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About The Blue Mountain eagle. (John Day, Or.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 5, 2022)
A18 NEWS Blue Mountain Eagle Land Continued from Page A1 Current contract The Iron Triangle contract expires in March 2023, and, just like last time, any new con- tract will be awarded through a competitive bidding process open to all qualifi ed operators. But even though a deci- sion is still a year out, Malheur National Forest Supervisor Craig Trulock said he’s already contemplating some changes in the next stewardship deal. While he is leaning toward awarding another long-term contract, there will be less tim- ber to go around this time. The agency expects a lower annual timber harvest target — down from 75 million board feet to between 50 and 55 million board feet per year. Trulock said the next stew- ardship contract will likely have a lower percentage of the Malheur National For- est’s commercial timber vol- ume. Instead of the current guaranteed 70%, he expects to decrease the share to between 30 and 50%, with allowances for annual adjustments. Iron Triangle to invest in infra- structure, equipment and work force development. That benefi ts the company in obvious ways, but it also provides assurance to Forest Service offi cials that the com- pany will be able to fulfi ll its contractual obligations to meet stewardship goals such as reducing fuel loads in the for- est, preventing soil erosion and maintaining roads. When the Forest Service put the 10-year stewardship contract out for bid in 2013, it was looking for something it couldn’t get out of an old-fash- ioned, straightforward timber sale contract: It was looking for a partner that could get the cut out, do the stewardship work and deliver a steady stream of logs to Malheur Lumber. Zach Williams of King Inc., a subcontractor of Iron Trian- gle who works in operations, summed up the situation this way: “The government said, ‘We want to induce investment,’” Williams said. “There was a reason for that, and that hasn’t changed. They’ve made timber sales (the old-fashioned way) for 100 years, and that’s why Mal- heur was going to close down.” Pros and cons Iron Triangle’s current deal is what’s known as an inte- grated resource service con- tract, a mechanism that Tru- lock said has both pluses and minuses. For instance, Trulock said, the Malheur is required to commit appropriated dollars up front at the appraised price of timber for the duration of the contract. With 70% of the total vol- ume of timber sales off the Malheur going to the program, Trulock said, that provides a high level of predictability for the contractor while also guar- anteeing a steady supply of logs for Malheur Lumber’s John Day sawmill. But it could also create a problem for Malheur offi - cials. With so much of their discretionary timber revenue committed to the steward- ship contract, they could fi nd themselves strapped for funds if unexpected circumstances arose, such as congressional budget cuts. The contract’s long time span and fi nancial guarantees have also made it possible for Perception of monopoly There is a social dynamic that goes along with the long- term contract, one that has cre- ated the perception of winners and losers. While he was not the super- visor when Iron Triangle won the contract, Trulock said peo- ple occasionally tell him that the Forest Service created a monopoly in the community with the deal — even though the bidding process was open to anyone who met the criteria. And Iron Triangle is not the only company making money on the Malheur National Forest. Since September 2013, Williams noted, the forest has sold 405 million board feet of timber. Of that total, 231 mil- lion board feet was sold to Iron Triangle through the steward- ship contract, and the remain- ing 174 million board feet sold on the open market. Dave Hannibal with Gray- back, a subcontractor on the stewardship contract, said Iron Triangle won the contract fair and square. The complaints about a monopoly, he feels, are just sour grapes. “People will always shoot at those on top,” Hannibal said. “The 10-year stewardship (contract) was issued in fair competition. Whoever won it would have been shot at.” Still, some smaller opera- tors in the area say they would like a bigger share of the tim- ber coming off the Malheur. Tim Rude, the owner of John Day-based Rude Log- ging, was one of the contrac- tors on the original stewardship proposal to work with Iron Tri- angle but now operates his own timber sales and others for var- ious logging companies, such as Boise Cascade and Wood Grain. Some of those sales are on the Malheur, but he and his 22 local employees follow the work, whether it be in Western Oregon or Washington state. “We go where we have to to stay busy,” Rude said, “but it would be nice to have local work.” Rude said multiple logging contractors in Grant, Harney and Baker counties are work- ing out of the area but would like to work locally. “(Traveling for work) takes our people out of the area,” Rude said, “and it takes our people away from their families.” Malheur Lumber General Manager Bruce Daucsavage, who helped broker the contract in 2013, said the gripes Trulock hears in the community are understandable. But he added that, once people look closer at the commitment required of larger contractors such as Iron Triangle — the investments, expansions, risks, and capac- ity necessary to implement the scope and scale of work — the arrangement begins to make sense. One of the things that came up in the contract negotiations, Daucsavage recalled, was that Malheur Lumber would need to spend $5 million to upgrade the sawmill but would need to see a return on that invest- ment within a limited window of time. Iron Triangle and its sub- contractors, he said, had the technical expertise, the capac- ity, and the equipment to carry out the work that would ensure the reliable timber supply the mill needed to survive. That is not to say a smaller Wednesday, January 5, 2022 company could not have ful- fi lled the criteria to get the con- tract, Daucsavage added, but it would have been a stretch. In fact, it was a stretch for Iron Triangle at the time. Owner Russ Young said the projects included in the con- tract were beyond the scope of anything the company had done in the past and required reliable equipment that would allow them to ramp up and produce on landscapes where the harvest was upwards of 7 million board feet of timber on a single task order with hard deadlines. “We were on the hook from day one that says if you shall not perform, you will be in breach of contract,” Young said. Iron Triangle declined to disclose how much money it has spent to fulfi ll the terms of the 10-year stewardship con- tract, but some of its invest- ments are on full display. One recent example is the compa- ny’s post and pole plant in Sen- eca, built to process small-di- ameter logs cut to reduce fuel loads on the forest. The plant has 25 full-time employees. Altogether, according to information from the Malheur National Forest, the steward- ship contract has created or sustained a total of 268 jobs at Iron Triangle, its subcontrac- tors and the national forest. What now? In Trulock’s view, the 10-year stewardship con- tract has achieved the objec- tives it strived for by all met- rics that the Forest Service has reviewed over the past eight years. But that doesn’t mean the next stewardship contract has to be a carbon copy. “We stabilized the commu- nity, stabilized the mill,” Tru- lock said. “I can’t think of any way that I would say this was not a success. Would you repeat that, if the intent is to grow a community? Would you do it exactly the same way to grow a community, and grow new businesses? I don’t know. But I think that’s the conversation we need to be having.” Malheur National Forest offi cials plan to hold an infor- mational meeting sometime in the next few months to explain how stewardship works and discuss ideas for future stew- ardship contracts. MEET OREGON’S NEXT GOVERNOR DR. BUD PIERCE Owens Continued from Page A1 governor must review and reevaluate emergency orders every 60 days to determine whether those orders should be continued, modifi ed or rescinded. Local control emerged as a signifi cant issue for Grant County residents in August after Gov. Kate Brown reversed course on her June 30 executive order handing over public health decisions to counties amid a resurgence of COVID-19. While the swiftly spread- ing delta variant sent COVID case counts soaring, Brown issued a barrage of new exec- utive orders mandating masks in K-12 schools, inside state buildings and, fi nally, in all public indoor spaces in the state. Those actions drew the ire of Grant County leaders. Parents asked for the county court’s support in get- ting decision-making back to the districts and out of the hands of the state. County Judge Scott Myers told parents that the county does not have the power to take back local control of its school districts from the state. However, the county signed a letter from the Eastern Ore- gon Counties Association ask- ing for local control of school districts. “Some people might be mistaken in thinking that the county has power beyond a voice,” Myers said. “We don’t have the power to make those things happen.” In a Dec. 21 press release, Brown extended the COVID- 19 state of emergency through June, saying scientists believed the state was just weeks away from a new wave of hospital- izations due to an anticipated surge of the rapidly spreading omicron variant. Oregon Health and Sci- ence University lead data sci- entist Dr. Peter Graven pre- dicted that the omicron variant could surpass the delta variant in the number of cases due to its extreme transmissibility. Brown’s offi ce said in the press release that the emer- gency declaration provides the necessary framework to access resources in response to the pandemic, which includes the deployment of medical pro- viders to hospitals, fl exibil- ity around professional health licensing, and access to fed- eral disaster relief funds. “As Oregon prepares for what could be our worst surge in hospitalizations during this pandemic, I know that this is not the beginning of the new year any of us had hoped for,” Brown said. Constitutional framework Jim Moore, a professor of political science at Pacifi c University in Forest Grove, said Oregon’s Constitution defi nes the governor’s emer- gency powers and what types of “catastrophic disasters” can allow them to be used. The Constitution puts acts of terrorism at the top of the list, along with earthquakes, fl oods and public health emergencies. Moore said that the catastrophes spelled out within the Constitution are assumed to be relatively short-lived. “The problem we have right now is that it’s going on long term,” Moore said. “And so Republicans have decided that is an abuse of emergency power.” Indeed, Moore said, every- one has a partisan take on the debate. “Republicans say, ‘We need to change it.’ Why? Because they don’t like what Kate Brown is doing. Demo- crats are saying, ‘No, we don’t need to change it’ because they do like what Kate Brown’s doing.” Since the pandemic’s beginning, it’s become evident that the federal government has minimal power in this sit- uation and that the ability to deal with the pandemic rests with the states, Moore said. That limitation on federal power, he said, is by design as part of the U.S. Constitution. For instance, he said, Oregon was able to pass an assisted suicide law because states have the right and the front- line duty to deal with public health issues. Almost from the pandem- ic’s beginning, the question of how to respond to the coro- navirus has been a hot-button political issue. That said, Owens’ pro- posed legislation is something of a departure from recently passed legislation in GOP strongholds. For instance, conservative legislators in more than half of U.S. states, spurred on by voters angry about lockdowns and mask mandates, have stripped local offi cials of the power to pro- tect the public against infec- tious diseases. Moore said that the conser- vative ethos has long been that more governing power should be local. However, legislation passed in red states like Flor- ida runs counter to what has traditionally been the GOP ideology. Thus, he said, this means one’s political ideology shapes one’s views on emergency powers. For his part, Owens said his motives are not politically driven. “Honestly, it’s not about partisanship,” Owens said. “I by no means think the gover- nor should not have the ability to declare an emergency dec- laration for 30 days, maybe even longer,” Owens said. “That’s reasonable.” COME MEET AND TALK WITH BUD AT THE FOLLOWING LOCATIONS ON WEDNESDAY, JAN 12 Ontario John Day Baker City 8:00 AM at the Plaza Inn Restaurant 11:00 AM at Ogilvie Field 6:00 PM at the Baker County Conference & Event Center Steven Mitchell/Blue Mountain Eagle, File A sign in John Day supports voting to approve a fi ve-year levy to fund the John Day Police Department. The Aug. 17 ballot mea- sure, which required a double majority, failed due to low turnout even though it got more yes votes than no votes. Funding RSVP TODAY TO INFO@BUDPIERCE.ORG Continued from Page A1 “Please join us. I would like to meet you and hear your ideas about Oregon’s future!” —BUD PIERCE Want to be on our mailing list? Send an email to info@budpierce.org and we will sign you up! PAID FOR BY BUD PIERCE FOR OREGON, PO BOX 2889, SALEM, OR 97308 S275268-1 McKinley declined to disclose precise dollar fi g- ures until the plan has been reviewed by the county’s attorney, but he said the pro- posal involves the city trans- ferring the federal policing grant and providing enough additional money to hire three more deputies and one clerical worker. “Those three deputies would be enough to cover what needs covered,” he said. While the discussions are still in their infancy, Palmer said he expects to have a num- ber of meetings with Haberly, McKinley and possibly a few other people in an attempt to come up with a proposal for law enforcement funding that both city and county leaders could accept. However, he said, the plan isn’t likely to involve the sort of fund exchange Green proposed. “The policing and roads that Nick asked for are two diff erent things, and we’re going to keep them two diff er- ent things,” Palmer said. Asked why he and Haberly took it upon themselves to ini- tiate talks on the law enforce- ment funding issue, Palmer said they felt a responsibility to the community. “Gregg and I grew up together,” he said. “We want to see our town do better.” McKinley said he’s just looking for a solution that will enable him and his deputies to do their job the way it should be done. “I’m hoping to get the staff to be able to adequately cover the city and make the city feel they are adequately covered,” McKinley said. “And I want to keep crime down,” he added. “If we aren’t out there, something will fi ll the void.”
