NEWS BRIEFS
in this matter, he would have filed a complaint months and
months ago after my request of him for a donation.”
Though the handwritten note that spurred the allegations
was received by John Brown months ago on Feb. 21, he
and Thayer waited until shortly before the May 15 election
to release the information, Handy said.
Handy said the allegations were also timed to detract
from the recent revelation that his opponent Pat Farr was
convicted of drunk driving after blowing a .32 — four
times the legal limit of .08 that leads to a DUI conviction.
According to a letter from Handy’s attorney, Dugan, to
the Department of Justice, “Criminal charges would
require probable cause that Mr. Handy violated the
relevant statutes willfully … there does not appear to me
to be any evidence of willfulness on Mr. Handy’s part, and
I urge that the criminal investigation be quickly terminated
in Mr. Handy’s favor on that ground if none other.”
Dugan wrote that she was disturbed that the DOJ
investigators “did not seem to understand some very basic
and central factual and legal points,” and that she was
troubled that one of the investigators did not appear to be
coming to the investigation with an open mind.
Dingle, the county’s supervising attorney, who is a
recent hire, previously worked for the DOJ.
This is not the first time the liberal minority of the
county commission has been targeted in what has been
called “the politics of personal destruction.” Handy said he
will be exonerated, but pointed out that won’t happen until
after next week’s election.
— Camilla Mortensen
GOOSE GOES
TO COURT
The controversial Goose Project might have its day in
court. Local environmental groups Oregon Wild and
Cascadia Wildlands are suing to stop the timber sale,
charging that the Forest Service failed to properly
analyze the impact of 2,100 acres of logging to areas
around waterways and endangered species habitat. The
dispute centers on a 17,421-acre project area around
McKenzie Bridge. The Western Environmental Law
Center filed suit on behalf of the conservation groups.
McKenzie District Ranger Terry Baker says the
project balances multiple agency mandates — including
sustainability, wildfire reduction and commercial timber
production — by treating the forest as a whole. Baker
and Willamette National Forest Supervisor Meg Mitchell
say that multiple federal agencies, including the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service, signed off on the plan, which,
the foresters say, has appropriate stream buffers and will
affect individual northern spotted owls without reducing
the overall population.
“If all we do is go cut in plantations that we’ve
clearcut before, that doesn’t equal landscape-level
treatment,” Baker says, adding that the project will thin
natural tree stands with an average tree age of 60 years,
opening up the canopy to prevent high-intensity crown
fires while lessening the potential for root rot and bug
infestations.
The plaintiffs argue that many targeted stands of trees
are perfectly healthy and should be left alone. Cascadia
Wildlands Campaign Director Josh Laughlin says the
plan uses “questionable science” to mask aggressive
logging of maturing, diverse 120-year-old stands as
forest health treatments and that forestry in the world-
famous McKenzie watershed should be restricted to
restoration.
“While there are some restorative components to the
Goose project that we support,” says Laughlin, “the
Forest Service chose to pair them with aggressive
logging in endangered species habitat, and within a
potential wilderness area.” He questions why the agency
didn’t choose a different logging alternative in the area
that would have focused on restoration work without the
clearcuts and without logging in a roadless area.
Laughlin says the roadless portion of the forest has the
potential to be a federally designated Wilderness Area.
The current sale calls for “punching a road” into the
forest, he says.
Public interest forester Roy Keene calls the Goose a
flat-out timber grab. He says the trees — which will be
sold by the ton instead of graded and sold based on
quality — will bring taxpayers about a third of their true
market value, while the logging will increase wildfire
danger.
“They cherry picked it,” Keene says. “Miraculously,
all of the unit boundaries are drawn around the best
timber.”
— Ephraim Payne
NEPALESE
SISTER CITY
VISITS EUGENE
A delegation of nine city officials will visit Eugene from
Kathmandu, Nepal, May 13-17. The problems of Kathmandu
are “a microcosmic view of what the entire planet is going
to be facing before we know it,” says Dennis Ramsey,
president of Eugene’s Kathmandu Sister City Association.
The visiting delegation will include the mayor of
Kathmandu, its city planner and the director of Kathmandu’s
environmental program. A photo exhibit featuring
Kathmandu at New Zone Gallery on Monday, May 14, is
also part of the visit.
By viewing Eugene’s municipal facilities, the visitors
from Kathmandu will see how Eugene’s examples of
success on issues such as waste management can be used
toward creating a more sustainable, healthy city of their
own. “Waste is one of our biggest issues on an overpopulated
planet,” Ramsey says. And Kathmandu is deep in it.
As a result of civil unrest thanks to lack of resources,
Kathmandu has seen a 100 percent increase in population
over the past five to seven years. Unless the human need for
basic resources is met, Kathmandu will endure more riots,
says Ramsey. Overpopulation puts severe pressure on
Kathmandu’s city services such as garbage and sewer
facilities, and increasing air and water pollution affects the
health of Kathmandu’s citizens. Humans need to have a
close look at areas of high population like Kathmandu,
Ramsey says. “We’re all going to be in the same boat if we
don’t snap out of it.”
In addition to meeting with Mayor Kitty Piercy and
touring Eugene’s city offices, the delegation will tour
various municipal-scale waste management facilities,
including COVANTA Waste-to-Energy Plant, Rexius
Commercial Composting, EWEB and the Hayden Bridge
Water Treatment Plant. “We can show them best practices
and how very-well-developed programs look,” says Ramsey.
He says the goal is that they are left with a “very clear
picture in their minds on how they go about creating [similar
facilities] in Kathmandu.”
The public is invited to view photos taken in Kathmandu
over a period spanning three generations. This will be an
opportunity for anyone to meet the Nepalese delegates and
slant
• If you haven’t already voted, chances are that ballot is
still hanging out on your kitchen table or by the door,
feeling neglected. It’s not a big ballot with a string of
confusing measures — that comes in November. This
ballot will only take a few minutes, but primaries are
important in Oregon because in nonpartisan races, such
as County Commission, City Council and EWEB,
candidates getting more than 50 percent of the vote go
on unopposed to the general election. The same holds
true in the Oregon AG race since both candidates are
Democrats.
Last week was our election/endorsements issue and
you can find a recap of our endorsements this week.
We’ve made extra space for election letters this week
and the leftovers can be found on our website. Let’s get
those ballots in the mail, or drop them in one of the
white boxes around town. Don’t forget to flip them over
and mark your votes on the front and the back.
• The Rob Handy vs. Pat Farr race for County
Commission has turned nasty. Last week we wrote about
the “politics of personal destruction” regarding
Commissioner Pete Sorenson, and the same disturbing
dynamic is at work in the Handy-Farr contest, maybe
even more so this week. We’ve written about the
Lindholm Company push-polling that tried to discredit
Handy with blatantly biased and misleading questions.
Now the pro-Farr PAC is trying to smear Handy with
potentially libelous allegations of sexual discrimination
8 MAY 10, 2012
EUGENE WEEKLY
and other statements that are simply not true. Handy
has not been accused of sexual discrimination against
anyone, but you wouldn’t know that to read the latest
mailer sent out by the PAC, with no meaningful
comment from Farr (we asked).
Farr’s campaign, including the latest and highly
questionable accusations of ethical violations, is the
sleaziest and most aggressive we’ve seen in a long time,
and perhaps it’s an attempt to draw attention from his
DUI arrest in 2006 when he blew .32 blood alcohol, four
times the legal limit and approaching brain damage and
death.
We can dismiss mud-slinging as “just politics as
usual,” but it’s hard to ignore Farr’s positions and dismal
voting record on the council. Handy gets consistently
high marks from political groups, but Farr has earned a
20 percent rating from the Oregon League of
Conservation Voters, 36 percent from the Oregon
Education Association, 38 percent from the American
Federation of Teachers-Oregon and 38 percent from
Oregonians for Immigration Reform. Farr did get high
rankings from the Associated Oregon Industries and
Oregon National Federation of Independent Businesses
(see VoteSmart.org).
• A race we haven’t given much attention to is to fill the
House District 12 seat being vacated by Rep. Terry
Beyer. Former Springfield mayor John Lively, a
household name in the district, is the likely shoo-in for
this race, but his fellow Democrat in the primary, Sandra
Mann, should not be ignored. Mann (not to be confused
with Springfield council candidate Cj Mann) is a bilingual
substitute teacher with a master’s degree and an
extensive background in social services, workers’
compensation, education and political campaigns, mostly
out of state. Mann has solid progressive ideas and
positions but few people know her. We hope she follows
Lively’s example and gets on some city or county
committees or boards and gets to be better known in
the district.
• Is Dwight Holton out to kill or gut the Oregon Medical
Marijuana Act if he gets elected as Oregon’s AG? That
appears to be the mindset of the pro-pot people who are
campaigning for Ellen Rosenblum, but the accusation is
just a pipe dream. As we reported April 26, Holton says
he has no intention of “gutting” the OMMA, but 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.”
Meanwhile, bigger issues are being ignored, such as who
is best qualified to run the AG’s office and push crime
prevention and prosecution of environmental crimes.
Rosenblum would be good; Holton would be better.
SLANT includes short opinion pieces, observations and rumor-chasing
notes compiled by the EW staff. Heard any good rumors lately? Contact Ted
Taylor at 484-0519, editor@eugeneweekly.com
WWW.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM