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December 25, 2008 Opinions |
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—Editorial—
Playing Well In The Sandbox
Whether you are celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Ramadan or even just getting together with family and friends this holiday season, we hope you will take time to remember the truly important things in life.
It doesn’t matter which side of the political fence you rest on, it doesn’t matter what religion you are, what race you were born to or what social/financial status you have. It doesn’t even matter whether you say Happy Holidays, Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas or Have a Great Day. We are all part of mankind, we are all interconnected, we all share in the planet and its resources, we are all bigger than ourselves, and we are all in this life together.
When we are young we are taught to share and play well and fair together in the sandbox. We are taught that if we work together, we can build a much better and bigger sandcastle than we can on our own. We are taught to be nice and polite, we are taught to respect each other’s person and property.
Somewhere along the road to adulthood we forget these early lessons. Somewhere along that road we decide that it’s more important to be a Republican or Democrat, to be Christian or Jewish, to be white or black, or to be rich rather than poor. And somewhere along that road we decide that whatever we are, whatever we do, whatever we believe is right, and everyone who doesn’t share these same ideals is wrong.
Wrong is when you add 2 plus 2 and end up with 5. Wrong is when you stick your wet finger in a hot light socket thinking you won’t get shocked. Wrong is when you won’t tolerate someone else’s opinion, belief or skin color that is different than yours.
Tolerating other people’s differences, opinions and beliefs doesn’t in any way shape or form imply that you are not right. It implies that you remember how to be polite. You remember how to be respectful. You are confident enough in your beliefs to let others have theirs.
Our wish for you, and ourselves, this holiday season is that we learn to accept and embrace our differences and use them together to work for the benefit of all mankind; that we never underestimate the impact of a kind word, a smile or a thoughtful gesture; and that we remember how to play well and fair in the sandbox.
—Letters To The Editor—
Power Line Route Though Keating Most Intrusive
To The Record-Courier:
The most logical and economical route for the 500kV line is the route originally proposed by Idaho Power. The arguments supporting this choice are presented below. The comments address issues #5 & 6.
Baker County has little to gain from permitting the construction of this line. This line is not “A Given” yet and if you are interested in the proposed transmission project please check out the website, http://stopidahopower. blogspot.com/ .
Comments on Issue #5: Effects on Soil & Water Quality: Idaho Power has not performed the necessary soil and geological surveys to ensure that the proposed alternative routes can sustain the construction and the infrastructure for the B2H-IP transmission line. If the 500kV transmission line is allowed to go through Baker County, the route should be the Proposed Route because the most geological information is already known about this route.
Construction of the power line on the Keating/Medical Springs Eastern Route will incur the GREATEST DAMAGE to soil and water quality than the other proposed routes. Idaho Power proposes to traverse forest lands which protect the headwaters of the Powder River located near Medical Springs. The forest will not be allowed to recover within the corridor and harsh land treatments (which will necessarily include chemical applications) will be recurrently used to inhibit regrowth.
The Keating area includes some of the driest watersheds in the Powder River Subbasin. No part of these headwaters should be caused to be “at risk” in this fragile environment. Furthermore we only need to look at “Hole in the Wall” on Oregon Highway 83, just east of Keating, for evidence of the instability of soils in this area.
Comments on Issue #6: Land Use Conflicts and Consistency with Land Use Plans.
The Proposed Route is in proximity to the designated “western energy corridor.” This route presents the LEAST CONFLICT with local land use plans.
The #1 eastern alternate route traverses public lands designated for conservation of natural resources, preservation of wildlife habitat and for public recreational access. Installation of a 500 kV power line will have significant impact upon these land use designations. Yet these are public lands supposedly owned by all. If the line must traverse Baker County for the public good, the line should be built on public lands.
The Keating/Medical Springs Eastern Route is the most intrusive route proposed. It transverses approximately 24 miles of privately owned lands. These private lands, for the most part, are designated farm use (EFU). Stewardship of farm land should NOT include living and working around and under 500 kV transmission lines.
There is at least one organic farm certified by Oregon Tilth Certified Organic (OTCO) within the designated corridor of the Keating/Medical Springs Eastern Route. The proposed route will impact current certification standing. OTCO inspectors have voiced concern over ramifications of “stray voltage” upon organic compliance and they have not yet ruled on this issue.
Finally, the issue of property taxes should be addressed. Information from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission states, “… the landowner (will) typically still own(s) the land and (will) pay(s) taxes on the right-of-way ….” The rest of this comment is self-evident.
Thank you for your patience with the length of these comments. If timing was not such a factor in Idaho Power’s decision-making process, I would not submit multiple comments. But the project is being “fast tracked” and there is little time left to comment.
Vicki T. Wares
Baker City
Scots Are Back
To The Record-Courier:
The Scots of Baker City are stirring as the call goes out for our loyal supporters to begin gathering in anticipation of the second season of events put on by the Baker Valley Highland Games Association. The opening event for the season, the Robbie Burns Dinner, will once again be held at the VFW Hall in Baker City on Jan. 24. Early reservations are necessary to assure enough food to sustain all through the evening of fun.
Our first Burns Supper drew 80 people, and all had a great time. We were concerned about not over selling this year so we wanted to set a top limit. The Burns Dinner is a regional event, featuring Scottish cuisine and the songs, stories, and poetry of Robert Burns, the Bard of Scotland. Burns is the author of a song sung by many but understood by few — Auld Lang Syne.
With the success of the first season’s activities the International Scottish Community will be more interested in Baker City and it’s ability to host remarkable Scottish cultural events.
The Baker Valley Highland Games Association’s mission is to enrich Baker City by bringing visitors to our town while enjoying some of the cultural activities of those other Highlands, across the Atlantic. The Highlands of Scotland and those of Oregon have similar weather and the people share similar characteristics of independence and fortitude.
On behalf of all the folks who made last season so great, I would like to extend A Scottish Christmas Wish. There’s snow upon the thistle as winter prepares for Christmas in the highlands of Eastern Oregon. May the purity of the new snow inspire your hearts and lift your spirits for the Holidays and all the days to follow. A time of peace and love expressed to one another, all of us one great family surrounded by the protecting arms of the mountains in their winter raiment.
Baker Valley Highland Games Association extends Christmas Wishes to all our friends, members, and sponsors. May 2009 be a safe and Happy Year for all.
Ryc Rienks
Baker City, Ore.
Remembering Sisley Creek
To The Record-Courier:
I receive the Baker paper thanks to some friends here in Salem who pass it on to me. I enjoy reading it and it is such a good way to revive my “roots.”
Although I’ve been gone for some years now, I enjoy reading about the names and places I have known. The pictures give me a nice view of the once-familiar Baker County of my youth.
From my limited background in journalism (High School Editor of the Huntington High School Locomotive) with proof reading thrown in, I could not help but notice on the front page of your Sept. 25 paper, an article that I felt I had to write to you about.
Under the heading, “Let there be ...” and in the last paragraph regarding Dick Kirby, ranching in Durkee for 43 years, it says that he ranched with his parents and on his own for eight years on Sisley Creek (spelled by your paper “Sissley.”
My great grandparents with Eugene and Minnie Sisley who homesteaded in and around Weatherby, the creek was named for them and should be Sisley Creek.
I hope that it was just an error and that they have not changed the name.
Connie Griffith Melo
Salem, Ore.
Editor’s Note: Yes, it was a typo and the name has not changed.
Good News, Bad News
To The Record-Courier:
As the old saying goes, “I have some good news and some bad news, which do you want first?” The good news is, Baker County is quite rich in forest product and minerals. The bad news is that both the federal agencies and county government seem to want us to remain one of the poorest counties in Oregon.
These are not good times country-wide. In fact, according to the news, we have been in a recession for over a year. The economy is falling apart. Banks are going broke, and large companies are laying off thousands of workers. The House and Senate are throwing Billions of dollars at the luckiest of firms in an attempt to keep them from bankruptcy. This entire country has moved into action. That is, all but good ole Baker County!
Our top county officials, in cooperation with the Forest Service and Bureau of Land management, seem to think this is the perfect time to tighten the screws on our economy. Our County Commissioners think the best thing to do is sit at the table with the Forest Service and agree on which forest roads to leave open so the rest can be closed, denying us access to the many resources contained there. A great deal of County wealth in natural resources lies beyond those closed roads, out of reach at the time they are most urgently needed.
Then we have the Baker County Department of Planning and Community Development whose motto is, “Ensuring the Premier Rural Living Experience.” Wow! What irony. Rural home construction will be limited to areas where road access will accommodate city fire-fighting equipment. In many cases the road, built to their requirements, will cost more than home construction. The “Premier Rural Living” will henceforth be reserved for the wealthy. What a shame!
But even worse, the planners would cut off our access to future wealth by limiting house construction on PATENTED MINING CLAIMS to those locations with 18-foot wide paved roads. These mines have proved mineral wealth and can not be worked safely without on-site residents. This is yet another assurance that we will remain poor. Baker County needs a change of long-term perspective or we will remain the poorest of the poor.
Jasper Coombs
Richland, Ore.
Permits Are Not A Grandfathered Right
To The Record-Courier:
In reading the Article about “miners should not be penalized, Jasper Combes and retired officer, Mr. Barnes, about the same issues on Egress-Ingress to various kinds of property.”
The bottom line to all this has to do with the permitting process via the local planning commissioners and the uses of permits and fees. Most people can’t see the “barb on the hook” as to micro manage how people travel about, as to part of the socialist scheme to people control. It’s the same thing about getting a permit to work, and tax people on the right to work.
What’s not really recognized, is the fact that permits are not a grandfathered right, as the planners make the planning and permits subject to constant changes requiring more fees, etc. This can be backed by heavy fines to compliance via intimidation to review enhancement.
We even had the federal agents to permits to parking on the public lands and the Corps of Engineers (Army) that even required a permit to cross streams and rivers plus fees on federal lands.
The use of denial of permits is used thru a series of subrogations against dissenters via the planning “commissaniets” and a chain of commands to usurpation of god given, inalienable rights, i.e. mob rule.
The assertion of Revised Statues 2477 is being abrogated by this local planning committee to claim the RS2477 ways as a county property right is nonsense.
It’s the use of the egress-ingress, not as a property right, just a phantom expression used in the language of law a non discretionary-non exclusive use that was grand fathered prior to the 1976 act, as a statutory right. What some may call a MOU is misleading as to subrogate or sub-delegate authority, when none of the authority was granted to either party in the first place. Congress, its apparent, prior to the 1976 act, declared the rights via the “phantom” expression to non exclusive-non discretionary uses of these ways on public lands. No one party of Federal, State or local government can make a claim as exclusive tax property right to all the “factions” created by the myth of a property right.
The permitting process is a hoax being perpetrated by the county, USFS-MOU’s.
Article III Judiciary, the laws of the United States (under US Constitution) to the controversies between a State or the citizens there of means a federal court action such as the 1872 acts and RS2477 ways grants.
The Interior Board of Land Appeals unlike the Oregon’s State Administrative “Quazi” judicial court, was set up as a reference to the federal land disputes, that requires no personal appearances, only via mailings via the BLM and Dept. of Interior, not the USFS. This would include the permits by DEQ permitting process that involve federal lands planning etc. The State’s officials can’t intervene in, as F.S. knows, to uses of lands or ways in conflict with federal laws.
However, under case law, a New York Appellate court in a Fletcher Gravel Co. vs. Thomas C. Jorling, commissioner and the States DEC, i.e. DEQ unanimously held that a mine operator does not have to file a new permit application on its already permitted sites when there has been no change in the level or/and scope of operations.
The decision affirms that a gov. agency cannot exceed its delegated powers by indiscriminately over riding fundamental property rights and protections. Instead the court ruled the DEC (DEQ) is charged only with administering regulatory statues, not expanding them at the agency’s whims.
This ruling halts an unfortunate trend toward increasingly far reaching, time consuming, and costly reviews of business permit renewals by the DEC (DEQ) one of the most important and powerful agencies in New York Sate government.
This precedent not only applies to the mining industry, but to all industry in New York State, and in other highly regulated states nationwide, (i.e. Oregon’s DEO-Star Chambers) to save jobs an reduce unnecessary permitting costs and time delays, the attorneys noted, by the 15 attorneys of an environmental practice group in Syracuse, New York. This attorney group stated the impact of this decision has yet to be realized by industry as a whole. The significance of the Fletcher Gravel decision is that an Appellate Court (case law) in an unanimous decision systematically eliminated any DEC (DEQ) rationale for imposing exhaustive environmental review on long standing operations. Mine operators through out New York State, and else where, are elated about this victory. Actually, whether your a mine operator, a chemical co., or any type of manufacture, the Fletcher reasoning is applicable in the permitting process, explained the attorneys.
What this means under Article IV of US Constitution of law “full faith and credit” clause gives equal protections of the law, and the New York’s Appellate Court trumps/preempts Oregon State’s Administrative law judge, employed by the office of Administrative hearings, as to Oregons “Star Chambers” court of raw arbitrary power, set by Measure 49 initiative and Gov. Kulongoski style of justice. I’m involved in this dispute as right now, via the Dist. Attorney’s Office, to see how “procedural law’ will play out. The rule by men vs. rule of law by Baker Co. officials.
This decision by an Appellate court and the Baker County up coming (called) comprehensive planning and the DEQ’s land use compatibility statement (LUCS) will be related to the Appellate Court decision or is down played by the establishment and new world order advocates.
The power is in the land of the people, not the Gov. as to petition by a recall, to get the mischief makers out of office as to “special elections” by the ballot box (local) such as the ballot box of Measure 49, as putting control back in the hands of local charters/villages.
United we stand, divided we fall? Don’t let the “factions”, I.E. conflictuanagers settle it for us. As stated by Guy Michael, the 6000 petitions, used relitly will make a difference and the Appellate Courts (case law) to hold the feet to the fire. My mining claims (federal) are long standing “ORS” over 30 years as long standing permitted vs. DEQ requirement to constant renewals. This should apply to patented claims as well.
Bruce Parke
Sumpter, Ore
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