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The INDEPENDENT, March 7, 2001
t „.
ao o i-M
INDEPENDENT
Serving the upper Nehalem River valley. Published twice
monthly, on the first and third Wednesdays of each
month, by Public Opinion Laboratory Ltd., 725 Bridge
Street, Vernonia, OR 97064, as a free newspaper. Edi
tors and Publishers, Dirk & Noni Andersen. Phone/Fax:
503-429-9410, e-mail: noni@vernonia.com
M oA , IS THAT
1?
IC i/J b o F ...
Opinion_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
OA/ trte F.É./AA. I * * * * ,
|>Ro4€tT IMPACT
Perception isn’t the
same as knowledge
It has been interesting to see how a local school
board election has some people excited, most of them
over nothing except misperception.
A few people have objected to a flyer that was
mailed to voters in the Vernonia School District (see
Letters to the Editor) asking them to vote for four can
didates - Jeff Blum, Schann Nelson, Leslie O’Leary
and Cari Levenseller. The objectors said they couldn’t
tell who sent it and that made them uncomfortable; one
person acted as though mailing the flyer without any
more identification than the candidates’ names was
akin to committing a crime.
The fact that there was nothing illegal didn’t matter.
The fact that a name such as “Committee for Better
Schools” wouldn’t have told them who mailed it didn’t
matter. Skewed perception doesn’t serve people well;
it is intellectual, instead of optical, astigmatism.
In another case of misperception, one candidate
feels there is a negative connotation to pointing out
that his spouse is a teacher (see Letters), even though
she was not identified as an employee of the local dis
trict. The reason for mentioning it is relevancy: He is
n’t running for fire board, he’s running for school
board. (Personal note: As the daughter, sister, wife and
daughter-in-law of teachers, I recognize that I am bi
ased in their favor. If I were a candidate for school
board, I would have to mention it because it is rele
vant.)
There has been nothing in The Independent imply
ing that marriage to a teacher makes a person either
more qualified or less qualified to sit on a school board;
that is the candidate’s perception.
Don’t complain, be there
The topic of energy took up a great deal of the time
Rep. David Wu had to spend with local people during
an informal rap session at the Scout Cabin in late Feb
ruary.
In Wu’s first general appearance here (He was here
to visit WOEC previously.), he appeared to be relaxed
and responsive. He was
also in complete agree
ment with local people
who expressed concerns
that the energy shortage
will get worse.
Other topics included
tr a n s p o r ta tio n , C O L A,
campaign reform and na
tional forest fees.
Sen. Ron Wyden was
here in January, and Rep.
Wu in February. Many
people complain about
not being heard, but
guess what, the worst
complainers didn’t bother
to go all the way to the
Scout Cabin to make their
David Wu
V0iceS h eard -
Ike Says. . .
By Dale Webb, member,
Izaak Walton League, Nehalem Valley Chapter
My reaction to the appointment of Lindsay
Ball as interim director at ODF&W was two back
flips and a cartwheel. Ball, a long term ODF&W
employee, was appointed as interim to replace
the apparently forced out Jim Greer. The reason
for my reaction to Mr. Ball’s appointment is two
fold. First, I personally know Lindsay Ball and
second, he is, by profession, an Oregon State
Police officer.
My first contact with Lindsay was back in the
late seventies, when he was a game officer in
our area. We had many lively discussions on
poaching and wildlife management in our area,
and it was not uncommon for him to stop by the
house and chat with my folks and me. Lindsay
used to work in the John Day area and he was
familiar with the Murderer’s Creek area where
Dad and I hunted. Lindsay has quite the gift for
straight-faced bullshit; he almost had me thor
oughly convinced that there was a tunnel under
neath Aldrich mountain to the Murderer’s Creek
Ranch.
Lindsay was also a go-getter when it came to
wildlife law enforcement in our area. I remember
two instances when he put the hair up on the
back of a couple of local poachers. The first in
volved one who no longer lives here, but whose
family was known to kill spikes and then use
branched antlered bull heads to bring out the
carcasses. We were up in Clear Creek, watching
from a high vantage point on the second day of
the first season, when we observed a pickup
coming out of the upper main fork of Clear
Creek, just a little after daylight. I thought this
was a little odd and so did Lindsay, who raced
over and intercepted the individual. Lindsay
came back later and reported that the individual
was feeling sick and was going back home. He
also mentioned that the suspect’s hands looked
cold, as if they had been in cold water, and that
he had a tool box in the truck bed with a padlock
on it. When our party started hunting a few days
later, during the second season, my uncle Gene
[Weller] discovered a dead cow elk just a couple
hundred yards up the hill from where Lindsay
had noticed fresh vehicle tracks on the side of
the road the morning of the earlier encounter.
The hams and backstrap were all that had been
removed from the cow. I had heard that the indi
vidual had been at a local bar until closing on
opening day of elk season. I surmised that he
killed the cow elk on opening day, returned in the
dark of early morning and packed out the meat;
then washed his hands in the nearby creek and
locked the tool box so a search warrant would
be necessary. Due to the time between the inci
dent and the discovery of the evidence, a case
could not be made, but rest assured, this indi
vidual knew he had come very close to being
nailed and that he hadn’t gotten away with it
scott free, since I put the word out to his peers
on the street about what had happened.
The second instance involved a prominent lo
cal, who still lives here, in the killing of a large
bull elk, which was tagged by the man’s wife.
The suspect, his wife and a son were driving to
gether up the main fork of Clear Creek when
they saw the bull standing just off the road in a
small swamp. It is surmised that the man shot
the bull elk, though he did not have a tag for the
first season, and that the son ran over it to make
sure it was finished. Enter Lindsay Ball. A few
days later, I expressed my concern to Lindsay
about what apparently had happened. To my
amazement, he said he had talked to the sus
pects that day, but only the husband and wife
were in the pickup eating lunch (in the very spot
the bull had been killed). I remember chuckling
to Lindsay that there was a dead bull elk less
than 100 yards from him as he talked to these lo
cals. The son must have been hiding in the
bushes, since he most likely had a gun with him
and no tag. If the wife had really killed the bull,
they would have been very happy and would
have shared this with Lindsay. Instead, they
must have been sweating bullets as they tried to
act calm, eating their lunch. Confirmation of the
illegal act finally came to the surface as the
“wife’s” bull became the husband's many years
later, when he showed his guests the mounted
head.
You may think that Lindsay was not a very
adept police officer, being unable to make a bust
in either of these cases. The fact is that he could
not legally do much about these individuals un
less he caught them red handed. My reason for
mentioning these cases is that Lindsay valued
having a local ear to the ground to find out the
full story of what was happening in his patrol
area. This is a lesson I am sure he will carry with
him as the director of ODF&W. He may be the
professional, but an informed general public
knows the rest of the story needed to complete
the whole picture of wildlife management.
Another element Lindsay brings to top man
agement at ODF&W is the perspective of game
enforcement. Let’s face it, there is very little that
our biologists do, or can do, to increase wildlife.
Please see page 15