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The
The INDEPENDENT, February 1, 2012
INDEPENDENT
Published on the first and third Wednesdays of each month
by The Independent, LLC, 725 Bridge St.,
Vernonia, OR 97064. Phone/Fax: 503-429-9410.
Deadline is noon the Friday before each issue.
Publisher Clark McGaugh, clark@the-independent.net
Editor Rebecca McGaugh, rebecca@the-independent.net
Printed on recycled paper with vegetable based dyes
Opinion
Don’t drink & drive Sunday
At the Super Bowl on Sunday, the New England Pa-
triots will face off against the New York Giants. But, it
doesn’t seem to make a difference whether your team
is playing, or which team is winning or losing… fans’
emotions run high. That may contribute to the day be-
ing a big one for drunk driving.
Before you start drinking, you know you don’t want
to get a ticket, get arrested and put in jail, or kill your-
self or someone else while drinking and driving. After
you start drinking, alcohol impairs your ability to make
good decisions. That’s why it’s so important to desig-
nate a sober driver before the party begins.
40% of traffic deaths in Oregon are attributed to
drinking. There’s an article on page 8 about how not to
become a statistic like that.
Don’t drink and drive, and don’t get in a vehicle with
anyone who has been drinking. Get home safely so
you can enjoy many Super Bowls to come.
A crime wave in Vernonia?
Another reason not to drink and drive in Vernonia is
not to play into Police Chief Mike Conner’s rhetoric. A
letter from Conner, with the Community Policing Sur-
vey in your current water bill, states, “…we had been
unable to well manage the upswing in general Criminal
Behavior and minor violations” (during the period when
only two officers were available).
We asked the Chief about that, as we hadn’t heard
or seen anything about a recent increase in crimes. He
wasn’t able to validate the statement, then said it “may
have been an improper statement.” He explained that
the department wasn’t able to be pro-active about
crime prevention. Asked to clarify that statement, he
said that self-generated activity was down. An example
of self-generated activity was finding evidence of crim-
inal activity during a traffic stop (such as the famous
broken taillight). Some might call that “fishing”.
One question that should have been on the survey
is, “Do you think police officers should live in the com-
munity?” When Connor was hiring, we asked if he was
going to follow the city insurer’s recommendation that
officers live in the city. He told us, “that’s illegal.” We
checked, it’s not. Then Connor said he “misspoke.”
Connor’s misspeaking is of concern. A stronger at-
tempt to be truthful and face issues openly would help
him become a better police chief.
Ike Says…
By Dale Webb, member
Nehalem Valley Chapter, Izaak Walton League
Recently I was look-
ing at the antelope tag
numbers in our state and
the trend is not good.
Between 2009 and 2011,
antelope tags have been
reduced by 103. While
this is not a huge de-
crease, it is higher than it
first appears to be. Look-
ing at the numbers, it is obvious that ODF&W
traded some tags between units that decreased
and areas that they term “agricultural hunts”.
The agricultural hunt areas are designed to keep
the antelope population at a lower level to help
avoid conflict with agricultural interests; of
course, just how low to keep the population is
subjective at best. So, adding a few more tags
(42) helps offset lost tag sales in the rest of the
state. The only agricultural area to lose tags was
the Murderer’s Creek unit, with 10. Antelope
populations tend to be cyclical in nature, most
likely in tune with the weather and predator cy-
cles. Antelope populations definitely benefit
when coyote populations take a hit, like the last
time a distemper outbreak swept through East-
ern Oregon. It takes as long as 10-14 years to
draw antelope tags, so the reduction in tag num-
bers is not a welcome event, but keeping tag
numbers artificially high when they need to be
reduced would be far worse. Let’s hope this
trend turns around.
It will be interesting to see what ODF&W’s
thinking is after this last elk season in the Sad-
dle Mountain unit. Many of us believe that the
bull elk harvest was significantly off this past
season, I guess the harvest stats will tell us that
answer when they come out this late spring. The
puzzle though, was that ODF&W had one of the
highest bull escapement counts last winter, after
what many believed to be one of the higher har-
vest years the fall before. This seemed contrary,
and now many believe that is why the harvest
this year was off. Personally, I feel the harvest
data is not totally accurate, there is incentive for
certain harvest groups to under-report and I
have been told this is going on. Second, I think
it likely that ODF&W’s survey methodology has
a high degree of error that can influence their
counts from year to year. When combined, these
two factors can give a skewed look of what is ac-
tually going on in the field. Over time, though,
they will show the trend that the population is
taking, and the need to make adjustments. In re-
gard to
making additional adjustments, I feel that rifle
hunters have taken the brunt of tag reductions in
the past and more would be unjustifiable. It may
be time to bring the archers into the controlled
hunt format; really it is quite silly to manage a
unit only partially in a controlled hunt format.
I predict that tag numbers in Eastern Oregon
will continue to shrink, and drawing tags will
become even more difficult than they already
are. The predator situation over East is not
changing for the better and with the addition of
the new apex predator, the wolf, ungulate herds
Please see page 5