A4
Opinion
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Reinstate public
in District 3’s
hiring processes
T
he Grant School District
3 School Board has made
its decision, promoting
Grant Union principal Curt
Shelley to be the new district
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well in his new post, and
anticipate that he will do a
good job for the district, given
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At the same time, we’re
chagrined by the hasty process
the District 3 School Board
used to reach this important
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We understand the appeal
of hiring a known quantity
– a proven administrator
who is familiar with
the community and the
challenges of living on the
frontier – but the board
snubbed the patrons by
jumping into the decision
without adequate notice
of its intent or full public
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Members undoubtedly felt
pressured by the knowledge
that Shelley was a finalist
for a superintendent job
elsewhere, and would be
facing a decision point within
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be sure, but perhaps one that
could have been left to the
job-seeker, not the hiring
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By skipping the search
process, the interviews
with candidates, and public
introduction of the finalists,
the board rushed the process
and seemed to exclude the
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This is not intended as a
criticism of Shelley – it’s
entirely possible that the
board might have gone
through that process and
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But without a more extensive
hiring process, that remains
only an assumption, one that
lingers like an asterisk on this
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Chalk it up as a lesson: The
means to the end are important,
especially when doing the
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search for Shelley’s successor
at Grant Union, and we hope
that effort will put the district
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W HERE TO WRITE
Washington, D.C.
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By Tom Partin
To EO Media Group
6LQFH *RY .DWH %URZQ ZDV
sworn in as Oregon’s 38th gov-
ernor last month, many in the
forest products industry have
wondered whether the new chief
executive would continue her
predecessor’s proactive efforts
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the circumstances surrounding
his departure, we appreciated the
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derstand the connection of sus-
tainable forest management to
maintaining healthy forests and
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This attention was evident in
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Oregon Leadership Summit in
Portland, where he correctly de-
scribed how Oregon’s urban areas
have recovered from the great re-
cession of 2008-10 but our rural
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He highlighted one of the three
goals of the 2015 Business Plan
which was to “put our natural re-
sources to work” to help combat
high unemployment and poverty
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In his three terms as governor,
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the management needs of the fed-
eral forests including Forest Ser-
vice lands in eastern and south-
west Oregon and the BLM lands
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second term as governor in the
1990s he worked with the For-
est Service to establish the Blue
Mountain Demonstration area on
parts of the Malheur, Umatilla
and Wallowa-Whitman Nation-
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area was to highlight new man-
agement strategies for treating
forests under new federal “east-
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determined to address a situation
It ain’t broke
EAGLE
To the Editor:
I about fell out of my chair
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regarding our Veteran Services
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know who she’s talking about or
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has been doing a wonderful job
and has helped me in many ways,
even helping me track down med-
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If she’s looking for someone with
degrees and alphabet soup behind
his name, I say if it ain’t broke
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Richie Colbeth
John Day
Editor’s Note: Grant County is
in the process of hiring a new
veterans officer due to the retire-
ment of the current officer, Bob
Muenchausen.
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Copyright © 2015 Blue Mountain Eagle
All rights reserved. No part of this publication covered by the copyright hereon may be reproduced
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where harvest lev-
els had plummet-
ed, many sawmills
had shut down,
and many Orego-
nians lost their
MREV
Tom
In many ways,
Partin
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lay the ground-
work for the collaborative forest-
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Our industry also bought into
the ideas found in the governor’s
salmon plan which was a delicate
balance of managing our forest-
ed lands while at the same time
enhancing salmon and steelhead
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owners voluntarily put millions
of dollars into enhancing riparian
habitat and the end result was to
create ecosystems which have al-
lowed Coho salmon run numbers
to increase to over 400,000 wild
fish returning to Oregon streams
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/DVW \HDU .LW]KDEHU FUHDWHG
a task force to review poten-
tial management strategies for
Western Oregon’s O&C timber-
lands and to better understand
the implications of competing
proposals that members of our
Oregon congressional delega-
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ment was not reached by the
task force, the report included
an extensive outline of the chal-
lenges and extensive modeling
to better understand the impli-
cations of different management
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)LQDOO\ .LW]KDEHU ZDV WR EH-
come chair of the Western Gov-
ernors Association in June, and
he had a desire to bring a biparti-
san group of governors together
to focus on improved manage-
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governor’s draft concepts “A
do we stop to think about the val-
ue that is added to our daily life
by the hard working people at
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like to share the many ways in
which our forest service neigh-
bors contribute to community
life, but there is not room in a few
column inches, so I will share a
couple of the contributions they
have made to our work at the
North Fork John Day Watershed
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First, let’s consider youth de-
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who has had a summer job with
the Watershed Councils, Summer
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20 or more young people in Grant
County are employed through
our program, and many of those
projects take place on the Mal-
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would be no forestland youth
crews without the dedicated
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VWDII
)6EHQH¿WVXVDOO
Joe Rausch, Shannon Wine-
To the Editor:
gar, Roy Walker, Whitney Rapp,
The Malheur National Forest Ernie Gipson, Colleen Malaney
is providing incredible benefits and many others are contributing
WR *UDQW &RXQW\ 7KH VHUYLFHV time above and beyond their dai-
and amenities extend well beyond ly workloads to help provide rel-
what we view as the standard task evant projects for teens of Grant
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Case for Forest Service Renew-
al” were presented to the Board
of Forestry in January and the
subcommittee on federal forests
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GLFWDEO\ IDUOHIW RUJDQL]DWLRQV
that oppose federal timber man-
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but we hope the new adminis-
tration continues this effort to
work with Western governors in
promoting federal forest reform
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Our membership hopes that
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many of the important forest-
ry efforts that were started un-
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and build on those concepts in
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We have some very important
issues facing Oregon on our pri-
vate, state and federal forested
ODQGV :H QHHG D JRYHUQRU ZLOO-
ing to look closely and weigh in
wisely on critical issues such as
potential changes to the Oregon
Forest Practices Act, manage-
ment plans for the Tillamook and
Clatsop state forests, the use of
herbicides and pesticides on our
forests and restoring balance to
the management of our federal
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AFRC, our members and part-
ners in the industry stand ready
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forms her new team and works
on these critical issues to rural
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Brown’s pledge, as stated in her
inauguration, to “create more
living-wage jobs in every single
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Tom Partin is president of
American Forest Resource Coun-
cil, an organization of manufac-
turers and companies that work
directly in or represent the forest
products industry.
L ETTERS TO THE E DITOR
Blue Mountain
195 N. Canyon Blvd. • John Day, OR 97845
P UBLISHER
E DITOR
A DMINISTRATIVE A SSISTANT
E DITORIAL A SSISTANT
C OMMUNITY N EWS
S PORTS
M ARKETING R EP
C USTOMER S ERVICE R EP
C OMMENTARY
everyone, but I imagine that most
Forest employees have helped to
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The staff of the Malheur Na-
tional Forest is central to success
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Bob Hassmiller and Allen Tay-
lor heartily share their extensive
NQRZOHGJH 6XVDQ *DUQHU HQ-
courages partnerships and reach-
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Shawna Clark and Joan Trosclair
never fail to smile when we walk
through the glass, front entry
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Betty Wilt keeps contracts
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very many Malheur employ-
ees volunteer, contribute, and
simply help to make John Day
and the Forest a cheery and
sustainable place to live and
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Let’s all extend our apprecia-
tion – life in Grant County goes
well beyond the daily headlines,
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the steady, good work being ac-
complished by our neighbors that
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dos to everyone at the Malheur
National Forest!
Elaine Eisenbraun
Long Creek
etters policy: Letters to the Editor is a forum for Blue Mountain Eagle readers to express themselves on local, state, national or world issues. Brevity
is good, but longer letters will be asked to be contained to 350 words. No personal attacks; challenge the opinion, not the person. No thank-you letters.
Submissions to this page become property of the Eagle. The Eagle reserves the right to edit letters for length and for content. Letters must be original and
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