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About The Blue Mountain eagle. (John Day, Or.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (June 13, 2018)
A16 News Blue Mountain Eagle ACT FIREARMS Continued from Page A1 Continued from Page A1 resistance, quality and other safety standards. The bill also calls for studying the environ- mental footprint of wood building construction — from timber harvest through manufacturing — while analyzing potential impacts on wildlife. Sen. Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, co- wrote the letter with Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho. Merkley said he is working to establish Oregon as an industry hub for mass timber products to boost the rural economy, using locally sourced wood. “This bill supports innovative manufacturing that creates jobs in the rural part of the state, and encourages more sustainable tall wood building construction in urban parts of the state,” Merkley said in a statement. Other senators who signed the letter include Ron Wyden, D-Oregon; Maria Cantwell, D-Wash- ington; James Risch, R-Idaho; Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota; Steve Daines, R-Montana; Roger Wicker, R-Mississippi; Gary Peters, D-Michigan; and Angus King, I-Maine. Supporters of the bill say it will not only create jobs but establish a new market for small-diame- ter trees and branches, encouraging more active forest management at a time of increasingly large and destructive wildfires. “There’s a lot of forests throughout the West that are in need of restoration,” said Timm Locke, director of forest products for the Oregon Forest Resources Institute. “If we don’t remove the tim- ber, those forests are going to go up in flames.” Mass timber construction is relatively new in the U.S., though it has been popular since the mid-’90s in Europe. In Oregon, the first commer- cial-size building to use cross-laminated timber came in 2015 at the Oregon Zoo’s Elephant Lands habitat. Cross-laminated timber, or CLT, is made from planks of wood layered perpendicular to one an- other in large sheets. Mass timber also includes nail-laminated timber, glue-laminated beams and laminated veneer lumber. “It’s a new way to build commercial buildings, which hearkens back to the old days, when almost all buildings were made out of wood,” Locke said. “The bill would put money toward product re- search and development and product performance work, so we can meet the need of code officials to show this stuff actually works.” Locke pointed to a 2017 study by Oregon BEST, an economic development nonprofit for clean technology startups, measuring the econom- ic impacts of cross-laminated timber. According to the study, the market potential for mass timber nationwide could result in an additional demand of up to 6.1 billion board-feet of lumber. About 15 percent of wood consumed in the U.S. comes from Oregon, Locke said. With an- other 6.1 billion board-feet, at 15 percent market share, he estimated that would result in 17,000 new jobs, including 6,000 direct jobs. Arran Robertson, a spokesman for the Port- land-based environmental group Oregon Wild, said he is encouraged the bill will take environ- mental and wildlife impacts into account, offering the chance to source wood differently from the forests, rather than industrial clear-cuts. “This is an opportunity to create a marketplace to reward the people who are doing things a little bit different,” Robertson said. Thomas Maness, dean of the College of For- estry at Oregon State University, said there are “significant new market opportunities” for mass timber. Product testing, research and profession- al training will be key moving forward, Maness said, as the wood products and construction in- dustries transition to using mass timber in taller and more complex structures. Rob Freres, executive vice president of Freres Lumber in Lyons, said his business has already staked its future in mass timber. “New product development provides the means to compete worldwide and gives rural communities the opportunity to prosper,” Freres said. Wednesday, June 13, 2018 around guns as a child in Texas and once worked for an outfitter in the Eagle Cap Wilderness. He also said he was unaware of any statewide initiatives relating to firearms when he wrote his chal- lenge to Rue’s initiative. Webb said he learned about Rue’s initiative from an article in the May 9 Blue Mountain Eagle, and his challenge refers to the measure as presented in the sum- mary. Webb believes some of the ini- tiative’s language is so broad that substantive legal changes to ex- isting statutory and constitutional law will occur if it passes. Voters should be provided fair notice of that possibility under the “full text requirement” for prospective ini- tiatives, he said. For example, if county officials are prohibited from enforcing any law that restricts the right of people to possess firearms, ammunition and firearms accessories, then they would be unable to enforce existing laws that make it illegal for convict- ed felons or certain mentally ill peo- ple from possessing firearms. This could “significantly increase public safety risks for county residents,” Webb said. Requiring the sheriff to review federal, state and local laws af- fecting firearms would expand the sheriff’s statutory responsibilities to include judicial review, Webb also said. He noted that the Ore- gon Constitution prohibits indi- viduals charged with the official duties of one branch of govern- ment from exercising any of the functions of the other two. Webb also noted that state law The initiative Rue told the Eagle his intent in submitting the initiative was to preserve the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment and to “save our gun rights.” He said he was also reacting to “what was happening in the (Willamette) Valley,” refer- ring to two statewide initiatives that would limit magazine capacity and require gun owners to store firearms with trigger locks or in locked box- es. Rue said he was also concerned about a growing nationwide po- litical movement that followed several major school-shooting incidents this year. He said gun owners were being blamed and he was concerned gun-ownership rights could be impacted. “It’s not guns that kill people — it’s people,” he said. Rue said he wants to see ex- isting regulations enforced, in- cluding background checks, that would stop mentally ill people from possessing firearms. This is the first time he’s worked on an initiative, he said, and he’s not politically active and not a member of the National Rifle Association. Rue said he obtained the language for his initiative from similar Second Amendment preservation initiatives submitted in six other counties in Oregon. The challenge Webb said he’s a hunter, owns firearms and is a Second Amend- ment supporter. He grew up requires initiatives “embrace one subject only,” but Measure 12-72 bundles four subjects: 1) redefin- ing the constitutional definition of firearms to include ammunition and accessories; 2) making any gun-restricting law in Grant Coun- ty unconstitutional; 3) expanding the sheriff’s statutory duties; and 4) prohibiting the sheriff from enforc- ing any law that restricts the right of people to possess firearms. He also noted that county ini- tiatives are limited to “matters of county concern,” and Measure 12- 72 potentially conflicts with state and federal laws. State law, for example, holds that “the authority to regulate in any matter whatso- ever the sale, acquisition, transfer, ownership, possession, storage, transportation or use of firearms or any element relating to firearms and components thereof, including ammunition, is vested solely in the Legislative Assembly.” The responses Rue said he disagreed with Webb’s arguments. The initiative did not seek to change the U.S. Constitution but “to preserve it in its current state.” In a May 31 declaration, Percy explained how she determined that Rue’s initiative met constitution- al and statutory provisions. While she found that the petition measure satisfied those requirements, her decision “was not, however, with- out doubt.” She noted the measure “lacked clarity and was subject to differing interpretations.” “While the language is very gen- eral in nature, I assumed that it was limited in scope to only matters of TIMBER Continued from Page A1 comes in panels the size of walls. The material is catching on in ur- ban construction, but the U.S. lags behind its use in Canada, the Unit- ed Kingdom and some other parts of Europe. Jonathan Heppner is with Le- ver Architecture, the firm that designed Framework. He told the crowd earlier in the day Lever spends a lot of discussion on how to build to “elevate the human experience.” But the firm did not shirk the obligation to keep people safe in a wood building. Fire, after all, is the big threat. Heppner said Lever had to prove load-bearing beams could withstand a two-hour fire at 2,000 degree in a furnace, the kind of test steel and concrete also have to pass. Lever did that in the fall of 2016, becoming the first mass tim- ber products in the world to pass the test. Framework also uses a “self-centering design” for earth- quake livability. EO Media Group/E.J. Harris Participants in the Mass Timber Rising Summit look up into the canopy while touring a thinned section of forest Thursday north of Union. “This building won’t be torn down after an earthquake — it survives the earthquake,” Hep- pner said. The construction advantages mass timber offers, he said, might restart the timber economy in rural Oregon. The state already is making investments in mass timber with the Tallwood Design Institute at the University of Oregon. Judith Sheine is the director of the insti- tute and said mass timber is push- ing the creation of jobs, better for- est management and even fighting global warming. SECOND Continued from Page A1 ties. State police must maintain registry.” It defines each term in a summary that NOTICE OF FILING DEADLINE For the City of Mt. Vernon 2018 ELECTION FOR MAYOR AND (2) CITY COUNCIL POSITIONS Notice is hereby given under the provisions of The City of Mt. Vernon Charter adopted July 10, 1990 the filing deadline for persons wishing to run for the Mayor and two Council member positions to be elected during the November 6, 2018 General Election on or before Tuesday, August 28, 2018 By 4:00 p.m. at Mt. Vernon City Hall Nominating filing forms and petitions will be available at Mt. Vernon City Hall during regular business hours of 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Monday thru Friday. Nominating petitions shall contain at least 34 signatures of qualified electors residing within The City of Mt. Vernon hat are registered voters. A fee of $10.00 must be paid by the filing deadline if a nomination petition is not used and an individual wishes to declare his or her candidacy. Tami Kowing, City Recorder 62657 The institute works on certif- icate programs in mass timber construction and work force de- velopment, Sheine said. It helps local governments create wood structures, such as the Springfield Mass Timber Parking Garage. The university planned to use steel to improve the west grand- stands at Hayward Field, but the institute convinced them to go with wood. And Lane County is considering a mass timber court- house, she said, with all the source material available within a 250- mile radius. Oregon’s U.S. senators also are follows descriptions of what a “Yes” and a “No” vote mean. Thursday’s petition argues that those de- scriptions should be more “impartial” and that the current version “buries the actual major effect of the measure,” which the pe- titioners argue is to criminalize the sale and possession of commonly owned firearms. Petitioners object to the use of the terms “assault weapons” and “large capacity mag- azines,” saying they are “prejudicial, politi- cally charged and emotionally laden.” COLLAR Continued from Page A1 to use on the device, which is now an Arduino MKR GSM 1400. The device is essential- ly the internal parts of a cell phone, which would eliminate the GPS size problem. It can download the re- quired GPS and Geofence data, which would work with county concern and was not an at- tempt to affect in any way the exist- ing federal and state laws,” she said. Percy said she sought legal ad- vice from Grant County Counsel Ron Yockim about portions of the initiative and was told the Oregon Supreme Court had ruled “that when faced with such doubt, and the need to make assumptions, that any doubt should be resolved in favor of the exercise of the right of initiative.” “As a result of this legal advice, I concluded that the measure could meet the tests and accepted the peti- tion to be placed on the ballot in or- der to allow the public to debate the issue and in turn develop a clear un- derstanding of the intent,” she said. She also noted that the only peo- ple likely to be subject to penalties for violating provisions of the initia- tive would be county officials. Webb disagreed with Percy’s interpretation — store owners who refuse to sell firearms or ammuni- tion and state police who enforce existing gun laws in Grant County might be found in violation of the initiative, he said. He also noted that it’s not the purpose of the initiative process to debate its interpretation. “It should be clearly articulated to the voters,” he said. “That’s the full text requirement.” Webb said Rue’s initiative likely will pass if it’s placed on the ballot, but it would be unenforceable under federal and state laws. Grant County already has similar laws, including a 1995 ordinance on management of public lands. If the initiative becomes law, it likely will be challenged in court, Webb said. pushing the development of mass timber. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, both Democrats, sub- mitted a bipartisan letter on May 23 urging the Committee on Agri- culture, Nutrition and Forestry to include the Timber Innovation Act in the next Farm Bill. The act would help the mass timber industry on multiple fronts, from a new research and devel- opment program for using mass timber products in construction to grants to incentivise new wood technology for construction. The act also would extend the Tall Wood Building Prize Competition for the next five years. Framework is a previous winner. The senators are also touting the expansion of the Collabora- tive Forest Landscape Restoration Program in the Senate’s proposed Farm Bill, doubling funding from $40 million to $80 million per year and extending it through 2023. The Malheur National For- est and the Blue Mountains For- est Partners collaborative have been securing $4 million per year for restoration work through the program. The petition, backed by a coalition of faith leaders calling itself the Lift Every Voice Campaign, aims to block the sale of some semi-automatic weapons with certain features, and most magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. If the measure succeeds, people who own those types of guns and magazines would have to register them with the Oregon State Police and submit to a background check. The petition must get 88,184 signatures by July 6 to qualify for the ballot. the fence transmitter as a de- terrent. Geofence is a virtual geographic boundary, enabled with GPS or RFID technology, that allows software to respond when a mobile device enters or leaves a particular area. Roblyn Brown, wolf pro- gram field coordinator for ODFW, said the problem in previous collaring attempts was the battery holding enough of a charge to give repeated shocks. She said the younger generation are the innovators of tomorrow. “I’ve heard people talking about the high-frequency as- pect, and it’s something we’ve tried,” she said. “We’re not really a developer of things because of funding. I think it’s fantastic they’re working on it, and somebody may figure something out –– it just might be these two boys.” Grant SWCD Weed Control Dept. Working for You in 2018 541-523-6377 541-963-6577 541-573-6377 Thanks to the Grant County Court and Northeast Oregon Forests Resource Advisory Committee, Grant Weed Control is able to offer a 50% Cost Share Program for Noxious Weed Control on Private Grazing Lands, through a Title II funded Grant Project. This program will provide a maximum $5,000 of noxious weed control services with a $2,500 maximum landowner contribution to qualifying participants. To be eligible for participation, the treatment property must not be actively irrigated and must be primarily managed for livestock grazing, minimum of 20 acres in size, located within Grant County, and must contain weed species listed on the Grant County Noxious Weed List. Applications for this limited weed control assistance opportunity will be funded on a first come first serve basis. Contact the Grant Soil and Water Conservation District Office at (541) 575-1554 or visit 721 S. Canyon Blvd., John Day, OR 97845 for applications and additional information. 541-576-2160 60997 61745
