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The INDEPENDENT, September 20, 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
Want a job at City Hall?
At the August 6 Vernonia City Council meeting coun-
cil approved the adoption of new job descriptions for
the positions that had been known as City Recorder
(held by Kate Conley) and Customer Service Manager
(held by Joann Glass). The new job titles approved
were Administrative & Financial Services Manager/Re-
corder, and Customer Service/Cash Receipts Clerk. At
the time it seemed like council thought these were
rollover titles, that Conley would go into the blah, blah,
blah/Recorder position and Glass would continue in the
customer service role. But, no, according to City Ad-
ministrator M.R. “Dick” Kline, internal applications for
the blah, blah, blah/Recorder job would be reviewed
prior to going outside for applicants. When the dust set-
tled, a dedicated, hard-working, long time city employ-
ee, Kate Conley, ends up on Administrative Leave (no,
we don’t know why she’s on leave instead of unem-
ployment) while Joann Glass becomes blah, blah,
blah/Recorder. The qualifications for the blah, blah,
blah/Recorder are minimal and the job description is
hard to follow. At the September 17 council meeting
(see story page 1), Kline reads a memo, dated Sep-
tember 14, addressed to Glass telling her that as of
September 16 she’s the new blah, blah, blah/Recorder.
Now, what about the Customer Service/Cash Re-
ceipts Clerk position. Well, somehow, Glass and/or
Kline knew before September 8 that they would have to
advertise for the Customer Service/Cash Receipts
Clerk. Yes, that’s over a week before the memo to
Glass. But, they didn’t know in time to advertise here in
your local paper. They advertised in The Chronicle, The
Hillsboro Argus, and The Courier (twice in each) and
the ad said, “City of Vernonia is looking for a Customer
Service/Cash Receipts Clerk, 3 yrs exp. Visit our web
site at www.vernonia-or.gov. Apply by 9/19/07.” The on-
line open position information does not indicate a clos-
ing date that is one day before this paper came out and
only two days after Glass starts her new position on
Monday, September 17.
But, even without advertising in this local paper,
Glass said she had “lots” of local applications, but
when asked how many, “I don’t know that,” she replied
rather testily. It seems they don’t want local eyes in city
hall.
The whole thing smells fishier than Rock Creek will
when the Salmon finally arrive.
Out of My Mind
by Noni Andersen
Keeping us safe from what?!?
If you think “homeland security” is just a tad
unbalanced, this will tilt the scales even farther.
Now, under the guise of protecting public health
from outbreaks of animal-borne diseases, the
feds want to keep us safe by tracking and tag-
ging every farm animal…chickens, turkeys,
cows, horses, pigs, sheep, llamas, rabbits,
etc…in America, from birth to death.
The proposal, called the National Animal
Identification System (NAIS), would require own-
ers of such animals to register their premises
and personal information in a federal database,
to buy microchip devices and attach them to
every single one of the animals (each of which
would get a 15-digit federal ID number), to log
and report every “event” in the life of each ani-
mal, to pay fees for the privilege of having their
location and animals registered, and to pay fines
of up to $1,000 a day for noncompliance.
You may think NAIS is slightly cumbersome,
but the factory farms run by agribusiness con-
glomerates have huge staffs, computer networks
and inventory tracking systems, so it isn’t really
too bad. Especially since these big operations
account for most of the disease outbreaks.
Well, NAIS targets small farms, organic pro-
ducers, hobbyists, probably even you.
Do you own or board a couple of horses? Do
you have a few chickens or llamas or geese? Do
your kids raise sheep or ducks or cows or goats
or rabbits or pigs for their 4-H projects? Yes,
you’re included.
So, why not the already computerized factory
farms? Well, there’s a neat little loophole.
If an entity owns a vertically integrated, birth-
to-death factory system with thousands of ani-
mals (think Tyson, Cargill, Foster Farms, etc.), it
does not have to tag and track each one. Instead
it is given a single lot number to cover the whole
flock or herd.
It’s no accident that NAIS is so costly – fees,
tags, computer equipment, time – to small farmers.
It is promoted by the U.S. Dep’t. of Agriculture,
but it was conceived and written by the National
Institute of Animal Agriculture (NIAA), a private
consortium composed mostly of corporate agri-
culture and sellers of surveillance technologies.
The giant operators are happy to see their
small competitors saddled with more reasons to
go out of business, leaving even more of the
market to the big guys. They know the health
claims are a sham, because NAIS does not
touch the source of most meat-borne diseases,
which come from the practices of industrial meat
operations.
Also happy are the purveyors of chips and
computer tracking systems, who are eager for
the profits that would come from the compulsory
tagging of millions and millions farm animals.
When the USDA rolled NAIS out in 2005, they
wanted mandatory compliance by 2009. Rural
America wasn’t fooled and NAIS received far
more public participation than it wanted. It isn’t
dead, though, and rural America must stay wary.