Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Willamette week. (Portland, Or.) 1974-current | View Entire Issue (March 4, 2015)
POLITICS their work without obtaining, or even apply- ing or attempting to obtain, federal or state permits,” Whitman wrote to Kitzhaber on June 20, 2014. “I am told that on the order of 1,000 (yes, that’s right, one thousand) small dams/water retention structures have been constructed without state removal-fi ll per- mits. State and federal agencies report that the work is blocking fi sh passage (redband), as well as killing riparian vegetation.” Kitzhaber wanted the state’s concerns about Campbell’s ranch resolved before the summit. “He wasn’t comfortable attending if the regulatory matter wasn’t resolved,” Whitman says in an email to WW. The Department of State Lands got Campbell to agree to a nine-page consent decree, which detailed the unpermitted in- water work he’d been doing at Silvies Valley Ranch for more than a decade. Campbell tells WW he hadn’t known he needed permits to do the work. He agreed by January 2016 to fi le a plan to fi x any damage to waterways. Instead of facing civil penal- ties, Campbell agreed to make a payment of $10,000 to the Common School Fund. A Department of State Lands spokes- woman declined to comment on the agree- ment. Even as he and the state were fi nalizing the consent agreement, Campbell copied Kitzhaber on emails that illustrated his frustration with regulators, such as the Ore- gon Department of Environmental Quality. “Seriously, getting rid of two or three mid level egomaniacs there would increase economic growth in eastern Oregon by ten NEWS SPECIAL TREATMENT: Campbell woudn’t be able to operate his ranch as a resort if then-Gov. John Kitzhaber had not signed a 2011 bill intended solely to give Silvies Valley Ranch an exemption under land-use rules. Kitzhaber professed his dislike for such bills, and then signed it anyway to help Campbell, a campaign contributor. percent all by itself when folks realized you could actually get something approved,” Campbell wrote on July 19, 2014. Campbell’s Frontier Summit proceeded as planned on June 22 and 23, 2014. Eighty invitees—including eight lawmakers, the heads of the Oregon Business Council and Oregon Business Association, and the fi rst couple—dined on barbecued goat, roasted vegetables and whiskey. A rare thunder- storm ripped the desert sky, but Campbell had ordered a tent more than large enough to accommodate his guests. Kitzhaber and Hayes flew in from the Hillsboro Airport on Campbell’s private plane to kick off the event. “She spoke a lot longer than John did,” says one attendee who asked not to be iden- tifi ed. “He didn’t say much at all.” Emails show Kitzhaber had to leave the two-day gathering early for a fundraiser in Los Angeles hosted by Dean Devlin, produc- er of the television series Leverage, which fi lmed in Portland from 2008 to 2012. Kitzhaber’s emails don’t show much follow-up after the Frontier Summit, except for two messages: He asked a fundraising consultant how much money Campbell had given his re-election campaign so he could hit up another summit attendee, New Sea- sons Market co-founder Chuck Eggert, for the same amount. Eggert gave $2,500. Campbell sent Kitzhaber a few messages of support later in 2014, especially as ques- tions about Hayes’ consulting work grew. In December, Campbell sent Kitzhaber an email (one he tells WW he now regrets) in which he railed against state natural resources agencies and the Oregon Govern- ment Ethics Commission, which was begin- ning an inquiry into Kitzhaber and Hayes. “They take microscopes to try to find some rule they can over interpret to make any good deed look bad,” Campbell wrote Dec. 13, 2014. “I hope the ethics commission got themselves defunded in your budget— they are not helping Oregon be better, but rather taking us back to the Stone Age!” Willamette Week MARCH 4, 2015 wweek.com 9
