its
DOGAMI permit. A site review would
require the miners to deal with issues
such as how much gravel is removed and
by how many trucks, hours of operation,
whether lights would be used after dark,
blasting schedules, and noise, dust and
vibration. The butte is surrounded by
homes and sits in close proximity to the
Dexter post office and other town
buildings.
Bill Kloos, attorney for LCRP, said,
“We always understood they thought we
need a site review. In the final analysis we
decided to draw the foul and go out
scratching at some rock.”
The county fines for mining without
the proper approval began at $330 a day
and increased to $1,170 a day after the
county found that the mining and was
being done in a reckless and intentional
fashion, according to testimony by Jane
Burgess, compliance officer for the
county.
Kloos and fellow attorney Larry
Gildea argue that Lane County code says
they don’t need the site review, a permit
or county approval if the activity is 200
feet from the neighboring properties.
Lane County disagrees. LCRP has since
begun a site review process.
At the hearing, neighbors including a
retired OSU professor, a retired teacher
and an accountant brought photographs
and video, and told in careful detail the
days and times of the mining they had
witnessed, as well as of trucks bearing the
McDougal name leaving the property
loaded with rocks.
Demers and the McDougals were in
attendance at the hearing. Demers chatted
with the McDougals and others in the
audience during parts of the testimony,
laughing at one point while Dexter
resident Jane VanDusen testified from her
wheelchair of the mining she witnessed at
the butte. VanDusen, a freelance editor,
works from home. She and others
described the “gigantic claw” of an
excavator machine and crashing sounds
from the butte, which sits in close
proximity to their previously quiet
country homes.
The McDougals and Demers and
another of their companies, Willamette
Water Co., are also currently involved in
a contested case hearing before the Office
of Administrative Hearings for the
Oregon Water Resources Department
over their attempt to get a water right for
22 million gallons of water a day out of
the McKenzie River to sell as a “quasi-
municipal water source.”
The testimony from the neighbors and
from county employees lasted for more
than three hours. It was decided the
hearing at Harris Hall would be continued
at 9 am Jan. 24. After the hearing
concludes, the hearings official has 10
days to publish his findings. Then both
LCRP and the county have 60 days to
appeal the decision to the Lane County
Circuit Court if they choose.
Lane County has requested DOGAMI
suspend its operating permit for the
quarry until site review permit approval
has been obtained.
— Camilla Mortensen
HOMERISM SPIKES
REPORTING
Sports reporters have long been
blasted for pursuing homerism that roots
for the home team rather than journalism.
So it’s interesting to look at the alternative
realities of a Register-Guard v.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin Journal Sentinel
Rose Bowl match up of next day coverage.
The two papers’ reporters largely
covered the game-ending spike by
watching on TV like everyone else.
Here’s the R-G coverage by Rob
Moseley: “The Badgers were unable to
spike the ball in time to stop the clock,
after using their timeouts much earlier in
the half than they would have liked ... The
Badgers tried in vain to stop the clock but
couldn’t, as the replay review confirmed.”
Here’s coverage in the Pulitzer Prize
winning Journal Sentinel by Jeff
Potrykus:
“UW hurried to the line of scrimmage
and Wilson spiked the ball with a second
left but the referee ruled time expired. A
video review upheld the call and the game
was over ... ‘I knew there was two seconds
left on the clock,’ Wilson said. ‘As soon
as the referee blew the whistle, I snapped
it and spiked it. I didn’t think there was
any way that two full seconds ran off the
clock there.’”
“Bielema vexed by a few of officials’
calls,” Potrykus reports in a second story
quoting the Wisconsin coach.
The Wisconsin paper reports that in
the first half: “UW lost 13 seconds on its
final possession of the first half and thus
lost an opportunity to try for a go-ahead
score.”
In the second half, the paper quotes the
Wisconsin coach: “Basically what
happened was, I know his foot touched
the line,” Bielema said. “It gets down to
an issue of where the ball is. I was trying
to get a read from my sideline official if
we could review forward momentum. He
didn’t understand the question where I
was at, and that’s why they charged me a
timeout.”
WWW.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM • BLOGS.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM
PHOTO: TODD COOPER
ANDY STAHL
STAHL IN THE RACE FOR COMMISH
It’s difficult to say what’s a more difficult proposition — helping save the
spotted owl or holding a seat on the Lane County Board of Commissioners. Either
way it’s a lot about the timber industry and all about politics. Longtime forest
advocate Andy Stahl says that having made a career of “speaking truth to power”
in dealing with federal forest issues, he’s ready to take on Lane County.
He says he advocates for kids, trees and good governance and currently none of
those needs are being met, so “I should get in there and do it myself,” he says.
Stahl has announced he is running against incumbent Pete Sorenson for the
South Eugene commission seat. Soccer coach and Court Appointed Special
Advocate (CASA) Kieran Walsh has also entered the race. Stahl announced he is
entering the race on Jan. 11, with the support of state Sen. Floyd Prozanski.
Stahl, the executive director of Forest Service Employees for Environmental
Ethics, says he brings to the table his experience in saving old-growth forests (the
habitat for spotted owls), stopping landslide-inducing logging in national forest
areas of the Coast Range, lobbying through Congress the original Secure Rural
Schools legislation that provided Lane County with funding in lieu of timber
receipts, and providing a framework for a logging plan proposed by Congressman
Peter DeFazio to replace the expired SRS financing.
“What has Pete Sorenson accomplished in 14 years on the commission?” he
asks.
He says that despite a background in fighting the timber industry, he doesn’t
foresee that being an issue in decision-making because “95 percent of decisions
made by the board are nonpartisan.” He adds, “I know I can work collaboratively
with Faye.” Commissioner Faye Stewart is from a longtime timber family.
Stahl also points to a lawsuit in which he was the lead plaintiff that restored
adoption assistance payments, meeting children’s ongoing special needs, to
families who adopted foster children. The state had pulled those payments. Stahl is
the parent of two adopted foster children. He has a total of three children in south
Eugene schools — South Eugene High, Roosevelt and Spencer Butte. He jokes that
if kids could vote, he’d have the race wrapped up.
Stahl is also on the Citizen Review Board for Lane County that oversees the
state’s care of foster children, and served for four years on the school board of a
rural school district.
Stahl says that instead of the “penny ante” cost-saving measures recently
advocated by Commissioner Jay Bozievich, such as commissioners cutting expense
budgets for running their offices, he advocates for saving the county more money
by reducing the commissioner seats from five to three and changing the seats from
being tied to a district to “at-large” positions as is done elsewhere in Oregon.
He criticizes the current board for in-fighting and for the alleged serial decision-
making that led to an open meetings court case, and he supports the ruling by Judge
Gillespie against Sorenson and Commissioner Rob Handy. He says when it comes
to local government, “You do the horse trading in public.”
“I can’t run against all five,” he says. “I can only run against the one whose
district I live in.”
— Camilla Mortensen
LIGHTEN UP
BY R A FA E L A L DAV E
When the GOP candidates for president poke
fingers in each other’s eyes twice in 10 hours,
it’s no longer a debate. It’s domestic violence.
EUGENE WEEKLY JANUARY 12, 2012 7