viewpoint
BY SCOTT BARTLETT
letters
TO THE EDITOR
CONFIDENCE IN PETE
We Can’t Afford to
Lose Him
Pete Sorenson’s re-election is a must
D
eciding to endorse and strongly support Pete Sorenson
(commissioner for South Eugene including Whiteaker
and the Jefferson/Westside neighborhoods) is an easy
task. He’s the most qualifi ed and most deserving candidate
by far. Sorenson’s deep public service resume, proven
independence, progressive record and courage in the face
of ugly bullying from special interests and Republican-
owned media, make him unique in the commissioner race.
As a 17-year veteran of service on the Lane County Budget
Committee (appointed by three different commissioners, two
Democrats and one Republican) and as its immediate past
chair, I know a thing or two about county government.
Sorenson is endorsed by virtually every conservation and
labor organization, Democratic Party of Lane County, Independent
Party of Oregon, Mayor Kitty Piercy, LCC Education Association’s PAC,
former crusading local congressman Jim Weaver, and former South Eugene commissioner
Jerry Rust (1977-97); he has tremendous grassroots support and affection for his
independence in standing up for South Eugene’s priorities: education, conservation,
human rights, sane land use policy, the UO, animal care and youth services.
Space doesn’t allow for reciting the full gamut of his achievements — saving the Lane
County Fairgrounds, defending thousands of local forest acres against attempted zoning
changes to permit sprawl, saving the iconic Florence dunes, fi ghting for same-sex county
worker health care protection and expanded county clinics for low-income citizens, fairness
and dignity for county workers, etc. Sorenson has received awards for helping create the
Veterans Service Center and for human rights (“Hometown Hero Civil Rights Award” by the
Eugene Human Rights Commission). He’s volunteered for Kidsports and YMCA coaching.
His opponent has never once served on a county or city board or committee.
He’s stood up to the special-
interest
controlled
right-leaning
Republican board majority (Bozievich,
Stewart and Leiken) and their seeming
endorsement of a virtual giveaway
of millions of gallons of precious
McKenzie River water, as well as that
same board majority’s outrageous
tolerance of the West Virginia style
mountain-top removal of iconic Parvin
Butte. Perhaps that’s why a local deep-
pocketed land speculator just pumped
in $12,000 to the campaign of his libertarian-leaning opponent Andy Stahl. After
all, Stahl is a close ally and donation recipient of Cato Institute employee and arch-
conservative Randal O’Toole who advocates for privatizing federal forests and parks!
Stahl proclaims himself the “architect” of an alarming trust scheme to semi-privatize
and clear-cut some 1.5 million acres of federal forest, leaving an uncertain amount of
protected old-growth. He proposes an elimination of locally accountable individual
commissioner districts and ridicules the critics of the Republican board’s recent
shameless gerrymandering as “crybabies.” Not very “progressive” sounding!
Pete has stood up for
us. Now it’s our turn to
repudiate the politics of
personal destruction.
Sorenson’s record of service is unmatched: chief legislative assistant to
congressman Jim Weaver, pivotal player in adding French Pete to the Three Sisters
Wilderness, special assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Oregon state
senator and assistant Democratic leader, chair of the LCC Board, three times chair of
the Lane Board of County Commissioners.
As a crusading pro-conservation lawyer, featured in a New York Times article,
Sorenson won landmark federal litigation protecting drinking water against lead
contamination. He won a major lawsuit protecting citizens and small business against
industrial biocide poisoning near railroad tracks. He is a nationally recognized expert
in the Clean Water, Clean Air and Endangered Species acts, and has lectured across
America: Stanford, NYU, Columbia, UCLA, Tulane and dozens others. He was a
delegate to the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm
and the only Lane County commissioner ever invited to a bill-signing in the Oval Offi ce
(for Clinton’s signing the Sorenson-supported Secure Rural Schools funding act).
We can’t afford to lose this proven champion for what makes Eugene and Lane
County so special: our care for one another’s dignity and security and for the God-
given grandeur which surrounds us. Pete has stood up for us. Now it’s our turn to
repudiate the politics of personal destruction; It’s time to re-elect this decent and
compassionate neighbor and leader!
Scott Bartlett of Eugene is the immediate past chair of the Lane County Budget Committee and was twice
elected as Oregon member of the Electoral College of the United States.
13th Annual Million Mom March
NO GUNS
IN SCHOOLS
Sunday, May 13 • 2pm • EWEB Plaza, Eugene
for more info: mmm@efn.org
Sponsored by Million Mom March/Ceasefi re Oregon
4
MAY 10, 2012
EUGENE WEEKLY
I met Pete Sorenson in the late 1980s.
He was a practicing environmental attorney
in a third-fl oor walk-up offi ce bustling
with law students. People were becoming
disgusted with the grass seed agricultural
practice of burning harvested fi elds. Pete
wrote a “fi eld-burning ban” ballot initiative
for us which did not gather enough
signatures, but the movement proceeded
to get a phase-down bill passed in the
Legislature. Pete then worked with me
and another plaintiff to begin the process
of suing the fi rst Bush administration EPA
for not promulgating the Clean Air Act
regulation for particulate matter. The EPA
wrote the regulation.
Then in the early 1990s Pete gave
me emergency free legal advice over the
phone. Seneca Timber company workers
showed up with heavy equipment claiming
they had access through our property to
their recently purchased adjacent property.
They threatened me with “idle equipment”
and “labor time lost” costs, which could
be thousands of dollars. Pete’s excellent
advice absolved me of liability from their
threats.
I do not know Andy Stahl as well. I
did vote for him when he ran for Crow/
Applegate/Lorane school board. Since
this is the only elective offi ce he has held,
and he lost his bid for re-election, one
wonders if this is a rousing endorsement.
My question for Andy: If you aspired to
the commission as an environmentalist
and progressive Democrat, why didn’t you
run against Faye Stewart when you lived
in our district? Why run against a fellow
progressive environmentalist who has a
long and outstanding record?
Jan Nelson
Crow
FARR’S DUI MATTERS
Recently, the R-G [and EW] published
reports of Pat Farr, candidate against Rob
Handy for county commissioner, getting
cited in 2006 for being four times over the
legal limit to drive. It is legitimate to ask
why this issue is important to the race, and
not just an example of dirty politics by the
Handy campaign. Though I don’t speak for
the campaign, I’d like to weigh in.
• Farr made this a public matter by
endangering the lives of everyone on the
public streets that night. DUIs are the
public’s business because of the nature of
the crime.
• Farr has made honesty, transparency,
and “bringing trust back to government”
the foundation of his campaign. Yet he
hasn’t been honest about his own past. He
opened the door to this.
• At the time of the crime, Farr was
executive director of FOOD for Lane
County. That nonprofi t had just survived a
huge controversy a few years before when
the board fi red their founding director.
Another scandal at the top of FFLC could
literally have brought that organization to
its knees. Farr’s crime put in jeopardy the
tens of thousands of people FFLC serves
every year.
Judge for yourself his fi tness for
offi ce.
Kevin O’Brien
Eugene
PARVIN BUTTE BLOWUP
The Weekly has told us all along,
and by now, the extreme, pro-resource
extraction agenda of the Board of
Commissioners majority is blatantly
obvious, even in mainstream reporting.
A front page R-G story (5/3) describes
county commissioners’ differences on
whether the county should appeal a
decision that leaves neighbors at the mercy
of Greg Demers’ mining operation on
Parvin Butte in the community of Dexter.
I watched most of that public
comment and discussion on Cable Channel
21. Property owners living near the
butte provided heart-rending testimony
on how the harsh noise and dust of
mining negatively impacts their lives and
community. With no county appeal, the
mining will likely continue for at least
several years, and historic Parvin Butte
will be obliterated.
It’s impossible to imagine how
anyone can support those three majority
commissioners after seeing their level of
callousness. It doesn’t move them — no
matter how severely people are affected or
how clearly the problems are presented —
the vote still went wrong.
And then, Commissioners Stewart
and Bozievich had the nerve to be offended
when Dan Stotter, the attorney representing
aggrieved Dexter and Lost Creek residents,
pointed out that these county decision
makers don’t care.
Appropriately, on the same day, the
R-G Life Section front-page story presents
photographer John Bauguess of Dexter
whose extraordinary photos of destruction
in this area will be exhibited May 14-18 at
Maude Kerns Art Center.
I wonder if the board majority will be
there for the reception.
Elaine B. Weiss
Eugene
BAD PICK ON AG
Having read your almost infallible
endorsements over the years, I was stunned
at your pick (5/3) of Dwight Holton over
Ellen Rosenblum for the crucial position
of attorney general. Rosenblum is a
progressive with years of experience in
Oregon state courts whose top priorities
include fi ghting white collar crime and
sexual abuse; Holton, whose priorities
include fi ghting Oregon’s marijuana laws,
has practiced only within the federal
system.
Please check the actual records of
both candidates, and don’t let yourself be
swayed by all those “law and order” TV
ads paid for by Holton’s Eastern fi nancier
friends.
Douglas Card
Veneta
NEW ZEALAND MODEL
The forest policies of New Zealand
have much to teach us, but the assertion
that the Andy Stahl infl uenced DeFazio-
Walden-Shrader O&C logging Plan has as
its prototype the “New Zealand Plan” is
misleading.
The origin of the “New Zealand Plan”
was the Maruia Declaration of 1977, a pre-
computer petition with 341,159 signatures
WWW.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM