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The INDEPENDENT, May 3, 2007
The
INDEPENDENT
Published on the first and third Thursdays of each month by
The Independent, LLC, 725 Bridge St., Vernonia, OR 97064.
Phone/Fax: 503-429-9410.
Publisher Clark McGaugh, clark@the-independent.net
Editor Rebecca McGaugh, rebecca@the-independent.net
Assoc. Editor Noni Andersen, noni@the-independent.net
Opinion
What is City Hall up to?
Last issue’s Opinion piece might have left more
questions than it answered. Here’s what happened.
The City Council packet handed out at the March 5
meeting contained a draft copy of minutes from the
Vernonia Community Learning Center (VCLC) Com-
mittee meeting of February 7. In those minutes, The In-
dependent was listed as Old Business and it stated
that The Independent had a clear bias against the
Learning Center. The Independent went and spoke to
City Administrator M.R. “Dick” Kline, who told us there
would have to be a retraction and that the Learning
Center needed to learn to court, not alienate, the me-
dia. The March VCLC meeting was cancelled. The In-
dependent went to the April VCLC meeting, where the
minutes had been changed and no longer mentioned
The Independent at all. This is a violation of ORS
192.650(1)(a) which states that the law requires that
minutes shall include at least the substance of any dis-
cussion on any matter.
Later, when asked why the minutes were changed
and The Independent was no longer mentioned, City
Recorder Kate Conley said, “I only do what I’m told.” At
the VCLC meeting in April, Mayor Sally Harrison made
an eloquent speech about how they needed to be ‘big’
enough to apologize, and the committee voted unani-
mously to apologize. However, the apology The Inde-
pendent received ‘apologized’ for the clerical error of
including unapproved minutes in the March 5 City
Council packet, not for the bias statement. Since the
committee was unable to document that bias, that’s
defamation of character.
Since that time, The Independent has been trying to
get copies of the VCLC minutes where we were New
Business (January). VCLC Director Jesse Jones told
us that she was having trouble with her computer and
someone else told us that another committee member
took minutes in January and City Hall tells us that it
turned out there was no meeting in January. At our
meeting with Kline, he also said he’d get the New Busi-
ness minutes for us. When neither he nor Jones came
up with minutes based on The Independent’s verbal
requests, a formal public information request was sub-
mitted. Kline’s response was to chastise The Indepen-
dent for using too many city resources on a simple re-
quest.
Continued on page 3
Ike Says…
By Dale Webb, member
Nehalem Valley Chapter, Izaak Walton League
Recently, I took a trip to
Eastern Oregon to go
sage rat hunting. I won’t
bore you with the hunt, but
let me assure you, there
are plenty of these fuzzy
little critters and they are
wreaking havoc on the
farmers’ alfalfa fields.
These rodents burrow into
the fields and push up mounds of dirt in the
process, then come out and eat the alfalfa to rub
it into the farmers’ noses. Well, the farmers in-
vite people over to help in keeping the popula-
tion in check. I thought long and hard about the
shooting of these pests and the ramifications of
what would happen if hunters did not assist the
farmers. What would the farmers do if the popu-
lation of sage rats went unchecked? The alter-
native most often used is to strew poisoned oats
into the fields, which creates another problem:
the predators that eat the dead sage rats are in
turn poisoned. This is not a good thing. Hunting
them is a better alternative, although not ex-
tremely effective.
While on my trip I met several of the farmers/
ranchers, the hard working people who are mak-
ing a living with their hands off of the land. Rais-
ing alfalfa during the spring and summer and
feeding cattle in the winter, is not an easy life, but
a life tied to the change of seasons. I would ven-
ture to guess it is a slower-paced life than we city
slickers lead. They may have found one of the
rare ways to make time slow down.
When you are way out in Eastern Oregon, the
rules are a little more distant than what we west-
siders are used to. After spending five days
hunting and meeting the people making their liv-
ings off the land, I came away with a little better
perspective of who these people are and the be-
liefs they hold. I think we need to be cautious
when we propose new rules and regulations
here on the Westside and then try to force them
on the people of the Eastside of our great state.
It is different and the effects on people making a
living from the land can have a far greater impact
than those of us who just live on the land. Don’t
get me wrong, I still believe there are things that
we need to do on the Eastside environmentally,
but we really need to invite the people who will
be most affected by our decisions to the table
and hear their concerns and ideas.
Back to Vernonia: There have been several
cougar sightings in the immediate area, one of
which occurred on the Sword place, which sits
right next to town. I called Bill after hearing
about the sighting and tried to call the cougar in
with my predator call. The cougar was a no
show. As the deer population in the surrounding
units continues to shrink, the prospect of more
cougar sightings is realistic.
Hair Loss Syndrome (HLS) made a pretty sig-
nificant appearance in late spring this year, both
locally and in other areas. An oddity that I had
Please see page 3