LIBERTARIAN
FOREST POLITICS
After EW commented on Lane County Commission
candidate Andy Stahl’s connection to Cato Institute Senior
Fellow Randal O’Toole in an April 5 Slant column, the fur
began to fly. Letters to the editor, online comments and
even tweets chided EW for “smearing” Stahl with the
connection to O’Toole and Cato.
Cato, though controversially connected to the Koch
Brothers, is a respected libertarian think tank, so why the
raised hackles? Possibly due to a connection to another
hot-button issue — the DeFazio-Schrader-Walden forest
plan. It turns out that O’Toole has been touting a timber
trust plan to Congress for years.
The DeFazio plan, which proposes logging on 1.5
million acres of public forestland under a timber trust
proposal, is based on a plan worked up by Stahl.
Environmentalists object to the plan, citing reasons ranging
from the effects logging could have on Eugene’s water
supply to the sheer amount of public land that they say
would be turned into industrial-type tree farms.
Stahl says that the intellectual inspiration for his
version of the plan “is found in a number of threads
stretching back many years,” and gives as his inspiration a
tree plantation versus native forest split in New Zealand.
He says he studied trusts in college as well. “Grandparents
are fond of setting up such trusts for their irresponsible
grandchildren to protect assets from being squandered,”
Stahl says.
O’Toole has been working on a trust plan for a long
time, too. He testified before the Senate Committee on
Energy and Natural Resources in favor of a timber trust
back in 1995. He suggested a trust plan again in a Seattle
Times opinion piece in 1997. In 1998, Stahl and O’Toole
presented the trust plan, along with several other plans to
reform the Forest Service, at a conference put on by the
Sierra Nevada Alliance. The plan, part of the “Forest
Options Group Proposal,” is laid out on the Thoreau
Institute website. Stahl and O’Toole serve on the TI’s
board of directors.
“It’s classic free-market libertarianism, with a twist,”
says Oregon Wild’s Doug Heiken of O’Toole’s trust plan,
which calls for fees on things like recreation and
biodiversity. Heiken says it works better if the government
owns and manages the forests to produce public goods,
“which are under-produced on private lands, because
there’s no profit in clean water and biodiversity.”
O’Toole is the author of the 1988 book Reforming the
Forest Service. He also wrote The Best-Laid Plans, in
which he “calls for repealing federal, state and local
planning laws,” according to the Cato website, and
Gridlock: Why We’re Stuck in Traffic and What to Do
About It, in which he criticizes mass transit.
— Camilla Mortensen
SILENCE AT TAKE BACK
THE NIGHT?
Eugene’s 32rd Take Back the Night (TBTN)/ Recobrar
la Noche may be unusually quiet this year due to the
mandatory reporting policy implemented by UO last fall.
The new guidelines state that all university workers are
required to report cases of sexual assault reported to them
to the Department of Public Safety, with or without the
consent of the survivor.
TBTN traditionally concludes with a “Speak Out to
End Sexual Violence” where survivors and their allies can
share personal stories of assault in a safe environment. On
Thursday, April 26, however, participants have been
6 APRIL 26, 2012
EUGENE WEEKLY
cautioned to refrain from using names or other identifying
information because UO employees will likely be in the
audience, says Lisa Oland, the Sexual Violence Prevention
and Education coordinator for the UO Women’s Center.
OSU canceled the speak-out portion of the TBTN
completely.
“The policy takes power away from the survivor,”
Oland says. The UO student government (ASUO),
LGBTQA, Sexual Wellness Advocacy Team, Multicultural
Center and the Survival Center have all expressed concerns
that mandatory reporting is not survivor-centric. The
ASUO passed a bill in November asking for the university
administration to “restore the mandatory reporter policy to
its former state, and reinstate the use of anonymous report
forms with renewed vigor and respect for the privacy and
autonomy of reporters.”
TBTN keynote speaker Megan Burke, a UO graduate
teaching fellow and campus feminist, hopes that the
controversy will add a renewed sense of urgency to the
event. “Mandatory reporting is just a different manifestation
of a culture that supports sexual violence,” Burke says.
She will be addressing how sexual violence impacts
women in particular, but also minority groups that are
often silenced in the community. “This year will be
especially important for allies and survivors to come
together to show the university that we are survivor-
focused.”
TBTN will kick off at 6 pm Thursday, April 26, with a
rally at the UO’s EMU Amphitheater with keynote
speeches by Burke and Kayla, a Eugene spoken-word
artist, as well as “protest and performance” provided by
the Eugene Radical Cheerleaders. The rally will be
followed by a march to 8th and Oak, accompanied by the
30-person percussion ensemble Samba Ja and Nicole
Sanguree on acoustic guitar. It will wrap up with the
speak-out at Kesey Square.
TBTN is sponsored by the UO Women’s Center and
Sexual Assault Support Services (SASS).
— Alexandra Notman
happening people
AG RACE STIRS
WEED DEBATE
The Oregon attorney general primary race between
Dwight Holton and Ellen Rosenblum is fraught with
complexity and nuance, but for some medical marijuana
advocates, the race has boiled down to who’s better on pot.
“Dwight’s Not Right” reads the headline on a press
release from Robert Wolfe of Citizens for Sensible Law
Enforcement (CSLE), which is sponsoring Initiative
Petition 24, which would legalize marijuana for personal
use. If the initiative is approved, a ballot measure will go
before voters in November.
The CSLE statement says Holton called the Oregon
Medical Marijuana Act (OMMA) a “train wreck” and “is
campaigning on his plan to gut it,” but Rosenblum “will
support Oregon’s voter-approved medical marijuana
program, and says personal marijuana use is the lowest
priority for law enforcement.”
But it turns out the two candidates are not very far apart
on the issues of both medical marijuana and possession of
small amounts of weed. Both candidates were interviewed
by EW on this and other topics.
Holton says he has called the OMMA a “train wreck”
but he has no intention of “gutting” the program or
campaigning on that agenda. He says he would like to see
it improved. “We passed this law for very compassionate
reasons,” he says. “We were trying to get relief to people
who were in desperate need. That’s what the law’s about,
and I’ll enforce it and uphold it.”
Holton says when he was the U.S. attorney he “heard
from people in the medical marijuana community that they
knew patients who could not get access to marijuana, and
we know from law enforcement folks that medical
marijuana ends up on the black market. So if we are going
to maintain the integrity of the program and honor the will
of the voters then we ought to look at making it better.”
“Ellen says she’ll make the enforcement of drug
trafficking laws a low priority,” he says. “I don’t think it’s
appropriate to telegraph law enforcement about what laws
CONTINUED P. 8
BY PAUL NEEVEL
TIM MUELLER
A native of Appleton, Wisc., Tim Mueller
spent two years at Iowa State, dropped out,
joined a band and moved to Connecticut.
“The band broke up when the bass player
joined the Air Force,” says Mueller, who
stayed on in Connecticut, found work at
the post office, got married and had a
daughter. After they discovered Oregon on
a vacation trip, the family moved west in
1991. “Klamath Falls had the only
postmaster in Oregon who would take a
transfer,” says Mueller, who got divorced
three years later, then transferred to
Springfield. In 1997 he advertised for a
housemate and found Michelle Jones, who
was working with Steve Brown on their
first autism retreat. “I helped because I had
a computer and wanted to learn to use it,”
he says. “The three of us started KindTree
Productions, aka Autism Rocks.” Fifteen
years later, Jones and Brown have moved
on, but Mueller, now retired and remarried,
remains as secretary/treasurer of KindTree
- Autism Rocks. “Last summer we had 145
people at our family camp,” he says. “Every
year, the magic happens: Someone has a
breakthrough.” On Friday, May 4, the public
is invited to The PROM, a benefit event in
the Vet’s Club Ballroom, with music by
Etouffee and DJ Elian, hosted by Queen
Holly GoSlugly. Find details at kindtree.org
Still a musician, Mueller will perform with
his new band, Steel Wool, at the Saturday
Market on June 23.
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