NEWS
MyEagleNews.com
Wednesday, May 4, 2022
A9
BMCC faculty speak out against cuts $1B timber verdict
Teachers push back
against plan to eliminate
jobs and programs
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
PENDLETON — Faculty of Blue
Mountain Community College, Pend-
leton, took a unifi ed stance Monday,
April 25, against the budget proposal
calling for numerous layoff s and pro-
gram cuts at the college.
The budget committee, though, held
off on making any decision after meet-
ing for the better part of three hours.
BMCC instructors gathered at the
Pendleton campus before the commit-
tee discussed the college administra-
tion’s proposal to eliminate 10 full-time
teaching positions, several part-time
positions in multiple disciplines and
eliminating criminal justice, college
prep and industrial systems technol-
ogy programs. They had prepared state-
ments to deliver to the committee, the
rest of the college board and the admin-
istration. The East Oregonian obtained
several of the statements.
Just getting into the boardroom
took some eff ort. The college was not
going to let instructors into the meeting.
BMCC President Mark Browning in the
hallway outside the room agreed fac-
ulty could go in one at a time to address
the board. Math instructor Bob Hillen-
brand went fi rst.
He told the committee and Brown-
ing that a similar scenario played out
in 2002-03, when Travis Kirkland was
president of the college.
“Just like then, we’re now hear-
ing claims of the imminent demise of
the college,” Hillenbrand said, “a false
pretext for radical action from some-
one who just arrived primed with an
anti-faculty agenda.”
But 20 years later, Blue Mountain
continues operating. He warned this
fi ght will end up in arbitration and the
outcome will be the same as it was
then. The college spent nearly $500,000
fi ghting legal challenges during Kirk-
land’s tenure, Hillenbrand said, and lost
all of them.
“Don’t waste precious college funds
on lawyers,” he urged.
Hillenbrand also said Browning
was deceptive in his use of fi gures and
obscured facts, such as the 39 classifi ed
and administration positions the college
cut in recent years. Those were “paper
people that existed only on the pages of
Kathy Aney/East Oregonian
Gary Parker, who teaches mathematics
and computer science at Blue Mountain
Community College, Pendleton, speaks
Monday, April 25, 2022, to the college
budget team and board of education,
imploring them not to cut 10 full-time
faculty positions. BMCC President Mark
Browning stands behind Parker.
the budget,” he said, and had no eff ect
on the actual ending fund balance nor
on students served.
“Most of the real cuts were clas-
sifi ed,” he continued. “I know of 14.
By grouping classifi ed together with
administration he obscures the fact that
only a small number of FT administra-
tors were actually relieved of their posi-
tions. I know of only two.”
Science instructor Sascha McKeon
provided the board with a “broad com-
pilation of the beginning year revenues
and top fi ve expenditures for the last
fi ve years.” She said there has been a
drastic reduction in faculty wages and
questioned why faculty should “shoul-
der the burden of low enrollment?”
She told the committee the projected
revenue for next year is down 6%, yet
the administration is seeking to cut 33%
of the faculty.
“That does not track, when reve-
nue is projected to be up next year by
$300,000,” McKeon said.
Gary Parker, Blue Mountain math
and computer science coach, told the
board, “Many of the programs sched-
uled to be cut have low overhead and
generate excess revenue,” including
math, English and adult basic educa-
tion. And if Blue Mountain doesn’t
have what students want, they will not
come here.
A number of other faculty also
spoke, but for the public tuning in via
the streaming platform Zoom, this por-
tion of the meeting was diffi cult to fol-
low. The audio was poor in quality and
there was no video. After instructors
overturned by court
made their presentations, the college
restarted the Zoom meeting, which then
had video showing the boardroom and
the rest of the meeting.
For the next two hours the bud-
get committee, the rest of the college
board, Browning and several adminis-
trators discussed the budget proposal
and kicked its tires, including its $17.2
million general fund.
During the course of the discussion,
the board asked about roughly $627,000
in money from Amazon the college was
to receive from Morrow County. The
board of commissioners there, how-
ever, voted last week not to send the
money to Blue Mountain. Board mem-
ber Chris Brown, who represents Mor-
row County, asked the administration to
explain what happened.
Browning said Morrow County
commissioners on a 2-1 vote pulled the
plug on providing the funds to the col-
lege because they wanted to keep the
money in Morrow County.
“I think there was some politics in
play with some of this,” he said, “and
the information in the wind didn’t
help.”
Browning didn’t specify what
“information,” but the East Oregonian
in recent weeks has reported the college
was closing the industrial systems tech-
nology program, and Morrow County
Commissioner Melissa Lindsay during
the county board’s meeting last week
said BMCC is not going to fund its part
of the Workforce Training Center in
Boardman, so the county could direct
the money to the center. (For more on
that development, see Page A3.)
The college president said he wasn’t
giving up on receiving the funds, but he
wasn’t counting on it, either.
Board member Kent Madison said it
comes down to the college having too
many tools — teachers — in its tool-
box for the work it has to do. He said
it’s important the college remains fl exi-
ble in its educational mission.
Browning near the end of the meet-
ing said it was his impression the board
needed more time to digest all the infor-
mation they received, and the board
agreed, deciding to meet again May 10.
Before that, the college board of edu-
cation meets May 2 to take action on
notifying faculty on May 3 about layoff s.
If the budget committee still needs
more time after that, it can meet again
May 12 to vote on the budget.
East Oregonian news editor Phil
Wright taught part-time for Blue
Mountain Community College in the
early 2000s.
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
SALEM — The Oregon
Court of Appeals has struck
down a $1 billion jury verdict
that was intended to compen-
sate 14 county governments
for insuffi cient logging on state
forestlands.
A law that requires Oregon
to manage the forestland for
the “greatest permanent value”
does not create an “immutable
promise” to maximize reve-
nue for the counties, the appeals
court ruled on Wednesday, April
20.
The appellate court said that
“historically, ‘value’ has myr-
iad defi nitions, some of which
could relate to revenue produc-
tion and others that do not relate
to revenue production.”
The statute also directs that
forests be managed for the
“greatest permanent value” to
the state, rather than to the coun-
ties, which means the text falls
short of the “clear and unmis-
takable intent” of making a con-
tractual promise, the ruling said.
For that reason, a state judge
in Linn County wrongly refused
to dismiss the class action law-
suit against the state govern-
ment, the ruling said.
John DiLorenzo, attorney
for the counties, vowed to chal-
lenge the ruling before the Ore-
gon Supreme Court because
it “does not align with the law
or the evidence we presented at
trial.”
The ruling doesn’t take
into account the economic and
social damage that rural com-
munities have suff ered after the
state government changed its
logging policies without input
from the counties, he said in an
email.
Oregon’s leaders have
decided the timber economy is
inconsistent with their “urban
values,” but the resulting prob-
lems must be addressed to
bridge the urban-rural divide,
DiLorenzo said.
“The lack of productive
employment in these communi-
ties has led to substance abuse,
violence, lack of educational
opportunity and general hope-
lessness and despair,” he said.
After a month-long trial in
1990, a jury determined the
State of Oregon violated a
contract requiring it to maxi-
mize revenue from forestlands
donated by the counties in the
1930s and ‘40s.
State forests must be man-
aged for the “greatest perma-
nent value” by law, but the 14
counties claimed the Oregon
Department of Forestry imper-
missibly expanded that defi ni-
tion beyond its original intent.
Under language adopted in
the late 1990s, the “greatest per-
manent value” was changed to
include environmental and rec-
reational considerations that
restricted timber harvests, short-
changing the 14 counties and
tax districts within them of rev-
enues, the plaintiff s claimed.
Attorneys for Oregon
appealed the jury verdict on
the grounds that the counties
didn’t have an enforceable con-
tract that dictated how state for-
est offi cials must manage the
nearly 700,000 acres of donated
property.
The law governing state for-
estlands pertains to “matters of
statewide concern” that can-
not be challenged in court by
the counties, state attorneys
claimed. As political subdivi-
sions of the Oregon govern-
ment, the counties cannot sue
over such state policies.
Federal environmental laws
enacted since the property was
donated, such as the Endan-
gered Species Act, also eff ec-
tively limit how much tim-
ber can be extracted from state
forestlands, according to state
attorneys.
The counties claimed
that Oregon forestry offi cials
weren’t obligated to create hab-
itat for federally-protected spe-
cies that resulted in logging
restrictions. In any case, the
counties said the state govern-
ment can alter forest manage-
ment policies but must still pay
them damages for breaching the
contract.
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