The definition of “Fascism” includes the control of information by a central leader – that means that the leader controls the public information so that the people follow blindly.
You can draw your own conclusions about how that above definition fits Molalla due to the newest action by “your” city:
In the past, the minutes from “your” City Council meetings were posted on the city’s website. That way, all citizens could have quick and easy access to public information about all the important decisions the elected officials make on their behalf.
Now, since the election of Mike Clarke as Mayor in November, there are ZERO POSTINGS OF CITY COUNCIL MINUTES ON THE PUBLIC WEBSITE! Citizens are told to go to city hall if they need the minutes!
How can Molalla expect to become competitive with other progressive, well run, local cities which ALL have open, honest and transparent city government?
It is very easy to compare how local cities value their citizens via a quick google search of local websites for Estacada, Silverton, and Sandy.
Estacada, a city with less that half the residents of Molalla, has a fantastic city website. ALL minutes of ALL public meetings are published in detail. The website makes you excited about Estacada – as do the sites for Silverton and Sandy. These sites obviously value their citizens by making city business highly transparent and accessible – UNLIKE MOLALLA.
So, again, why is Molalla so afraid of public information sharing?
What does Molalla wish to hide?
Why can’t Molalla city hall, which is FILLED WITH HIGHLY PAID CITY EMPLOYEES (that YOU pay for!) post City Council minutes on the web like ALL OTHER LOCAL CITIES DO?
Just take a google trip around to these other city websites and draw your own conclusions – if you had to use the information on the website to choose a place to live, a place to locate a business or a place to visit which cities would you choose based on the websites?
Molalla comes in far and away DEAD LAST in those questions per my “visits” to all these other vibrant city websites.
Molalla can’t pretend any longer that it will have any chance to be a viable city if it can’t even compete in the realm of city websites. In today’s world, fast, concise, and honest information sharing is key to a competitive future – and Molalla is falling backward by the day!
What are ALL THOSE HIGHLY PAID “WORKERS” AT CITY HALL DOING?
Why can’t they provide the basic information on the web that EVERY OTHER LOCAL CITY PROVIDES?
Can you afford to pay for that kind of DISRESPECT?
And – most important – what do they have to HIDE if they are too afraid to post a basic, honest, and transparent account of ALL CITY BUSINESS?
Our current worldwide crisis came from lack of accountability, lack of transparency, and “top down” government that refused to honor the needs of the public.
Your taxes to city government should BUY you a stake in the future here – what are “YOUR” CITY WORKERS AND “YOUR” ELECTED OFFICIALS DOING TO HONOR YOUR INVESTMENT – YOUR STAKE – IN MOLALLA’S FUTURE?
We are the HIGHLY PAID CITY WORKERS of Molalla. Let me tell you, this is a fantastic place to work! The city (you taxpayers!) pay us HUGE SALARIES that are far higher then we deserve – far HIGHER than any of you enslaved private sector taxpayers could possibly get! We are so sorry that you can’t get a PORK BARREL job working for the City of Molalla, but unless you know somebody – like the big shot good old boys who run the town and who protect us special city workers and our HUGE salaries – you don’t have a shot!
Molalla runs on NEPOTISM. It is a wonderful system. All you have to do is know the “right people” and bingo! – you get a job with a cool title and a HUGE SALARY! I really love the “cool title” part – they don’t even care if we have the education or training to do the job. Then, once they hang the “cool title” on us, those “leaders” can be pressured to look at how the other local cities pay people with similar “cool titles” and we can get EVEN MORE MONEY!
Please, please don’t tell anyone that those people working in other cities get those “cool titles” and salaries based on performance and education – we wouldn’t want anyone looking too closely at that. And, for sure, never, ever let it get out that we all get to have OUR ENTIRE HEALTH BENEFIT PACKAGE paid for by you dumb taxpayers!
So, you clueless and pathetic taxpayers, thanks so much for looking the other way about how Molalla is run. We “cool title” city workers sure hope you are all working overtime on your sad private sector jobs, because it is costing more and more to keep the Molalla NEPOTISM afloat. We need your money badly and we could never get this kind of FREE RIDE anywhere else, so keep those bucks coming!
And never, ever complain about our INCOMPETENCE and HUGE SALARIES. I know other cities have professional planners, city managers who respect the public, competent clerks, and websites that clearly post all public information. But since we run on NEPOTISM, there is little chance of anything professional happening here anytime soon.
So don’t go to our Molalla website looking for honest information because we are either too lazy, too incompetent or have too much too hide to post PUBLIC information there! We wouldn’t want you reading about the City Council actions, or the Budget Committee actions, or the Urban Renewal actions because you taxpayers might start to notice the dumb and corrupt stuff we do and – God forbid! – OBJECT AND REVOLT!
We certainly wouldn’t want you to read about the insane back biting and fussing about ‘LEAKS’ that seems to take up most of the City Council’s time. You might figure out that the Council is often more interested in KEEPING SECRETS FROM THE PUBIC than working to make Molalla a successful and vibrant city. Even we wonder sometimes what that crazy Council is worried about hiding – after all, isn’t the Council supposed to be working for ALL THE PEOPLE of Molalla?
We are a bit amazed that the MOLALLA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE looks the other way about all of NEPOTISM AND INCOMPETENCE. Maybe the Chamber is so hooked up with the good old boys that it doesn’t dare to complain that Molalla is in the Dark Ages compared to the way local, successful cities are run?
Maybe the Chamber is just happy spinning its wheels and watching Molalla continue its sad, downward spiral? We certainly don’t care what happens to you PATHETIC TAXPAYERS or about the FUTURE of Molalla, as long as Molalla NEPOTISM PROTECTS OUR HUGE SALARIES, UNHEARD OF BENEFITS, AND OUR UNDESERVED “COOL TITLES”.
Keep up the great work, you DUMB TAXPAYERS. We hope we don’t BLEED YOU COMPLETELY DRY! Like vampires, we feed on you to stay alive!
Gee – Molalla City Hall might be setting RECORDS for how often citizens have to contact the County District Attorney to view simple PUBLIC DOCUMENTS!
Be aware Molalla – City Hall is taking lessons from North Korea on how to suppress public interaction. Maybe that is where the City Recorder went for “training”?
I am now almost on a first name basis with the DA. If anyone out there knows how to register Molalla City Hall for an award for the most paranoid, most secret, or most interfaces with the District Attorney over PUBLIC INFORMATION, let me know as I am keeping a running “tab”of outrageous suppression of PUBLIC RECORDS.
Take a look at the next year budget that is at the library for Molalla.
Look for the SDC accounting for past years for sewers, roads, parks, etc.
What you will find is a bunch of columns of zeros for all the boom years. What happened to ALL THOSE PUBLIC FUNDS that are, by law, supposed to be accounted for EACH CALENDAR YEAR?
Did the city “forget” to collect them from developers?
Did “plannin” fail to impose the fees – or did “plannin” simply make “special deals” with developers for “in kind” work so no real money EVERY GOT ACCOUNTED FOR?
Silverton, at the drop of a hat, forwarded YEARS of detailed accounting for all their system development charges.
Molalla had to be contacted by the Clackamas County DA when it failed to honor a request to see past accounting for SDC’s – now it is apparent why it took months to produce even bogus numbers – because there are no records!
How can anyone pay taxes to a city that can’t account for YEARS OF PUBLIC FUNDS THAT BY LAW ARE SUPPOSED TO BE ACCOUNTED FOR EACH YEAR IN DETAIL – and those funds are, by law, supposed to be used only for the funds they were collected for – like park SDC’s to parks.
The park fund is a JOKE – how sad that people looked the other way while “someone” allowed the funds to disappear. Where oh where could all those $$$$$$$$$’s be? Years and years of SDC $$$$$$$$$’s unaccounted for!!!!!
Hey – speaking of transparency – has anyone heard a word out of the supposed “leaders” of Molalla lately about the state of the city? What DO those pathetic “elected” folks do – or are they all incapable of picking up a pen or hitting a computer key and telling us all how great a job they are doing?
Oh, I get it – maybe they are SILENT because they aren’t doing such a hot job for Molalla – otherwise they would be communicating via letters, op-eds, town halls, etc to keep us all informed about the state of the City.
How about it Mayor Clarke and your band of mute followers – how about some words of wisdom to assure us that we live in a place where “leaders” actually know how to speak and write and think – REAL LEADERS have opinions and REAL LEADERS share their opinions freely.
I found a funny statement on the Molalla River Alliance website. City Manager John Atkins is one of a two person “outreach ” committee to promote the Molalla River. One of the goals of this two person committee is stated as follows:
“Distinguishing cultural, economic and political influences which may contribute threats to, or may enhance opportunities for, the Molalla River;”
I wonder if Atkins/Molalla River Alliance have ever heard of the concept of CONFLICT OF INTEREST?
How can the City Manager of a SPRAWL HUNGRY TOWN that pipes wastewater INTO THE RIVER, that has no valid interest in producing a detailed Goal 5 NATURAL RESOURCES REPORT or in protecting said resources, that is the most scoff law “pollution is traditional” (quote Ex- Mayor Tom Foster) city around, and that sees prime resource land as nothing but fit for the bulldozers for more ill-planned, parkless developments, even PRETEND with a straight face to be working on looking at “cultural, economic, and political threats” to the River?
How can the Alliance pretend that Molalla has any interest in anything but EXPLOITING the fragile resource that is the River? How can the Alliance pretend that Molalla’s growth dreams are anything but an EXTREME threat to ALL of the Molalla River, which is an eco system supported by lands and water features that cover many miles on all sides of the actual corridor?
It seems extremely disingenuous to give this obvious toss- off publicity shot to Atkins when Molalla has treated local lands and water ways as nothing but a sewer system/dump for years. Get the pipe out of the River, stop spraying waste water that is polluting ground water, show respect for ALL OUR NATURAL RESOURCES, tear up the Urban Reserves/UGB expansion plans, take care of the city problems, reform SDC’s so there is some MONEY to fix leaking and crumbling infrastructure and build CITY parks, Atkins – and then maybe someone could take your “outreach” seriously.
Respect has to be a two way street – and putting “Atkins” next to a statement like the one above while allowing the insane Urban Reserve map to stand shows what baloney this “outreach” really is. And when does the “Alliance” get the guts to weigh in on the Urban Reserves – or doesn’t it have the courage to contest that outrageous and outlandish city proposal to ultimately destroy 2,200 acres of prime resource lands while Molalla ignores 100′s of acres of brownfields and crumbling infrastructure – is it all about “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours”? Or “I’ll look the other way if you’ll play nice”?
Hasn’t the City of Molalla already EXPLOITED the local environment enough for a century? The future of the Molalla River should not be proffered as a publicity stunt for Atkins.
Oregon League of Conservation Voters (OLCV) rates “our” Rep “Vickie” Gilliam at a miserable 25% on the environment – but he is surpassed by the nasty 10% rating given to “our” Senator Fred Girod. I guess those big bucks polluters and foreign fossil fuels shills know whose palms to grease.
There was a fascinating story in the 9-27-09 Oregonian “After years in Oregon politics, Thornes find way home” about Mike, a former state senator, and his wife Jill Thorne.
My interest was on Jill’s activism in Pendleton, first on the urban renewal issues there, and then on a quest for transparency in government records.
After conflict in Pendleton regarding use of urban renewal funds, Jill launched into a huge search of public records, “spending 50 hours combing through 10,000 public documents”.
Her search “revealed that the minutes of Pendleton city Council and Development Commission meetings sometimes didn’t square with audiotapes”.
The conflict in Pendleton is ongoing. It was wonderful to read that citizens all around the state are looking city government square in the face and calling attention to the horrible lapses – or worse – that are rampant in government.
When I attended the LCDC Citizen’s Advisory meeting in Salem to outline the atrocities in “process” and citizen involvement in Molalla’s abusive plannin’ hearings and to hand deliver 6 local citizen’s accounts of their outrage over the lack of respect for citizen involvement in Molalla, I learned That LCDC is hard at work to improve citizen involvement. Molalla certainly has provided the perfect model of WHAT NOT TO DO.
In the months of trying to obtain information from Molalla regarding grants, comp plan files, and other public information, and after reading what is supposed to pass as written minutes after attending meetings in person, I believe the problems Ms Thorne is addressing in her city are the same as the ones we face with Molalla city government. If push comes to shove on important issues, it will be fascinating to compare the autio tapes to what the plannin’ dept has tried to pass off as written minutes. Ditto for most Council meetings.
Censorship is an anathema to honest, transparent public process. Inaccurate minutes, coupled with Molalla’s inability to account for years of SDC funds (where, oh, where are all the monies that SHOULD have been collected and accounted for each year?) point to a highly flawed government that seeks to morph the records to make them more “palatable”. Minutes disappear from websites in Molalla, and minutes to date never get corrected, even when citizens complain.
Let’s hope that this “inaccuracy” doesn’t come back to bite the city in the future. I guess the “inaccuracy” relates directly to the fact that the Council, Mayor, and City Manager much prefer to meet in closed door sessions. What do YOU know about Molalla City government – not much likely, since silence and doctored minutes are the way of the City.
Wow – look out – our FANTASTIC ATTORNEY GENERAL JOHN KROGER is reforming the public records laws. Check out the link below – note especially the end of the article where there is a great quote about ending the ability of cities to charge “punitive amounts ” for public records requests! Gee – are your ears burning City of Molalla? Get that part about “punitive amounts”?
Kroger means business – what a fantastic advocate for transparent government!
Let’s give a year end “THANKS” to “molallablog” for providing a forum for transparency, accountability and citizen participation in the Molalla area. Great job “molallablog” for starting this forum – over 31,000 hits in a box canyonville like Molalla shows that you were wise to post this for our community!
THANKS for your civic work, “molallablog” – we wouldn’t be connected without you. Great job! You have proved we are a diverse community and that we don’t have to think and act like a herd of sheep.
“I’m periodically criticized for an “angry” tone in my writing, which I always find mystifying. I genuinely don’t understand why anger should be avoided or even how it could be. What other reaction is possible when one looks around and sees the government leaders who committed these grave crimes completely unburdened by any accountability and treated as respectable dignitaries, or watches the Tom Friedmans, Jeffrey Goldbergs, Fred Hiatts and other unrepentent leading media propagandists who helped enable it still feted as Serious and honest experts, or beholds the current Cabinet and Senate filled with people who supported it, or observes the Michael O’Hanlons and Les Gelbs and other Foreign Policy Community luminaries who lent trans-partisan credence to it all continue to traipse around still pompously advocating for more wars that never touch their lives?” Glenn Greenwald Jan 29, 2010
If I inserted “past Molalla CPO leaders” or “most of Molalla City leaders” where it says “government” and added, after grave crimes “like deliberately withholding information, refusing to allow public debate to hear both sides of an issue, protecting an insular insider trading “personal cred” club instead of promoting diverse voices, failing to empower others, and attempting to disfranchise members” Glenn could have been speaking about the “old” Molalla CPO or most of Molalla “government”.
Change is thankfully at least afoot in the CPO – but when change doesn’t happen and the rights of citizens to fairly participate in any public group – city planning hearings, CPO meetings, anything that should welcome diverse voices and debate – then all that can and should be expected is ANGER AND OUTRAGE.
And, if “leaders” can’t deal with the ANGER AND OUTRAGE they engender when they refuse to engage in debate they’d better heed that great old saying,” If you can’t take the heat then get out of the kitchen”.
Or, as Warren Zevon said, “If you can’t take the punches then it don’t mean a thing”.
Let’s all give a loud hand for FREE SPEECH! And let’s boot false “leaders” who fail to empower others, who hide public information and who fail to at least listen to all sides!
I had to laugh about a op-ed in the Pioneer this week about pipelines/ LNG and political handouts.
The op-ed writer is very late to the LNG game and failed miserably to understand the scope of how much money “our” State Rep Gilliam has taken from the natural gas speculators.
If the op-ed writer had followed the issue closely for the PAST THREE YEARS and had read the recent piles of LNG info coming on the internet from NO LNG groups, he would have known that the $3,000ish handout to Rep Gilliam from NW Nasty Gas Corp. is a total drop in the bucket.
The REAL NUMBERS are far higher: dear “Vickie” Gilliam has, to date, lined his pockets with OVER $17,000 COMBINED FROM ALL THE NATURAL GAS LOBBY FORCES. And therefore that makes Gilliam the SECOND HIGHEST RECIPIENT OF GAS LOBBY MONEY IN THE OREGON HOUSE.
To miss that “OVER $17,000 TO GILLIAM FACT” in any local article decrying the LNG/pipeline speculators is pathetic! Writer, do your research or ask an expert on the subject to write it instead. Where were you all the years that informed citizens were researching and sending out LNG FACTS and providing PIPELINE/LNG FACTS at the CPO?
So next time I urge op-ed writers in the Pioneer to write on issues they have been closely aligned with – otherwise they end up looking like naive, self serving politicians themselves. Either follow issues IN DEPTH or leave the commentary to the people who are actually doing the hard work to stop these abusive LNG/pipeline projects.
After all, the world is already filled with self -serving “want-a-be” political dilettantes – and the world is far worse for it!
I am looking for “leaders” who can lead with IN DEPTH FACTS. We have all been duped long enough with “half the story” or “no story” or “my spin story” by “want–a-be leaders”. Give us the REAL FACTS and then we’ll make up OUR OWN MINDS.
Leadership should not be about self aggrandizement or power hogging – real leaders work tirelessly to empower as many citizens as possible to think for themselves. To do that you need to get the FACTS STRAIGHT.
Congratulations to Bob McCallister, the newly elected President of the Molalla CPO.
After working closely with Bob for months on the hamlet formation committee, I have come to immensely respect Bob’s interest in fair process. Bob understands the dire need for grassroots community groups to maintain non-partisanship so they can carry diverse opinions forward to policy makers
It will be exciting to see the CPO finally move forward on the bylaw/policy reform. Members begged for bylaw/policy reform over the last several months and the County counsel demanded reforms in an October letter. With bylaw/policy reform there should never again be the opportunity for CPO “leaders’ to creep behind closed doors to make partisan decisions or to attempt to disenfranchise members with dissenting views.
Good work Bob – please lead us forward so the Molalla “Community Planning Organization” can finally begin to supply information to all COMMUNITY members in a fair and timely manner. Then, wouldn’t it be great if the “Community Planning Organization” actually started to sit down at meetings to discuss actual PLANNING proposals? That is what CPOs were designed to do.
After looking over minutes from other County CPOs, it is apparent that Molalla hasn’t been getting full service out of the past CPO incarnation – other CPOs actually supply members with County planning notices and, as a group, send input back to the County. The former CPO leadership failed miserably at forwarding County notices to members.
Everyone pays taxes to Clackamas County to fund the County CPO staff liaison, to fund citizen involvement oversight, and to fund the planning department’s staff to forward planning notices. With Bob as the CPO leader I have every confidence that I will finally get my “County information sharing” money’s worth!
Community members with interest in planning issues should give the new “Bob” CPO a try. The CPO will welcome everyone and be very eager to hear what YOU have to say! It is time for all sides to be heard – we can’t move ahead until diversity is respected in our community.
The “new” CPO and its work should dovetail well with the work of the Hamlet of Molalla Prairie, given they are both designed to provide a grassroots, non-partisan voice to rural citizens.
If you have concerns about local land use, come to a CPO meeting or get in touch with Bob – everyone is welcome! If you want to work with committed community members on issues other than local land use planning, come to the Hamlet informational meeting on Feb 10, 7pm at the Molalla library. Applications to serve on the Hamlet board will be at the meeting
Here (below) is great work from our Attorney General John Kroger. The public is encouraged to make written or oral comments at a group of hearings all around the state about transparency in government: “if you have complaints about how a particular public body has handled a public information request…” Wow! I sure have some complaints and now I know I voted for the best Attorney General.
Thanks for a chance to tell about my adventures in “public information” with a certain “public body”! I’ll be there with bells on.
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
February 22, 2010
Dear Oregonians,
Thank you again for signing up to attend one or more of the Attorney General’s Government Transparency Initiative public meetings. The purpose of these meetings is for the public to offer input on how to improve Oregon’s government transparency laws. If you have complaints about how a particular public body has handled a public records request or public meetings issue in the past, we would appreciate such complaints in writing.
We are specifically seeking input on the following topics:
* Accelerating government response to public records requests
* Reforming the fee structure to remove impediments to the public’s access to government records
* Ensuring that exemptions from disclosure are appropriate
* Improving the accessibility of public meetings
Comments on other issues related to Oregon Public Records and Public Meetings laws are also welcome.
We will try to make sure that everyone who wants to testify gets a chance. Therefore, we ask that you please limit your testimony to 2 minutes. We also encourage you to submit your testimony in writing. In the event of high attendance, this will ensure that your voice is heard.
Comment cards will be available at the meetings.
We look forward to seeing many of you at the first meeting, 6:00pm on Wednesday at the Salem Public Library. Thank you for sharing your thoughts about shining more sunlight on Oregon government.
Government Transparency Initiative
A Public Meeting and Discourse
February 24, 2010, 6:00 pm
Salem Public Library, 585 Liberty Street SE, Salem, 97301
This event is the first in a series of public meetings around the state sponsored by:
I attended Attorney General John Kroger’s first transparency hearing in Salem on Feb 24 (see above for info about getting involved).
What an inspiring AG! Kroger has assembled a government transparency team and a state website to take public comments for 6 months. Kroger recognizes that our pubic records laws must be made workable so that all citizens have fair access to public information – public information that we own, that we pay for via taxes. All input will help ensure that our laws work and that the next legislature can be informed of needed changes.
In Salem, for over an hour and a half, citizen after citizen went to the mike to tell personal stories about public records abuses and public meetings abuses. We testified about the need for a definition of “timely” for agencies/government to share records, we talked about how over charging for public information is used as a weapon to discourage public information access, we talked about needing to call the district attorney in our counties to force cities to comply with requests, and we talked about public meetings where police were used to try to intimidate dissenting citizens from participating in public meetings (as in a CPO meeting in Molalla and a school board meeting in Estacada).
For those of us concerned with Goal One (citizen involvement), open records, open meetings rules, and our Constitutional rights to free speech, Kroger’s work represents light a the end of a long dark tunnel. We collectively realized that the abuses in public information sharing and public meetings we had suffered as individuals were rampant problems – and we took heart that Kroger is now aware and committed to fixing those abuses.
Kroger and a group called Open Oregon have begun to make the laws on public records and public meetings easily available to all. The huge public meetings rule book is now posted online. Open Oregon has two free user friendly booklets that clearly outline what public records/ public meetings rules mean to citizens. Simply google “Open Oregon” and request the free booklets on public meetings and public information.
It was fascinating to learn the rules about the high degree of detail that is REQUIRED in minutes of public meetings and to learn that if a quorum of public officials is present at a “retreat” the retreat is subject to public meetings laws. In other words, writing minutes with vague descriptions like “time was spent clearing the air” won’t pass muster with pubic meeting laws.”Retreats” to distant cities by City Council can’t be hidden from public record.
From the FACTS presented in these booklets and at the forum it is very apparent that a number of local bodies – like the City Council, City Hall, and even the Molalla CPO – need to carefully review the public information/public meetings rules before they get in further hot water over scoff law meetings and poor public information procedures.
Kroger means business! Seldom have I seen a public official as focused on reform as Kroger is. Oregon citizens and Oregon journalists should forward all and any personal stories about abuses of public meeting laws and public transparency laws to Kroger’s team. They are working to assure Oregonians have the most transparent government the law allows. And that extends to City Council, City government and any public meetings, like school board and CPO meetings, that fall under the public meetings/public records laws.
I suggest anyone connected with public meetings and public information carefully read the laws that govern public bodies. Transparency isn’t just a cute word or empty dream in Oregon – AG Kroger is giving it some sharp teeth. I think with will be easier to start complying with the letter of the law than suffer a “bite” from Kroger!
One of my favorite parts of the Open Oregon “Public Meetings Laws” booklet outlines Minutes of public meetings(Quote):
“Minutes must indicate:
1.Members present
2. All motions, proposals, resolutions, orders, ordinances and measures proposed and their disposition
3.The result of all votes by name of each member (except for public bodies consisting of more than 25 members) No secret ballots are allowed.
4. The substance of discussion on any matter (*SUBSTANCE – *caps/comments mine – SUBSTANCE HAS BEEN MISSING FROM A NUMBER OF LOCAL MEETINGS!)
5. A reference to any document discussed at the meeting” (End quote).
This guide notes that minutes must be available in a “reasonable time” – generally not to exceed three weeks.
The booklet on Public Meetings outlines examples of the VERY narrow criteria for “executive sessions”. It further notes that ” A county commission’s goal-setting retreat (listen up, Molalla!) is a public meeting if a quorum is present and they discuss official business”.
I’d say public meetings and public information sharing are due for a lot of fixin’ in the Molalla area! Go team Kroger, go Oregon citizen whistle blowers!
Here is a link to a funny story about free speech. I admire this guy for taking a stand. Every time an attempt is made to take way First Amendment rights Americans slide down a slippery slope until finally we will all be marching to the tune of some noxious little old grey haired grade school teacher shaking her bogus moral codes in our faces and calling the cops on us every time we run afoul of her phony “respect” rant.
Maybe we will all have to “act up” to prove once and for all what free speech is all about! It certainly isn’t about what the cops “like” or how some repressed old lady “wishes” we would act or talk according her rigid Sunday school standards.
Free Speech is one of the most important symbols in America – use it or lose it!
GOOD NEWS! We’ll have a horse race this election because Dr. Rodney Orr of Silverton has stepped up to challenge Rep Vic Gilliam – see you at the debates and election forums! It is time for EVERYONE TO ASK THE HARD QUESTIONS ABOUT VOTING RECORDS AND OUR GOVERNMENT:
Dr. Rodney Orr Announces House Run Focusing on Rebuilding Rural Oregon Economy
Family practice physician Dr. Rodney Orr announced he’s running for the Oregon House of Representatives in District 18.
“My medical practice has been a good training ground for running for office,” said Dr. Orr. “I have the privilege of getting to know people from all walks of life — farmers, small business people, college kids. Their hopes are my hopes and their worries keep me up at night too.”
Dr. Orr’s top priority is making sure that Oregon’s small towns get the economic help they need to rebuild their economies. “Life in Oregon’s small towns has been getting tougher and tougher over the last few years and it’s time that our economies are as much of a priority for the Legislature as Portland is,” said Orr. “Silverton, Molalla, and every other small town in Oregon have plenty of talented, hardworking people. With the right investments, our local economies can blossom again.”
As a doctor, Orr also has a unique perspective on how to make health care more affordable. After decades of seeing medical emergencies wreck his patients’ finances, Dr. Orr places reducing costs at the top of his health care agenda.
Dr. Rodney Orr has been a family practice physician for thirty years. He received his medical training at OHSU and family practice residency at Northern Colorado Medical Center. Dr. Orr was born and raised in Oregon and lives in Silverton with his Wife Dr. Shandra Greig and has four children.
I read your statement about waste in government and your comments about this legislative session that was posted on the Oregon Legislative Newsletter.
I have a great way you could work to eliminate abject waste. Tiny cities of under 10,000, like Molalla, don’t have a legal need to do “periodic review” like cities over 10,000, which do regular periodic review of their comp plans under the supervision of DLCD and with deadlines to meet.
In the case of Molalla, which has been “trying” to doing voluntary comp plan updates since at least 2006, there are no DLCD mandates and no deadlines for legally defensible “plans” to be submitted. The result of that opened ended practice for cities like Molalla (of under 10,000 people) is years and years of legally indefensible content. Such indefensible content has been fostered by years and years of city and state taxpayer monies wasted on public grants for “planning” which then resulted in years and years of agency time (ODOT and DLCD) wasted on telling Molalla the “plans” are not defensible.
And the “result” of all those years and years of wasted agency comments and wasted taxpayer monies? Molalla will soon likely send a pile of legally indefensible content on to the financially strapped Clackamas County Planning Dept for more waste of public money. Molalla’s “plans” include being the first ever in the state to propose “equestrian big lot estates” within the city limits. Molalla will also ask for 2,200 acres of “urban reserves” for a dying ill planned city of about 7,000 people!
I am a County resident who has closely tracked the OPEN ENDED WASTE of public monies during the YEARS AND YEARS of this absurd opened ended “process”. I highly resent the waste of public grants and agency spent to comment back and forth for years on version after version of garbage planning – “planning” produced by an unprofessional “planning director” with no college education solely to try to please a few greedy good old boy local land speculators. Don’t our agencies and our money have better uses than to have to comment on EIGHT VERSIONS of legally indefensible “plans” over 4+ years?
Please start work now to reform this opened ended “process” in land use. I believe that any city that desires help via our public monies for planning grants and feedback from agencies like DLCD and ODOT needs to have the same focused deadlines as the cities over 10,000. Our state can’t afford opened ended plannin’ to go on forever like the Ground Hog Day mess we have been subjected to in Molalla.
I am quite serious about this fantastic opportunity for money saving reform. I hope you look into this problem before more public monies are wasted on a “version 9 – version infinity” in Molalla, a town that can’t afford to build a sidewalk let alone produce infrastructure for “big lot equestrian estates”!
Here is a fantastic blog response to the Oregonian article about a Clackamas man who has filed a federal lawsuit for the right to express himself by flipping off police officers. I wish I could shake the hand of blogger “jonescat”! I couldn’t have said it better myself about some of the pathetic “play nice” old lady school teachers in Molalla trying to dictate behavior and language. Go “jonescat”:
Posted by jonescat/ Oregonlive
March 01-2010 5:05AM
Rights trump feelings, period. We have a right to express ourselves, even if others find it offensive or rude. People nowadays are so into not hurting others feelings that they have become over sensitized and are turning into children.
People need to grow up, recognize that freedom is the fundamental issue here, not feelings. A Constitutional right is just that. A right. A right is objective. Feelings are subjective. Fairness and justice rely on objectivity, not petty emotions.”
Since I was unable to attend Attorney General Kroger’s second transparency in government forum in Portland on Wednesday, I was happy that a couple of friends were able to send reports.
In Portland, over 250 people attended the forum to outline problems with obtaining public records and problems with fair conduct of public meetings. The meeting ran overtime because over half of the attendees gave on the record testimony about their problems with meetings and public records.
One person suggested that the Attorney General’s office become more involved with the public record process. Many of us who have experienced game playing/over charges from cities like Molalla (which apparently often wishes to hide records) now intend to submit evidence of our requests directly to the AG office. There then can be no question of “timely” or any quibbling about what “fair” charges represent. I expect that the AG’s office will get their eyes opened when they see that cities attempt to stop public access to simple documents by charging through the nose for “staff” time.
In Molalla, many of us have seen that when “staff” of the caliber of plannin’ Potter is retained, the city tries to charge usurious prices for public information based on incompetent “staff” time. When a city chooses to hire and retain “staff” that is not skilled at the given task, the case will be made in the future that the public can’t be punished via high costs for information that other, professional city staff can produce quickly for free. In other words, it is extremely easy to spot check with other cities – honest, well run, transparent cities – to see what similar public information would cost. Then it will be very easy to document any untimely or usurious charges directly to the AG.
Case in point in Molalla: A recent request was made to see a document(s) that Potter submitted in late 2006/early 2007 to DLCD in an attempt to jam through a “new” comp plan. The DLCD wrote a detailed letter many pages long on Feb 5, 2007 in response to whatever document(s) Potter submitted. When asked for that submitted document the city tried to claim that it would take TWO AND A HALF HOURS OF POTTER’S TIME TO PRODUCE THE DOCUMENT(S) FOR PUBLIC VIEWING!!!
That kind of game playing will be great fodder for Kroger – the usual “Potter” time/cost amounts to $80 for just about anything the public asks for the that city doesn’t want the public to see.
Anyone with interest in improving our public transparency should take a look at Kroger’s work. Google “Oregon Dept of Justice” and look for the Transparency links. Document your experiences and concerns directly to the AG’s office.
If you fail to follow through then you have no excuse for complaining about bad government. We have an advocate for open government in Attorney General Kroger and he is waiting to hear about your experiences in obtaining public records. He is also investigating the conduct of pubic meetings. Everything is PUBLIC – from the lowly CPO’s to the School Boards to the City Councils to the city administrations to the State agencies – they are all under AG Kroger’s microscope.
Oregonians own the desks, the paper, the computers, the buildings and we pay for the state and local staff – so we OWN THE INFORMATION THEY PRODUCE.
Public debate and fair public process is essential to democracy. Kroger is an extremely powerful advocate for open government. I celebrate that!
Now that the the Molalla CPO has a new president, who is working to provide open and fair meeting structure, the true story about the noxious behind the scenes attempts by former “leader” Jim Gilbert and current secretary Fran Taylor to suppress free speech and citizen participation at the “old” Molalla CPO can be told in detail.
Starting in the summer of 09, members of the CPO grew tired of “president” Gilbert’s attempts to write positions and push agendas without the fair input of members.
In August, without detailed research, the CPO voted to allow Gilbert to write a letter to the county asking for a change in code enforcement policy because Gilbert had noticed that he couldn’t force the removal of a neighbor’s mfg home.
Code policy had a priority list which had a cut off date of ten years – if a temporary mfg home had been installed with proper permits and no one complained within ten years, to save money the county wouldn’t enforce removal because the county felt the mfg. home would eventually decay and be removed anyway.
In a last minute hasty move, the CPO approved that a letter could be written asking for a policy change. After the letter was written, Gilbert left the county and said that secretary Fran Taylor could chair the Sept CPO meeting in his absence.
Susan Hansen, a member in good standing, had immediate misgivings about this hasty move by the CPO. Upon researching code policy with a great county enforcement rep, Dean Brown, Hansen concluded that code enforcement priorities were a good thing for taxpayers. It was apparent after research that the priorities were in effect so that code enforcement could go after violations that could affect safety and health. It was also apparent that our county – and our taxpayers – could not afford to force the enforcement and removal of every petty “need” – like Gilbert’s interest in forcing the removal of a permitted mfg. home that couldn’t even be seen from Gilbert’s residence.
Hansen wrote a detailed account of her research and notified Fran Taylor WELL IN ADVANCE of the Sept CPO meeting that Hansen wished to be included on the agenda to discuss her findings about the code enforcement policy issues. Hansen believed that the CPO had not done adequate research before Gilbert forced what seemed to be a personal agenda issue to change the county policy.
Days before the CPO meeting, a CPO board member informed Hansen that Taylor was attempting to poll board members to “postpone” Hansen’s agenda item. Hansen strongly objected to the county, to Taylor, and to Gilbert via email. The county confirmed to Hansen that Taylor was flapping around trying to get permission to refuse an agenda item to a member of good standing at a public meeting sponsored by the county. The county told Taylor she had no grounds to refuse to let Hansen speak.
Hansen further objected to the polling of the CPO “board” because for months the “board” had been in violation of the bylaws – the “board” failed to have a full roster of members and the “board” included people who were in clear violation of the rule that “board” members must either attend meetings or be dismissed from the “board”.
In Hansen’s observation (and in the words of “president Gilbert”) the CPO had become a “personal cred” (Gilbert’s words) club pushing the limited personal agendas of 3-4 people. The “board” was clearly a sham board due to the lack of attendance of certain “board” members.
Hansen arrived at the Sept Molalla CPO meeting at the library and was met on the sidewalk by a Molalla policewoman. Hansen asked the policewoman if there was an emergency at the library. The Molalla policewoman replied “No, I am on my break”. Hansen walked into the meeting with the policewoman following her. The policewoman watched as Hansen signed the attendance sheet and remained watching for most of the meeting.
Taylor’s agenda noted “postponed” next to Hansen’s agenda item, but Hansen, knowing the rules about free speech and public meetings, successfully presented her report to the CPO.
After the meeting, and for weeks to come, Taylor/Gilbert refused to acknowledge their actions regarding the COP AT CPO. Hansen and members of the CPO, including Taylor/Gilbert, attempted mediation but Hansen’s position was and is that this cowardly PUBLIC ACT to try to use public safety officers to suppress free speech/fair participation at a county sanctioned forum was a PUBLIC ISSUE. Hansen steadfastly refused to sign any confidentially agreements unless and until the truth about this noxious incident was told to the CPO at an open meeting.
Taylor finally admitted to what she had done at the Nov. CPO meeting – that she called the COP TO CPO because she didn’t like the angry content of an email Hansen sent to Gilbert while he was in Russia trying to keep Hansen off the CPO agenda. No threats were made, Hansen simply said in no uncertain terms to “president ” Gilbert that Hansen would use her rights to speak at a public meeting.
So the Molalla police spent public monies to send a COP to CPO because a retired school teacher didn’t like the content of a “I will speak at CPO” email that wasn’t even addressed to her!!
That is the kind of public meeting abuse that Attorney General Kroger is working hard to stop. That is the kind of abuse of police “services” we should all be concerned about stopping. That is an abuse of free speech First Amendment rights in America! Be glad that there wasn’t a REAL emergency that night – and be aware that it is ok for COPS to lie!
In spite of a clear outline of that COP at CPO story at the Nov. CPO meeting (a meeting that included a great deal of outrage directed at the fake “board” and at the “officers” who consistently failed to honor resolutions by the membership), Taylor, as “secretary” of CPO has failed to ever write these FACTS into the CPO minutes.
That failure to document FACTS in the minutes of the CPO is yet another example of the need for Kroger’s reforms – minutes of public meetings are required to include the SUBSTANCE of meetings. Taylor’s interest in censorship produced minutes of the angry Nov. blowout meeting that said something pathetic like “the CPO cleared the air”.
Taylor is a master of “polite” evasion of FACTS. She seems to believe the world of adult debate must be reduced to grade school pap. Free speech/transparency demands officers who are neutral reporters of FACTS, even if the FACTS aren’t “polite”.
We are currently lucky that Gilbert was not re-elected as president. The current struggle is to reform the CPO bylaws. The greatest need is to open the CPO up to instant membership/instant voting for everyone who lives within the CPO boundaries.
The CPO, though it has little real power, still has the ability to weigh in on land use issues and can appeal county rulings for free. Rural citizens in the greater Molalla area represented by the CPO should take immediate interest in this issue. Bylaws will be discussed in May (watch the Pioneer for notice) and perhaps voted on in June.
The current rule that membership/voting rights occur only AFTER a person has attended one previous meeting in a calendar year, means that YOU might have a planning issue that comes up quickly and if YOU wished to raise the issue at CPO YOU would not have membership voting rights at your first meeting.
Planning issues can arise quickly – do YOU want a handful of people deciding YOUR issue at CPO without the right for YOU AND YOUR AFFECTED NEIGHBORS to vote on YOUR issue?
The Molalla CPO has pushed issues for years with the same tiny group deciding for the greater Molalla area. Isn’t it time to make sure that YOUR property rights aren’t decided by a handful of people?
I think the COP at CPO story needs to be a lesson for Molalla citizens – you need to know what groups represent you, you need to know your rights to participate in those groups, and you need to be sure that your rights to participate are as easy as walking into a meeting and signing a sheet to confirm that you live in the area represented by the group.
Short of that, you might be the next one followed into a public meeting by a COP because YOUR dissenting ideas don’t conform with the agenda a handful of “leaders”
are pushing.
To follow up on the need for citizens within the boundaries of the Molalla CPO to take an interest in reforming the voting policies of the Molalla CPO to stop the long term abuse of power by a handful of local people who have no interest in empowering our diverse community, here is another story and document to share.
As the handful of signers of the following letter – long term supposed “leaders” and members with their own limited agendas – realized last summer that other local citizens were sincere in their efforts to empower diverse voices, they began a behind the scenes campaign to form their “own” little CPO.
The obvious intent was to preserve their strangle hold on the “a” CPO to have a partisan force with the same “leaders” forever in place to dictate their personal agendas.
The most telling part of the following letter, which is public record at the County, is that the people writing and signing as “officers and members” of the Molalla CPO NEVER VETTED THIS LETTER WITH THE CPO MEMBERS OR THE REST OF THE CPO BOARD IN ADVANCE OF SENDING TO THE COUNTY.
Further, they were upset when the County released the letter out of concern that other Board members of the CPO had not been consulted!
Again, this pattern of abuse of power is the reason rural citizens in the Molalla area need to take interest in the voting/membership rules of the CPO.
The members who voted to oust Jim Gilbert as president in January have an earnest interest in creating a CPO that welcomes all citizens and listens to all concerns. We are working to demand that all actions by officers – especially by the “president” – will be fully vetted and approved by members before any letters like the following document get sent.
At the end of Gilbert’s “presidency”, he continued to ignore the member’s resolutions that official CPO letters needed to be fully vetted As noted in a former post, “secretary” Fran Taylor continues to impose her censorship tactics by refusing to post accurate, detailed minutes which reflect the true substance of the discussions and concerns.
It is overdue to reform the CPO. We are off to a great start with new president Bob McCallister, a local leader who knows how important it is to follow meeting rules so that all citizens have equal opportunities to participate in public meetings.
Our taxes go to County programs that provide a vast array of opportunities for citizen participation. Sadly, under the “rule” of Gilbert, members of the CPO never heard about these opportunities. With McCallister as president we finally are starting to see the proper flow of information to all members.
The “gang of 6″ who signed the below letter would like to keep the CPO an insider trading club. If you live in the rural areas north of Molalla and wonder why boundaries were drawn as they were, note the letter below where it is claimed the this tiny group of six “knows” via “informal polls” what their neighbors want.
DO THEY REALLY SPEAK FOR YOU?
Luckily, the County rules don’t allow CPO borders to be re-drawn in the manner suggested. The Molalla CPO is empowered to comment on local land use issues. Better oversight is in place in the form of a CPO board and officers who are interested in being fair and accountable to members.
Think hard – does this “gang of six” sound like they would like to work WITH YOU? Or should you be concerned and demand that the CPO switch to open membership/open voting just in case YOU need to weigh in on a land use issue?
You and your neighbors should be the primary force if a land use concern comes to your “neighborhood”. Be sure to become involved so the “gang of 6″ doesn’t impose its will on your property rights!
This isn’t the kind of “leadership” that leads to transparent government and accountability. To date, none of the signers of this letter have had the courage to discuss their rogue actions at a CPO meeting!
“North Molalla CPO letter” (QUOTE FOLLOWS):
“November 13, 2009
Chris Roth
Barbara Smolak
Dan Chandler
Clackamas County
2051 Kaen Road
Oregon City, Oregon 97045
Dear Chris, Barbara, and Dan,
As active members and officers of the Molalla Community Planning Organization, we would like to propose the redrawing of our existing boundaries to create a North Molalla CPO, which would not be part of the proposed Molalla Prairie Hamlet.
We believe our North Molalla region would be better served by a Community Planning Organization for the following reasons:
1. Informal polls of residents of the region north of the City of Molalla have indicated the interest and desire to continue being represented by a CPO instead of a hamlet.
2. As compared with the area of the Molalla CPO south of Molalla, our region contains a large amount of EFU land. This EFU land is growing diverse and productive crops, including livestock, poultry, berries, nursery stock, and hay.
3. As compared to the area of the Molalla CPO south of Molalla, residents of our North Molalla region have dealt with many specific issues concerning agricultural land use, including several proposals to create gravel mines on productive farmland.
4. The proposed hamlet may be larger than the current Molalla CPO boundary. Having a separate CPO in our area would provide for better representation of the concerns of our local citizens.
5. The Molalla CPO has operated effectively for over 9 years and has earned the recognition of the citizens it represents and the respect of the government agencies with which it works.
6. We and other residents of our region have a very different vision and approach to citizen involvement than the individuals involved in the formation of the proposed Molalla Prairie Hamlet. We believe that under this proposed hamlet, our region will lose the respect and trust necessary for effective representation.
7. A major portion of the Molalla CPO located north and northeast of the city of Molalla is now included in Clackamas County’s proposed Rural Reserve Area (RRA.) This proposed RRA will most likely be approved with possibly some minor changes.
This proposed RRA, if approved, would prevent the city of Molalla from expanding its Urban Reserve Area and Urban Growth Boundary northward and northeastward into the Molalla CPO. The proposed Hamlet is not affected by this RRA, and the Hamlet Formation Committee has different priorities and concerns than does that portion of the CPO located north and northeast of the city.
We plan to present this proposal at the Hamlet Formation Committee meeting on Wednesday, November 18th. We ask you to review this proposal so that we can be in compliance with County rules and regulations and to facilitate our interaction with the Hamlet Formation Committee. In particular, we need information about how the CPO boundaries can be redrawn and how the proposed North Molalla CPO can be excluded from the boundaries of the proposed hamlet. We need your input by Tuesday, November 17th so that we can be prepared with accurate information.
Attached is map showing the proposed boundaries of the North Molalla Community Planning Organization. We thank you in advance for your assistance.
And for the final kicker: two days after Gilbert lost the election in late January to be a six year president of the CPO, the same “gang” wrote a whiny letter to the County asking WHY THEY WEREN’T IN THE HAMLET! Go figure!
It sure seems to be all about keeping a strangle hold on power for the “gang of six”, doesn’t it?
The above Damascus story (the entire citizen involvement committee resigns in protest because city hall won’t listen to citizens in the Damascus comp plan process) could have been the story about Molalla – except Molalla is FAR WORSE! Molalla allows a guy who lives in another County to chair “our” planning commission – and then Molalla allows the planning commission, which is solely appointed by the mayor, to serve as both the planning body AND the citizen involvement committee. Not too “local” and not too diverse, if you get “our” picture.
It will be really fun to tear that apart at the County hearings. The County is always head and shoulders ahead of everyone in citizen involvement. Wait till we pull up the letters asking for better chances for input – and pull up all the notices City Councilor Needham posted about the lack of fair citizen involvement opportunities – and point out that the “old” (read current) comp plan states that the bigger the planning process the more the city is SUPPOSED to provide citizen involvement opportunities.
And the LIES TOLD – my favorite is when “lawyer” Chris Crean stood at the first hearing and told the angry crowd that Molalla “HAS TO DO THIS”. That abject LIE set the tone for everything that followed. It was – and is – a TOTAL LIE to claim that puny Molalla, a town of less than 10,000 people, HAS to do a comp plan, let alone do an urban reserve.
Let’s all thank our lucky stars that GREAT LAWYERS are lined up to make a TEST CASE out of the bogus population formula Winter$$$$$$$$$brook made up to try to stack the deck to prove a “need” for 50 yrs of land to the tune of 2,400 acres.
Molalla doesn’t have to do a thing per state land use laws – Molalla wants to do a urban reserve because the good old boy land speculators OWN THE CITY AND THE “LEADERS” who pretend to lead.
And speaking of “having” to do something – I got a funny email (after my THIRD REQUEST!) from plannin’ Potter. He now claims that it will be at least a month before he can submit the supposedly “finished” plans to the County. Gee, what DID the City Council vote to approve if it takes plannin’ dude at least 2 months to finish them there plans? Did the Council know what it was voting for? I’d guess it did NOT.
I’s a sure a hope plannin’ Potter knows whats to a put in all them there blanks so’s them there professional college trained planners at County don’t have to take them there mean ole red pencils and send them there CRAZY AND IDIOTIC plans a back to plannin dude with a mean message like DLCD just did!
Remember – a Clackamas County Commissioner just told me that “Molalla’s won’t be getting the urban reserves, we already told them that TWICE”.
And remember, a Clackamas County planner told a room full of County citizen leaders a few months ago, when asked about Molalla’s urban reserve that “Molalla came in with the plans and it was CRAZY”. (I must say, that is a moment I especially treasure for its naked truth – I was truly stunned that this professional planner would blurt that out to this roomful of leaders. I guess a visit from Molalla plannin’ was so CRAZY that the planner couldn’t think of what else to say – and I know because I have been through three years of Molalla plannin’ CRAZY WORLD).
Too bad CRAZY WORLD isn’t something you can sell. CRAZY isn’t a good marketing tool for Molalla, in case TEAM et all missed that point. People with money to invest tend to look for professional and ethical – “CRAZY” doesn’t cut it when it comes to investments!
So – if only Molalla citizens were lucky enough to even have a real citizen involvement committee! Dream on with the “leaders” Molalla is STUCK WITH! It is so CRAZY here that the outside world just looks on in awe and knows better than to expect much – let alone anything like a real citizen involvement committee.
It is hard to know exactly where to place this excellent article below but “transparency” fits – if we don’t examine our practices and plan quickly for the future “Mother Nature” will bite back – she already has bitten us with Peak Oil and Global Warming!
This article speaks directly to the non- sustainable, head in the sand “plans” for Molalla to grow. Molalla’s disrespect for the need to preserve resources is blatant and disrespect is what is holding the city back – more like killing it. It is far too expensive for infrastructure needed to expand a city – and it is certainly easy to understand that Molalla is in the economic dumps because “Mother Nature’s” timber bank was depleted and never restored, leaving Molalla a ghost town. Current peak oil – the need to drive a long way to jobs – knocks out any “cheaper than” billing for Molalla’s far off the beaten path, failing housing market as well. Molalla needs to clear its collective head and heed this article! Read on:
The Bank of Nature
We have no plan to repay our debts
By Jason Bradford
The following is a condensed version of a talk Jason Bradford, Ph.D. gave at a Food Security Town Hall Feb. 17 (see story 2/25). Bradford is managing director of Vital Farmland LP, a private equity fund based in San Francisco that was created to deliver superior returns for its investors by acquiring conventional farmland and converting it to high-value organic farmland using sustainable agriculture best-practices.
Imagine Mother Nature, in the personified sense. I realize this may be a stretch, but think of her also as a banker, perhaps a matronly Ben Bernanke. Got that image in your head? OK.
Several generations ago our forefathers walk into Bank of Nature and get a loan. Mother Nature approves our loan and offers us plenty of credit. Our ancestors are now endowed with the riches of ancient forests, prolific fisheries, fertile topsoil, clean water, concentrated mineral ores, vast reserves of fossil fuels, and a splendidly stable climate. These assets are the source of our wealth and comfort. Every widget, gizmo and Winnebago produced in our factories, sold in our stores, stuffed in our closets, piled in our landfills and spilled in our waters originated as a loan from Bank of Nature.
Why are we having economic troubles? Because loans also come with debt. While we gleefully liquidated the natural capital loan Mother Nature approved for us, we failed to develop a business plan that could pay back the debt. This ecological debt is the underlying drag on our financial system.
As soon as the economy tries to heat up again, which we like to call increasing demand, it will be capped on the knees by the henchmen Mother Nature hired. She will not extend us any more credit since we have done a poor job with the first loan.
One great protest sign states this succinctly: Nature Doesn’t Do Bailouts. The current policy of all central banks and governments to deal with the financial crisis, which is to essentially create and inject more money into the system, has no chance of success. More money doesn’t solve an ecological debt crisis, because money is a claim on resources and not worth anything by itself.
Oil is Special
Over the recent decades, we have built what is called a globalized economy where materials, labor and services are readily exchanged across the globe. This feat has only been possible due to cheap oil. The cheapness is key. Transportation costs are assumed to be only a small part of doing business.
Some economists have calculated what is called the Goldilocks Zone for oil prices. Below $70 per barrel and it makes no sense for oil companies to explore and develop new supplies, while prices above $80 per barrel lead to a curtailing of demand, basically cutting off prospects for U.S. economic growth. And as mature oil fields deplete, the price to explore and develop new oil wells goes higher than $70 per barrel, essentially locking the U.S. into economic stagnation.
Step back for a moment and think about how potent and special oil is. Oil is highly energy dense and easily portable. A gallon of oil contains enough energy to do the work of hundreds of people simultaneously or a single person for hundreds of hours. You can drive a 4,000 lb. car at great velocity for tens of miles on a gallon of gasoline. Try pushing a car that distance.
Peak oil is simply the point in time when the global supply of oil stops growing. Peak oil is not a theory, but an historic fact for two-thirds of oil producing countries, including the U.S., which peaked in 1970.
What we experience is less supply leading to a spike in prices. High oil prices then choke off economic growth because our globalized economy is structurally reliant on cheap oil. And without economic growth loans are not paid back sufficiently and a financial crisis ensues.
This is essentially what happened between 2005 and 2008. We had a credit bubble because of lax lending policies PLUS a flattening of oil production at the same time.
Connecting to Food Security
What does this have to do with food security? Globalization and cheap energy led to the development of centralized processing and distribution channels, with what is termed just-in-time delivery systems. The typical grocery store only has a three-day supply of food on the shelves, and relies on daily trucking from distance warehouses to restock basic supplies. An oil supply shock would disrupt getting food to stores.
Because of cheap and reliable transportation, it has been possible for entire agricultural regions to become highly specialized in production for export. So the Willamette Valley evolved into a grass seed capital, which replaced a diversified farm economy that contributed significantly to local consumption. Since we no longer have the local farms feeding us, we depend on global trade for basic sustenance.
Farming methods rely on cheap tractor fuel and imported fertilizers. Beyond the farm, energy is used extensively in processing, distribution, storage and cooking. All told, about seven calories of fossil fuel go into each calorie of food we eat.
Modern farming is highly connected to the financial system. A depressed economy makes credit scare. Many farms that are in debt and require bank credit to operate will likely go out of business. And some financing is going to be needed to help farms restructure for the transition towards new crops, new methods, and new markets.
What to Do
As energy flows to society decline, our social systems will become less complex structurally, but our daily lives more complex. We will become less of specialized cogs in a big machine and instead have to take on more diverse, practical, and flexible roles.
The kinds of work we do will shift too. Jobs are going to be more and more about securing basic needs, such as food, water, shelter, health, and security. Fewer paid jobs will be available. This will require people to rely more on the informal economy, which means getting paid through reciprocal exchange relationships. Start by getting to know your neighbors, joining social networks, and developing a few basic skills, such as gardening, bike repair, and inexpensive health care.
This is already the reality for a growing subpopulation of tens of millions of Americans, and most of the 6.7 billion humans on the planet.
The environment is our primary form of wealth. Bank of Nature, not Goldman Sachs or the Federal Reserve, is our master. It is far more important for us to pay back our ecological debts since these are non-negotiable, whereas financial ones are among people and can be forgiven. If you manage public funds, always ask whether allocating money is going to rebuild natural capital or further its liquidation.
I’d like to see community leaders ask people to consider themselves as contributors rather than consumers. We will thrive by creating an ecological identity, which is a deep appreciation for our relatedness and absolute interdependence with other people, other forms of life on this planet, and the fundamental forces of sunshine and geology.
Ultimately we have no choice so let’s not whine and delay. Let’s take it on as a great adventure, a thrilling challenge. Our success or failure is going to hinge on our attitude. We need to take control of the circumstances and become active participants in transition. I can assure you that doing so is tremendously energizing, healthy, and rewarding in so many ways
Here is another true story of your tax dollars at work and here is another example of the way the burden of payment gets shifted by the Molalla area good old boy land owners to the public. Avison used and abused multiple sites around Molalla. Currently Floragon is the “name” on the 100+ acres of “old” Avison mill south of Molalla on the old Forest rd west of Molalla Ave.
For years, DEQ has demanded that the now abandoned site be tested for pollution (as well as poor Bear Creek). Floragon, the most recent (and quite short term user), claimed it was too broke to fund the testing (remember – this is on land long used and profited from by Avison). So now the taxpayers pay a fortune so DEQ can test via a “loan’. Let’s hope that the pollution isn’t so great that the site can’t eventually be sold and re-used so the taxpayers get the money back! How clever of Avison to manage to dodge the bullet since Avison was the actual user/profiteer and likely polluter of all that land!
This is called shifting the burden of responsibility and reminds me of Molalla’s pathetic SDC MILLION DOLLAR waiver. Molalla pumped up non-sustainable residential growth by failing to charge proper residential SDCs for future infrastructure (Molalla, with super low residential SDCs during the “boom”, promoted itself as a bit cheaper if a home buyer would take on the long commute the long commute to job centers).
Now the “growth” has turned to “shrinkage” and people can’t afford to live in a city far from the job centers. So Molalla again shifts the burden by claiming to try to attract jobs via a MILLION DOLLAR SDC waiver – but writes a proposal so weak that it can be twisted to allow it to be applied to more non- sustainable residential growth in the form of apts. And now Molalla is so lacking in infrastructure funds that it is proposing to make neighborhood residents PAY THE CTY BACK if the city can get loans to fix city owned roads. All of that could have been avoided if proper SDCs were applied on all residential and business developments.
So the lessons learned are: Avison rips us off for its pollution and the City rips us off for the short sighted lack of SDCs. And we pay, as taxpayers, for all these loopholes.
Here is the message from DEQ:
“The environmental consultant (PNG) is testing the whole site (approximately 100 acres). The testing is in progress. The consultant has collected initial samples of soil and groundwater and is sharing the information with DEQ and we are directing additional work, as needed.
Our preliminary schedule will produce a report that evaluates the new information for DEQ review by the end of June.
Thanks
Jim Orr
NW Region Cleanup Program
2020 SW 4th Ave. Suite 400
Portland, Oregon 97201
503-229-5039 orr.jim@deq.state.or.us
As Bradwood Landing’s flame out is revealed, the lesson in BANKRUPT SPECULATOR can be further applied to Molalla’s crazy urban reserves. The planning and promotion of urban reserves at the behest of private local land speculators has driven Molalla into deficit spending to the tune of $350,000 by the end of the third quarter. Molalla “borrows” from other tax funded departments to “help” fuel the planning flameout.
Molalla PAYS AND PAYS AND GETS NO RESULT. Like the speculators at Bradwood, the negative feedback piles up but the city refuses to listen. Molalla’s “leaders” don’t get it or are too owned by the local good old boy speculators – or else they would LONG AGO seen the FAILURE writing on the wall and stopped the insanity. Here is how Bradwood’s speculators are ripping off the people of Oregon with over 3 MILLION owed to the state in unsecured debt. The taxpayers of Molalla should be screaming bloody murder over any more public monies wasted on “long range” legally indefensible plannin’ garbage. Read on about NorthernStar’s RIP OFF OF OREGONIANS: (QUOTE):
Behind the Story: NorthernStar and Bradwood Landing’s Bankruptcy Filings
On May 4, 2010, NorthernStar Natural Gas and Bradwood Landing filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy-or total liquidation bankruptcy-in the Southern District of Texas. Bradwood Landing is a subsidiary of NorthernStar.The LNG companies’ bankruptcy filings demonstrate the depth and scope of their debt to many Pacific Northwest companies and government bodies.
For example, Bradwood’s “unsecured creditors”-the creditors who are least likely to recover their money-include Clatsop County ($186,492.70), the Oregon Department of Energy ($3,352.25), the Astoria Rotary Club ($190.00), and law firm Stoel Rives (over $1,000,000). Bradwood Landing’s estimated assets are under $300,000 while their estimated debt is in excess of $21,000,000.
Interestingly, Bradwood Landing saw fit to pay Energy Action Northwest, a special interest group that targeted Columbia Riverkeeper’s efforts to protect the River. In the ninety-days before folding, the LNG companies managed to pay Energy Action Northwest over $76,000, while leaving other bills unpaid. (END QUOTE)
It is happening in Molalla folks – and the out of control spending is now extending to giving over 20% raises to some city employees – what other company or public agency has the gall to RAISE PUBLIC SECTOR SALARIES in the face of the DEPRESSION? Only the nepotism based city of Molalla would be so disrespectful of taxpayers to allow that to happen. How does on get to be part of the MOLALLA HOG FEED INSIDER CLUB? Deficit spending and huge public sector spending on the back of the taxpayers – nice “work” if you can get it!
NorthernStar/Bradwood talked a good line – just like Molalla’s glib propaganda master Atkins tries to do – right till the CRASH. How long till CRUNCH time hits Molalla, too? Sooner or later the shit has to hit the fan. How large will the DEFICIT SPENDING GROW till Molalla’s party is over?
Here is how Molalla does “business” – if you can stand to see how nutty and non- transparent and anti-public information sharing the city really is read this exchange.
Keep in mind that the City is required by DLCD and the County to be the “keeper of records” for the Comp Plan/Urban Reserves and Potter has claimed for months to be “preparing” documents. A public information request was launched 5-10 to view these PUBLIC DOCUMENTS which any competent city would have immediately on hand for public viewing in City Hall. But hey this isn’t an honest or competent city so what’s new?
The sad part is that this kind of stuff KILLS MOLALLA’S FUTURE HOPES TO BE ANYTHING BUT A BACKWATER HICKSVILLE – can you imagine what the “outside world” thinks of places that can’t cough up PUBLIC INFO that any other city would just throw out on the table without any fuss?
Sent: Sat, 15 May 2010 08:38:18 -0800
To: cityrecorder@molalla.net
Subject: FW: RE: Public Records Request – 5/10/10
Sadie: Here are some possibilities for Molalla’s REFUSAL to date to honor a request to see PUBLIC FILES (never forget this sentence from DLCD in the March “return to sender” letter to Potter: “#6 Last you will be the keeper of the record which will include all the City of Molalla and Clackamas County documentation of the Urban Reserve Area action.”).
Check all the following that apply:
1.Potter has prepared nothing and therefore is not telling the truth in Round Ups and in his emails to me about “preparing findings”.
2.You are not telling the truth when you say that you are not “aware” of any documents – what did the City Council pass if you are not “aware” of any documents? If there is ONLY what Council passed than show me that. That will prove that Potter has not told the truth about “preparing findings” if you can’t show me anything but whatever Council passed, but don’t say you are “not aware” of any documents!
3.The City knows its “long range planning” is worthless and therefore won’t be sending it to County for adoption. So again someone is not telling the truth about “preparing findings”.
4.The City know its “planner” is so incompetent that it can’t dare send plans forward to County because the “planner” doesn’t have the skill to prepare the “findings” or to defend them at County hearings.
5.The City knows that it can’t afford to hire the outside consultant and legal help needed to take the “plans” to County – and the City knows it will fail without such help. Since Molalla planning is beyond bankrupt and people are noticing it might be difficult to justify stealing from other funds to float a losing planning boat without inciting a riot.
6.The City is WILLFULLY REFUSING to honor a simple LEGAL public records request and is therefore eager to hear from the Clackamas County DA and perhaps Oregon’s Attorney General who is very interested in such refusals of public information requests – the AG’s public transparency counsel is very accessible and has already heard about the “adventures” in public information requests in Molalla. He will be happy for more “proof” when he goes to the Legislature to mandate even tougher laws about transparency in government.
7. Potter has made such a nasty hash out of the “plans” that the City can’t even put them out for public view.
8. The City wishes to allow citizens the ability to kill the “plans” simply based on failure to honor Goal One (see former email noting State Goal One mandates regarding document/information sharing).
Sincerely
—–Original Message—–
Sent: Fri, 14 May 2010 10:19:41 -0800
To: cityrecorder@molalla.net
Subject: FW: RE: Public Records Request – 5/10/10
—–Original Message—–
Sent: Sat, 15 May 2010 08:01:06 -0800
To: cityrecorder@molalla.net
Subject: RE: Public Records Request – 5/10/10
Dear Sadie, Potter has written and has noted in the Round-Up and directly to me in saved emails that he has been preparing documents and “findings” to send to County for the Comp Plan adoption process. I am AGAIN requesting to come to City Hall to see EVERYTHING assembled to date for the Comp Plan/ Urban Reserve “package” – the “Plans” themselves in their current form and ALL DOCUMENTS Potter has prepared since the City Council’s adoption. Thanks for your help – this should not be taking this amount of time for a planning department that has been allegedly working for MONTHS AND YEARS on these documents. Just put it all out in the conference room as in the past – this is supposed to be a HIGHLY PUBLIC AND TRANSPARENT PROCESS.
I am happy to again forward all Potter’s emails telling me about his “work” to prepare (see below): So Sadie pass on the word that the PUBLIC who is supposed to have access to ALL DOCUMENTS AT ALL STAGES OF PLANNING “WORK” – and now the PUBLIC is asking to see what Potter has been “assembling” – the EXACT STATE OF THE CURRENT DOCUMENTS – ALL OF THEM – RIGHT AWAY WITHOUT ANY FURTHER RUN AROUND. And please don’t make me forward again the document where DLCD clearly states that Molalla Planning is the keep of both City and County documents in the process.
So either you all have thrown everything away or you have a pile of Comp Plan/Urban Reserve Docs plus whatever Potter has claimed to be preparing – put that out for view please asap. My next stop will be the DA. Show me the “format” Potter is assembling per his copious emails below.
Subject: RE: Public Records Request – 5/10/10
I was off yesterday due to having to work today, John was out sick and I was deferred to him by the Planning Department. As soon as I get any info from John, I can forward a response. However, I am unaware of any such items at this time.
As I have stated before we are preparing the application for the county in the format that they desire. Applications involve findings from the jurisdiction in which we are applying. No new findings will be made that the City Council did not vote on we are simply making application in the format and addressing the criteria that the county plan requires us to address for such a land use action. You could receive notice of the city application, at such time the application is made, by contacting the county and requesting to be notified of any actions. They will have a procedure for viewing any and all documents.
Sincerely,
Shane Potter, Planning Director
Subject: FW: RE: RE: plans to county?
—–Original Message—
From: planner@molalla.net
Sent: Fri, 7 May 2010 09:03:37 -0700
Subject: RE: RE: plans to county?
There is an application process which includes findings for the county that we are following. As you are aware there a lot of documents and findings which we made during this process and we are putting them together in the format that the county desires. It is no different than someone making application to the City for a land use action. They would be required to make findings consistent with the cities layout. This is what we are doing with the county at this point. We are putting the finishing touches on our report to the county and will be forwarding it off to them in the short term. I do not have a specific date but again you can request to be notified by the county of any such land use actions that we may follow.
Sincerely,
Shane Potter, Planning Director
Sent: Friday, May 14, 2010 2:44 PM
To: Sadie Cramer
Cc: ‘Shane Potter’; atkins@molalla.net; needham@molalla.net
Subject: RE: Public Records Request – 5/10/10
Sadie, I hope you are prepared to honor your reply below. Friday has almost come and gone. Sincerely,
Subject: Public Records Request – 5/10/10
This is to confirm that I have received your request as of today and I will be in contact with you regarding this request by Friday.
Respectfully,
Sadie Cramer
City Recorder
City of Molalla
503-829-6855 Ext. 291
XXXX NOTE TO PUBLIC – SEE THIS BALONEY BELOW THAT THE CITY POSTS ON EMAILS – THIS NOTICE IS BULL, IS NOT LEGAL AND NEVER BELIEVE IT – CITY HAS BEEN CHALLENGED ON THAT CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE BEFORE AND SHOULD STOP POSTING IT – BUT HEY ITS HICKSVILLE SCOFF LAW MOLALLA SO WHAT DO WE EXPECT):
E-MAIL CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE:
The information contained in this E-mail message and its attachments, if any, may be privileged, confidential and protected from disclosure. This information is the property of the City of Molalla. If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, distribution, reading, or the taking of any action in reliance on or in response to this information (except as specifically permitted in this notice) is strictly prohibited. If you have received this transmission and you are not a named recipient or a person authorized to receive email and email attachments on behalf of a named recipient, or if you think you have received this E-mail message in error, please reply back to the sender
From: cityrecorder@molalla.net
Sent: Sat, 15 May 2010 08:38:56 -0700
To: ————————
Subject: RE: Public Records Request – 5/10/10
——
I was off yesterday due to having to work today, John was out sick and I was deferred to him by the Planning Department. As soon as I get any info from John, I can forward a response. However, I am unaware of any such items at this time.
Sadie
—Original Message—–
Sent: Fri, 14 May 2010 10:19:41 -0800
To: cityrecorder@molalla.net
Subject: FW: RE: Public Records Request – 5/10/10
Dear Sadie, I am expecting a reply to Molalla’s tardy response to what should have been an exceedingly easy to fulfill public records request to view ALL THE CURRENT COMP PLAN PLANNING DOCUMENTS INCLUDING ALL “FINDINGS” OR OTHER FORMS PREPARED IN ANTICIPATION OF SENDING TO COUNTY FOR ADOPTION.
Please note below copied DIRECTLY from DLCD’s Goal One mandates (attached):
“Citizens who have participated in this program shall receive a response from policy-makers. The rationale used to reach land-use policy decisions shall be available in the form of a written record
6. Revision – The general public, through the local citizen involvement programs, should have the opportunity to review and make recommendations on proposed changes in comprehensive land-use plans prior to the public hearing process to formally consider the proposed changes ”
Please furnish me with dates and times to view the requested information. What is the hold up – either there is a file to view or there is not a file to view – it is quite simple. Weeks of Round Up note that “planner” is “preparing” so why is it so difficult to view what has been “prepared”?.
Sincerely,
—–Original Message—–
From: ———————-
Sent: Mon, 10 May 2010 12:24
One has to laugh about how BAD the accountability and transparency issues are in Molalla. And now after I have a laugh at Molalla’s expense I make CERTAIN THAT I INFORM COUNTY AND STATE OFFICIALS ABOUT HOW BAD THE TRANSPARENCY ISSUE IS HERE.
In the past two weeks I have had to go to war against the School District and the Molalla Chamber of Commerce to obtain what should be no brainer public information releases.
In contrast, the staff at Clackamas County bends over backwards to help the public get answers. After I contacted the County regarding the Chamber’s inane refusal for full disclosure on a PUBLIC MONEY GRANT FROM THE COUNTY, the County employee actually THANKED ME verbally and via email for my proactive passion to force hidebound Molalla institutions to become ethical, accountable and transparent.
Then, I called the County tax assessors office to learn about how to find and read the charts that show how much OF OUR TAXES THE CITY OF MOLALLA IS STEALING FOR URBAN RENEWAL. What fun – the COMPETENT AND TRANSPARENT County employees walked me through the website with all those facts and figures boldly posted for all to see! Go County!!!
More to come on that issue of TAX BURDEN SHIFTING via urban renewal as we approach the time to vote on money measures this fall.
Then, those kind employees at the Assessors office directed me to the County Tax Appeal office where another COMPETENT AND PATIENT employee of the County found charts for me that show that property tax appeals are way up – and that the County and cities like Molalla will lose property tax funds as residents and commercial property owners appeal and win reductions in assessed values.
What a change from the IDIOTS in Molalla who think they are running the CIA and can try to hide the FACTS. Thanks, Molalla IDIOTS – in the School District, the City offices, and the Chamber – for providing me with GREAT EXAMPLES for Attorney General Kroger’s TRANSPARENCY IN GOVERNMENT campaign. Nothing could show the need for reform more than the results of public info requests in Molalla!
When the Attorney General’s reps read the compiled emails that result from what should be a simple to fulfill requests to Molalla “institutions” (you know, the places that take our taxes and spend them and want to hide the FACTS about the process!) it makes MOLALLA LIKE LIKE SOMETHING OUT OF THE DARK AGES.
So keep it up Molalla. Keep refusing to be transparent, keep acting like you have something to hide. The whole state gets to see the records of the idIotic refusals and overcharges that every other city, county, and state agency would fork over quickly FOR FREE.
Today’s forward to Kroger included a week’s worth of nutty emails from the “director” of the Molalla Chamber of Commerce. What a joke that she couldn’t quickly cough up the FACTS about the names/process connected with the distribution of a puny $20,000 tourism grant.
This pathetic “director” had to hand carry her silly pile of information to the County because she is too chicken to put the cards out on the table in Molalla.
No wonder no one with any $$$$ or brains starts anything of importance here – with “friends” like the Chamber ‘director” and bozo plannin’ dude POTTER there is NO WAY ANYTHING OF MERIT WILL LOCATE HERE.
And get ready folks – the County Board of Appeals documents (emailed to me on the spot as I chatted with the nice, TRANSPARENT AND ACCOUNTABLE COUNTY REP!) show that as property values drop below assessed values YOU TOO can appeal and win for lower property taxes. Last year there was a big downward adjustment. Look out – because as property values fall that much it will continue to limit the revenue for schools, fire, cities, and all the rest of the services we expect government funds to provide. TOUGH SLEDDING AHEAD WITH NO END IN SIGHT!
Here’s the funniest fact I learned from my transparency campaign to read all documents connected with the “we need a new school” campaign.
It was the survey done in 2006 that CLAIMED that Molalla needed a 37 Million dollar middle school for 800 students – and the voters need to jump on it or the PRICE WOULD GO UP.
Now, over 4 years later, we have the claim that we need a new 700 student, 33 MILLION DOLLAR middle school RIGHT NOW – or the price will go up. And we only have about 550 middle schoolers.
So let’s see – by waiting 4 years, the price and size has GONE DOWN. What baloney comes out of the District. Maybe if we wait four more years the price will drop again – and we certainly know the student census is dropping like a stone.
Aren’t we lucky that voters rejected the 800 student middle school – we’d have been paying to maintain infrastructure – school capacity – that we didn’t need. That’s the danger – overbuilding while virtual learning, charters, home schooling and other means of consolidation take the pressure off the need for new GIANT BUILDINGS WE CAN’T FILL.
The definition of “Fascism” includes the control of information by a central leader – that means that the leader controls the public information so that the people follow blindly.
You can draw your own conclusions about how that above definition fits Molalla due to the newest action by “your” city:
In the past, the minutes from “your” City Council meetings were posted on the city’s website. That way, all citizens could have quick and easy access to public information about all the important decisions the elected officials make on their behalf.
Now, since the election of Mike Clarke as Mayor in November, there are ZERO POSTINGS OF CITY COUNCIL MINUTES ON THE PUBLIC WEBSITE! Citizens are told to go to city hall if they need the minutes!
How can Molalla expect to become competitive with other progressive, well run, local cities which ALL have open, honest and transparent city government?
It is very easy to compare how local cities value their citizens via a quick google search of local websites for Estacada, Silverton, and Sandy.
Estacada, a city with less that half the residents of Molalla, has a fantastic city website. ALL minutes of ALL public meetings are published in detail. The website makes you excited about Estacada – as do the sites for Silverton and Sandy. These sites obviously value their citizens by making city business highly transparent and accessible – UNLIKE MOLALLA.
So, again, why is Molalla so afraid of public information sharing?
What does Molalla wish to hide?
Why can’t Molalla city hall, which is FILLED WITH HIGHLY PAID CITY EMPLOYEES (that YOU pay for!) post City Council minutes on the web like ALL OTHER LOCAL CITIES DO?
Just take a google trip around to these other city websites and draw your own conclusions – if you had to use the information on the website to choose a place to live, a place to locate a business or a place to visit which cities would you choose based on the websites?
Molalla comes in far and away DEAD LAST in those questions per my “visits” to all these other vibrant city websites.
Molalla can’t pretend any longer that it will have any chance to be a viable city if it can’t even compete in the realm of city websites. In today’s world, fast, concise, and honest information sharing is key to a competitive future – and Molalla is falling backward by the day!
What are ALL THOSE HIGHLY PAID “WORKERS” AT CITY HALL DOING?
Why can’t they provide the basic information on the web that EVERY OTHER LOCAL CITY PROVIDES?
Can you afford to pay for that kind of DISRESPECT?
And – most important – what do they have to HIDE if they are too afraid to post a basic, honest, and transparent account of ALL CITY BUSINESS?
Our current worldwide crisis came from lack of accountability, lack of transparency, and “top down” government that refused to honor the needs of the public.
Your taxes to city government should BUY you a stake in the future here – what are “YOUR” CITY WORKERS AND “YOUR” ELECTED OFFICIALS DOING TO HONOR YOUR INVESTMENT – YOUR STAKE – IN MOLALLA’S FUTURE?
Dear Pathetic Taxpayers of Molalla,
We are the HIGHLY PAID CITY WORKERS of Molalla. Let me tell you, this is a fantastic place to work! The city (you taxpayers!) pay us HUGE SALARIES that are far higher then we deserve – far HIGHER than any of you enslaved private sector taxpayers could possibly get! We are so sorry that you can’t get a PORK BARREL job working for the City of Molalla, but unless you know somebody – like the big shot good old boys who run the town and who protect us special city workers and our HUGE salaries – you don’t have a shot!
Molalla runs on NEPOTISM. It is a wonderful system. All you have to do is know the “right people” and bingo! – you get a job with a cool title and a HUGE SALARY! I really love the “cool title” part – they don’t even care if we have the education or training to do the job. Then, once they hang the “cool title” on us, those “leaders” can be pressured to look at how the other local cities pay people with similar “cool titles” and we can get EVEN MORE MONEY!
Please, please don’t tell anyone that those people working in other cities get those “cool titles” and salaries based on performance and education – we wouldn’t want anyone looking too closely at that. And, for sure, never, ever let it get out that we all get to have OUR ENTIRE HEALTH BENEFIT PACKAGE paid for by you dumb taxpayers!
So, you clueless and pathetic taxpayers, thanks so much for looking the other way about how Molalla is run. We “cool title” city workers sure hope you are all working overtime on your sad private sector jobs, because it is costing more and more to keep the Molalla NEPOTISM afloat. We need your money badly and we could never get this kind of FREE RIDE anywhere else, so keep those bucks coming!
And never, ever complain about our INCOMPETENCE and HUGE SALARIES. I know other cities have professional planners, city managers who respect the public, competent clerks, and websites that clearly post all public information. But since we run on NEPOTISM, there is little chance of anything professional happening here anytime soon.
So don’t go to our Molalla website looking for honest information because we are either too lazy, too incompetent or have too much too hide to post PUBLIC information there! We wouldn’t want you reading about the City Council actions, or the Budget Committee actions, or the Urban Renewal actions because you taxpayers might start to notice the dumb and corrupt stuff we do and – God forbid! – OBJECT AND REVOLT!
We certainly wouldn’t want you to read about the insane back biting and fussing about ‘LEAKS’ that seems to take up most of the City Council’s time. You might figure out that the Council is often more interested in KEEPING SECRETS FROM THE PUBIC than working to make Molalla a successful and vibrant city. Even we wonder sometimes what that crazy Council is worried about hiding – after all, isn’t the Council supposed to be working for ALL THE PEOPLE of Molalla?
We are a bit amazed that the MOLALLA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE looks the other way about all of NEPOTISM AND INCOMPETENCE. Maybe the Chamber is so hooked up with the good old boys that it doesn’t dare to complain that Molalla is in the Dark Ages compared to the way local, successful cities are run?
Maybe the Chamber is just happy spinning its wheels and watching Molalla continue its sad, downward spiral? We certainly don’t care what happens to you PATHETIC TAXPAYERS or about the FUTURE of Molalla, as long as Molalla NEPOTISM PROTECTS OUR HUGE SALARIES, UNHEARD OF BENEFITS, AND OUR UNDESERVED “COOL TITLES”.
Keep up the great work, you DUMB TAXPAYERS. We hope we don’t BLEED YOU COMPLETELY DRY! Like vampires, we feed on you to stay alive!
Laughing all the way to the bank,
MOLALLA CITY EMPLOYEES
URGENT MESSAGE! CRIMINALS COMING TO STEAL JOBS FROM HONEST CITIZENS!
The council is approving a plan for slave prison labor to come to WORK HERE – TO STEAL CITY WORKER JOBS!
What do you think about that – couldn’t you or your children use a JOB HERE?
Tell the city not to use SLAVE LABOR!
Gee – Molalla City Hall might be setting RECORDS for how often citizens have to contact the County District Attorney to view simple PUBLIC DOCUMENTS!
Be aware Molalla – City Hall is taking lessons from North Korea on how to suppress public interaction. Maybe that is where the City Recorder went for “training”?
I am now almost on a first name basis with the DA. If anyone out there knows how to register Molalla City Hall for an award for the most paranoid, most secret, or most interfaces with the District Attorney over PUBLIC INFORMATION, let me know as I am keeping a running “tab”of outrageous suppression of PUBLIC RECORDS.
Take a look at the next year budget that is at the library for Molalla.
Look for the SDC accounting for past years for sewers, roads, parks, etc.
What you will find is a bunch of columns of zeros for all the boom years. What happened to ALL THOSE PUBLIC FUNDS that are, by law, supposed to be accounted for EACH CALENDAR YEAR?
Did the city “forget” to collect them from developers?
Did “plannin” fail to impose the fees – or did “plannin” simply make “special deals” with developers for “in kind” work so no real money EVERY GOT ACCOUNTED FOR?
Silverton, at the drop of a hat, forwarded YEARS of detailed accounting for all their system development charges.
Molalla had to be contacted by the Clackamas County DA when it failed to honor a request to see past accounting for SDC’s – now it is apparent why it took months to produce even bogus numbers – because there are no records!
How can anyone pay taxes to a city that can’t account for YEARS OF PUBLIC FUNDS THAT BY LAW ARE SUPPOSED TO BE ACCOUNTED FOR EACH YEAR IN DETAIL – and those funds are, by law, supposed to be used only for the funds they were collected for – like park SDC’s to parks.
The park fund is a JOKE – how sad that people looked the other way while “someone” allowed the funds to disappear. Where oh where could all those $$$$$$$$$’s be? Years and years of SDC $$$$$$$$$’s unaccounted for!!!!!
Hey – speaking of transparency – has anyone heard a word out of the supposed “leaders” of Molalla lately about the state of the city? What DO those pathetic “elected” folks do – or are they all incapable of picking up a pen or hitting a computer key and telling us all how great a job they are doing?
Oh, I get it – maybe they are SILENT because they aren’t doing such a hot job for Molalla – otherwise they would be communicating via letters, op-eds, town halls, etc to keep us all informed about the state of the City.
How about it Mayor Clarke and your band of mute followers – how about some words of wisdom to assure us that we live in a place where “leaders” actually know how to speak and write and think – REAL LEADERS have opinions and REAL LEADERS share their opinions freely.
The SILENCE is deafening.
I found a funny statement on the Molalla River Alliance website. City Manager John Atkins is one of a two person “outreach ” committee to promote the Molalla River. One of the goals of this two person committee is stated as follows:
“Distinguishing cultural, economic and political influences which may contribute threats to, or may enhance opportunities for, the Molalla River;”
I wonder if Atkins/Molalla River Alliance have ever heard of the concept of CONFLICT OF INTEREST?
How can the City Manager of a SPRAWL HUNGRY TOWN that pipes wastewater INTO THE RIVER, that has no valid interest in producing a detailed Goal 5 NATURAL RESOURCES REPORT or in protecting said resources, that is the most scoff law “pollution is traditional” (quote Ex- Mayor Tom Foster) city around, and that sees prime resource land as nothing but fit for the bulldozers for more ill-planned, parkless developments, even PRETEND with a straight face to be working on looking at “cultural, economic, and political threats” to the River?
How can the Alliance pretend that Molalla has any interest in anything but EXPLOITING the fragile resource that is the River? How can the Alliance pretend that Molalla’s growth dreams are anything but an EXTREME threat to ALL of the Molalla River, which is an eco system supported by lands and water features that cover many miles on all sides of the actual corridor?
It seems extremely disingenuous to give this obvious toss- off publicity shot to Atkins when Molalla has treated local lands and water ways as nothing but a sewer system/dump for years. Get the pipe out of the River, stop spraying waste water that is polluting ground water, show respect for ALL OUR NATURAL RESOURCES, tear up the Urban Reserves/UGB expansion plans, take care of the city problems, reform SDC’s so there is some MONEY to fix leaking and crumbling infrastructure and build CITY parks, Atkins – and then maybe someone could take your “outreach” seriously.
Respect has to be a two way street – and putting “Atkins” next to a statement like the one above while allowing the insane Urban Reserve map to stand shows what baloney this “outreach” really is. And when does the “Alliance” get the guts to weigh in on the Urban Reserves – or doesn’t it have the courage to contest that outrageous and outlandish city proposal to ultimately destroy 2,200 acres of prime resource lands while Molalla ignores 100′s of acres of brownfields and crumbling infrastructure – is it all about “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours”? Or “I’ll look the other way if you’ll play nice”?
Hasn’t the City of Molalla already EXPLOITED the local environment enough for a century? The future of the Molalla River should not be proffered as a publicity stunt for Atkins.
Oregon League of Conservation Voters (OLCV) rates “our” Rep “Vickie” Gilliam at a miserable 25% on the environment – but he is surpassed by the nasty 10% rating given to “our” Senator Fred Girod. I guess those big bucks polluters and foreign fossil fuels shills know whose palms to grease.
There was a fascinating story in the 9-27-09 Oregonian “After years in Oregon politics, Thornes find way home” about Mike, a former state senator, and his wife Jill Thorne.
My interest was on Jill’s activism in Pendleton, first on the urban renewal issues there, and then on a quest for transparency in government records.
After conflict in Pendleton regarding use of urban renewal funds, Jill launched into a huge search of public records, “spending 50 hours combing through 10,000 public documents”.
Her search “revealed that the minutes of Pendleton city Council and Development Commission meetings sometimes didn’t square with audiotapes”.
The conflict in Pendleton is ongoing. It was wonderful to read that citizens all around the state are looking city government square in the face and calling attention to the horrible lapses – or worse – that are rampant in government.
When I attended the LCDC Citizen’s Advisory meeting in Salem to outline the atrocities in “process” and citizen involvement in Molalla’s abusive plannin’ hearings and to hand deliver 6 local citizen’s accounts of their outrage over the lack of respect for citizen involvement in Molalla, I learned That LCDC is hard at work to improve citizen involvement. Molalla certainly has provided the perfect model of WHAT NOT TO DO.
In the months of trying to obtain information from Molalla regarding grants, comp plan files, and other public information, and after reading what is supposed to pass as written minutes after attending meetings in person, I believe the problems Ms Thorne is addressing in her city are the same as the ones we face with Molalla city government. If push comes to shove on important issues, it will be fascinating to compare the autio tapes to what the plannin’ dept has tried to pass off as written minutes. Ditto for most Council meetings.
Censorship is an anathema to honest, transparent public process. Inaccurate minutes, coupled with Molalla’s inability to account for years of SDC funds (where, oh, where are all the monies that SHOULD have been collected and accounted for each year?) point to a highly flawed government that seeks to morph the records to make them more “palatable”. Minutes disappear from websites in Molalla, and minutes to date never get corrected, even when citizens complain.
Let’s hope that this “inaccuracy” doesn’t come back to bite the city in the future. I guess the “inaccuracy” relates directly to the fact that the Council, Mayor, and City Manager much prefer to meet in closed door sessions. What do YOU know about Molalla City government – not much likely, since silence and doctored minutes are the way of the City.
Wow – look out – our FANTASTIC ATTORNEY GENERAL JOHN KROGER is reforming the public records laws. Check out the link below – note especially the end of the article where there is a great quote about ending the ability of cities to charge “punitive amounts ” for public records requests! Gee – are your ears burning City of Molalla? Get that part about “punitive amounts”?
Kroger means business – what a fantastic advocate for transparent government!
Read the story here:
http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2009/12/kroger_appoints_public_records.html
Let’s give a year end “THANKS” to “molallablog” for providing a forum for transparency, accountability and citizen participation in the Molalla area. Great job “molallablog” for starting this forum – over 31,000 hits in a box canyonville like Molalla shows that you were wise to post this for our community!
THANKS for your civic work, “molallablog” – we wouldn’t be connected without you. Great job! You have proved we are a diverse community and that we don’t have to think and act like a herd of sheep.
“I’m periodically criticized for an “angry” tone in my writing, which I always find mystifying. I genuinely don’t understand why anger should be avoided or even how it could be. What other reaction is possible when one looks around and sees the government leaders who committed these grave crimes completely unburdened by any accountability and treated as respectable dignitaries, or watches the Tom Friedmans, Jeffrey Goldbergs, Fred Hiatts and other unrepentent leading media propagandists who helped enable it still feted as Serious and honest experts, or beholds the current Cabinet and Senate filled with people who supported it, or observes the Michael O’Hanlons and Les Gelbs and other Foreign Policy Community luminaries who lent trans-partisan credence to it all continue to traipse around still pompously advocating for more wars that never touch their lives?” Glenn Greenwald Jan 29, 2010
If I inserted “past Molalla CPO leaders” or “most of Molalla City leaders” where it says “government” and added, after grave crimes “like deliberately withholding information, refusing to allow public debate to hear both sides of an issue, protecting an insular insider trading “personal cred” club instead of promoting diverse voices, failing to empower others, and attempting to disfranchise members” Glenn could have been speaking about the “old” Molalla CPO or most of Molalla “government”.
Change is thankfully at least afoot in the CPO – but when change doesn’t happen and the rights of citizens to fairly participate in any public group – city planning hearings, CPO meetings, anything that should welcome diverse voices and debate – then all that can and should be expected is ANGER AND OUTRAGE.
And, if “leaders” can’t deal with the ANGER AND OUTRAGE they engender when they refuse to engage in debate they’d better heed that great old saying,” If you can’t take the heat then get out of the kitchen”.
Or, as Warren Zevon said, “If you can’t take the punches then it don’t mean a thing”.
Let’s all give a loud hand for FREE SPEECH! And let’s boot false “leaders” who fail to empower others, who hide public information and who fail to at least listen to all sides!
I had to laugh about a op-ed in the Pioneer this week about pipelines/ LNG and political handouts.
The op-ed writer is very late to the LNG game and failed miserably to understand the scope of how much money “our” State Rep Gilliam has taken from the natural gas speculators.
If the op-ed writer had followed the issue closely for the PAST THREE YEARS and had read the recent piles of LNG info coming on the internet from NO LNG groups, he would have known that the $3,000ish handout to Rep Gilliam from NW Nasty Gas Corp. is a total drop in the bucket.
The REAL NUMBERS are far higher: dear “Vickie” Gilliam has, to date, lined his pockets with OVER $17,000 COMBINED FROM ALL THE NATURAL GAS LOBBY FORCES. And therefore that makes Gilliam the SECOND HIGHEST RECIPIENT OF GAS LOBBY MONEY IN THE OREGON HOUSE.
To miss that “OVER $17,000 TO GILLIAM FACT” in any local article decrying the LNG/pipeline speculators is pathetic! Writer, do your research or ask an expert on the subject to write it instead. Where were you all the years that informed citizens were researching and sending out LNG FACTS and providing PIPELINE/LNG FACTS at the CPO?
So next time I urge op-ed writers in the Pioneer to write on issues they have been closely aligned with – otherwise they end up looking like naive, self serving politicians themselves. Either follow issues IN DEPTH or leave the commentary to the people who are actually doing the hard work to stop these abusive LNG/pipeline projects.
After all, the world is already filled with self -serving “want-a-be” political dilettantes – and the world is far worse for it!
I am looking for “leaders” who can lead with IN DEPTH FACTS. We have all been duped long enough with “half the story” or “no story” or “my spin story” by “want–a-be leaders”. Give us the REAL FACTS and then we’ll make up OUR OWN MINDS.
Leadership should not be about self aggrandizement or power hogging – real leaders work tirelessly to empower as many citizens as possible to think for themselves. To do that you need to get the FACTS STRAIGHT.
Congratulations to Bob McCallister, the newly elected President of the Molalla CPO.
After working closely with Bob for months on the hamlet formation committee, I have come to immensely respect Bob’s interest in fair process. Bob understands the dire need for grassroots community groups to maintain non-partisanship so they can carry diverse opinions forward to policy makers
It will be exciting to see the CPO finally move forward on the bylaw/policy reform. Members begged for bylaw/policy reform over the last several months and the County counsel demanded reforms in an October letter. With bylaw/policy reform there should never again be the opportunity for CPO “leaders’ to creep behind closed doors to make partisan decisions or to attempt to disenfranchise members with dissenting views.
Good work Bob – please lead us forward so the Molalla “Community Planning Organization” can finally begin to supply information to all COMMUNITY members in a fair and timely manner. Then, wouldn’t it be great if the “Community Planning Organization” actually started to sit down at meetings to discuss actual PLANNING proposals? That is what CPOs were designed to do.
After looking over minutes from other County CPOs, it is apparent that Molalla hasn’t been getting full service out of the past CPO incarnation – other CPOs actually supply members with County planning notices and, as a group, send input back to the County. The former CPO leadership failed miserably at forwarding County notices to members.
Everyone pays taxes to Clackamas County to fund the County CPO staff liaison, to fund citizen involvement oversight, and to fund the planning department’s staff to forward planning notices. With Bob as the CPO leader I have every confidence that I will finally get my “County information sharing” money’s worth!
Community members with interest in planning issues should give the new “Bob” CPO a try. The CPO will welcome everyone and be very eager to hear what YOU have to say! It is time for all sides to be heard – we can’t move ahead until diversity is respected in our community.
The “new” CPO and its work should dovetail well with the work of the Hamlet of Molalla Prairie, given they are both designed to provide a grassroots, non-partisan voice to rural citizens.
If you have concerns about local land use, come to a CPO meeting or get in touch with Bob – everyone is welcome! If you want to work with committed community members on issues other than local land use planning, come to the Hamlet informational meeting on Feb 10, 7pm at the Molalla library. Applications to serve on the Hamlet board will be at the meeting
Here (below) is great work from our Attorney General John Kroger. The public is encouraged to make written or oral comments at a group of hearings all around the state about transparency in government: “if you have complaints about how a particular public body has handled a public information request…” Wow! I sure have some complaints and now I know I voted for the best Attorney General.
Thanks for a chance to tell about my adventures in “public information” with a certain “public body”! I’ll be there with bells on.
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
February 22, 2010
Dear Oregonians,
Thank you again for signing up to attend one or more of the Attorney General’s Government Transparency Initiative public meetings. The purpose of these meetings is for the public to offer input on how to improve Oregon’s government transparency laws. If you have complaints about how a particular public body has handled a public records request or public meetings issue in the past, we would appreciate such complaints in writing.
We are specifically seeking input on the following topics:
* Accelerating government response to public records requests
* Reforming the fee structure to remove impediments to the public’s access to government records
* Ensuring that exemptions from disclosure are appropriate
* Improving the accessibility of public meetings
Comments on other issues related to Oregon Public Records and Public Meetings laws are also welcome.
We will try to make sure that everyone who wants to testify gets a chance. Therefore, we ask that you please limit your testimony to 2 minutes. We also encourage you to submit your testimony in writing. In the event of high attendance, this will ensure that your voice is heard.
Comment cards will be available at the meetings.
We look forward to seeing many of you at the first meeting, 6:00pm on Wednesday at the Salem Public Library. Thank you for sharing your thoughts about shining more sunlight on Oregon government.
Government Transparency Initiative
A Public Meeting and Discourse
February 24, 2010, 6:00 pm
Salem Public Library, 585 Liberty Street SE, Salem, 97301
This event is the first in a series of public meetings around the state sponsored by:
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Additional dates include:
PORTLAND
March 31, 2010, 6:00 pm
George S. Turnbull Center, 70 NW Couch St., Portland, OR 97209
BEND
April 8, 2010, 6:00 pm
Bend Public Library, 601 NW Wall St, Bend OR 97701
EUGENE
May 5, 2010, 6:00 pm
Location TBA
PENDLETON
Details TBA
MEDFORD
Details TBA
Quick Links
DOJ Web Site
Sign Up for the Scam Alert Network
File a Consumer Complaint
I attended Attorney General John Kroger’s first transparency hearing in Salem on Feb 24 (see above for info about getting involved).
What an inspiring AG! Kroger has assembled a government transparency team and a state website to take public comments for 6 months. Kroger recognizes that our pubic records laws must be made workable so that all citizens have fair access to public information – public information that we own, that we pay for via taxes. All input will help ensure that our laws work and that the next legislature can be informed of needed changes.
In Salem, for over an hour and a half, citizen after citizen went to the mike to tell personal stories about public records abuses and public meetings abuses. We testified about the need for a definition of “timely” for agencies/government to share records, we talked about how over charging for public information is used as a weapon to discourage public information access, we talked about needing to call the district attorney in our counties to force cities to comply with requests, and we talked about public meetings where police were used to try to intimidate dissenting citizens from participating in public meetings (as in a CPO meeting in Molalla and a school board meeting in Estacada).
For those of us concerned with Goal One (citizen involvement), open records, open meetings rules, and our Constitutional rights to free speech, Kroger’s work represents light a the end of a long dark tunnel. We collectively realized that the abuses in public information sharing and public meetings we had suffered as individuals were rampant problems – and we took heart that Kroger is now aware and committed to fixing those abuses.
Kroger and a group called Open Oregon have begun to make the laws on public records and public meetings easily available to all. The huge public meetings rule book is now posted online. Open Oregon has two free user friendly booklets that clearly outline what public records/ public meetings rules mean to citizens. Simply google “Open Oregon” and request the free booklets on public meetings and public information.
It was fascinating to learn the rules about the high degree of detail that is REQUIRED in minutes of public meetings and to learn that if a quorum of public officials is present at a “retreat” the retreat is subject to public meetings laws. In other words, writing minutes with vague descriptions like “time was spent clearing the air” won’t pass muster with pubic meeting laws.”Retreats” to distant cities by City Council can’t be hidden from public record.
From the FACTS presented in these booklets and at the forum it is very apparent that a number of local bodies – like the City Council, City Hall, and even the Molalla CPO – need to carefully review the public information/public meetings rules before they get in further hot water over scoff law meetings and poor public information procedures.
Kroger means business! Seldom have I seen a public official as focused on reform as Kroger is. Oregon citizens and Oregon journalists should forward all and any personal stories about abuses of public meeting laws and public transparency laws to Kroger’s team. They are working to assure Oregonians have the most transparent government the law allows. And that extends to City Council, City government and any public meetings, like school board and CPO meetings, that fall under the public meetings/public records laws.
I suggest anyone connected with public meetings and public information carefully read the laws that govern public bodies. Transparency isn’t just a cute word or empty dream in Oregon – AG Kroger is giving it some sharp teeth. I think with will be easier to start complying with the letter of the law than suffer a “bite” from Kroger!
One of my favorite parts of the Open Oregon “Public Meetings Laws” booklet outlines Minutes of public meetings(Quote):
“Minutes must indicate:
1.Members present
2. All motions, proposals, resolutions, orders, ordinances and measures proposed and their disposition
3.The result of all votes by name of each member (except for public bodies consisting of more than 25 members) No secret ballots are allowed.
4. The substance of discussion on any matter (*SUBSTANCE – *caps/comments mine – SUBSTANCE HAS BEEN MISSING FROM A NUMBER OF LOCAL MEETINGS!)
5. A reference to any document discussed at the meeting” (End quote).
This guide notes that minutes must be available in a “reasonable time” – generally not to exceed three weeks.
The booklet on Public Meetings outlines examples of the VERY narrow criteria for “executive sessions”. It further notes that ” A county commission’s goal-setting retreat (listen up, Molalla!) is a public meeting if a quorum is present and they discuss official business”.
I’d say public meetings and public information sharing are due for a lot of fixin’ in the Molalla area! Go team Kroger, go Oregon citizen whistle blowers!
http://www.oregonlive.com/clackamascounty/index.ssf/2010/02/clackamas_man_exerci
ses_free_s.html
Here is a link to a funny story about free speech. I admire this guy for taking a stand. Every time an attempt is made to take way First Amendment rights Americans slide down a slippery slope until finally we will all be marching to the tune of some noxious little old grey haired grade school teacher shaking her bogus moral codes in our faces and calling the cops on us every time we run afoul of her phony “respect” rant.
Maybe we will all have to “act up” to prove once and for all what free speech is all about! It certainly isn’t about what the cops “like” or how some repressed old lady “wishes” we would act or talk according her rigid Sunday school standards.
Free Speech is one of the most important symbols in America – use it or lose it!
GOOD NEWS! We’ll have a horse race this election because Dr. Rodney Orr of Silverton has stepped up to challenge Rep Vic Gilliam – see you at the debates and election forums! It is time for EVERYONE TO ASK THE HARD QUESTIONS ABOUT VOTING RECORDS AND OUR GOVERNMENT:
Dr. Rodney Orr Announces House Run Focusing on Rebuilding Rural Oregon Economy
Family practice physician Dr. Rodney Orr announced he’s running for the Oregon House of Representatives in District 18.
“My medical practice has been a good training ground for running for office,” said Dr. Orr. “I have the privilege of getting to know people from all walks of life — farmers, small business people, college kids. Their hopes are my hopes and their worries keep me up at night too.”
Dr. Orr’s top priority is making sure that Oregon’s small towns get the economic help they need to rebuild their economies. “Life in Oregon’s small towns has been getting tougher and tougher over the last few years and it’s time that our economies are as much of a priority for the Legislature as Portland is,” said Orr. “Silverton, Molalla, and every other small town in Oregon have plenty of talented, hardworking people. With the right investments, our local economies can blossom again.”
As a doctor, Orr also has a unique perspective on how to make health care more affordable. After decades of seeing medical emergencies wreck his patients’ finances, Dr. Orr places reducing costs at the top of his health care agenda.
Dr. Rodney Orr has been a family practice physician for thirty years. He received his medical training at OHSU and family practice residency at Northern Colorado Medical Center. Dr. Orr was born and raised in Oregon and lives in Silverton with his Wife Dr. Shandra Greig and has four children.
OPEN LETTER CALLING FOR REFORM OF WASTE IN PLANNING PROCESS:
To: sen.fredgirod@state.or.us, rep.marynolan@state.or.us, rep.brianclem@state.or.us, rep.davehunt@state.or.us, rob.hallyburton@state.or.us
Subject: WASTE IN STATE PLANNING PROCESS
Dear Senator Girod,
I read your statement about waste in government and your comments about this legislative session that was posted on the Oregon Legislative Newsletter.
I have a great way you could work to eliminate abject waste. Tiny cities of under 10,000, like Molalla, don’t have a legal need to do “periodic review” like cities over 10,000, which do regular periodic review of their comp plans under the supervision of DLCD and with deadlines to meet.
In the case of Molalla, which has been “trying” to doing voluntary comp plan updates since at least 2006, there are no DLCD mandates and no deadlines for legally defensible “plans” to be submitted. The result of that opened ended practice for cities like Molalla (of under 10,000 people) is years and years of legally indefensible content. Such indefensible content has been fostered by years and years of city and state taxpayer monies wasted on public grants for “planning” which then resulted in years and years of agency time (ODOT and DLCD) wasted on telling Molalla the “plans” are not defensible.
And the “result” of all those years and years of wasted agency comments and wasted taxpayer monies? Molalla will soon likely send a pile of legally indefensible content on to the financially strapped Clackamas County Planning Dept for more waste of public money. Molalla’s “plans” include being the first ever in the state to propose “equestrian big lot estates” within the city limits. Molalla will also ask for 2,200 acres of “urban reserves” for a dying ill planned city of about 7,000 people!
I am a County resident who has closely tracked the OPEN ENDED WASTE of public monies during the YEARS AND YEARS of this absurd opened ended “process”. I highly resent the waste of public grants and agency spent to comment back and forth for years on version after version of garbage planning – “planning” produced by an unprofessional “planning director” with no college education solely to try to please a few greedy good old boy local land speculators. Don’t our agencies and our money have better uses than to have to comment on EIGHT VERSIONS of legally indefensible “plans” over 4+ years?
Please start work now to reform this opened ended “process” in land use. I believe that any city that desires help via our public monies for planning grants and feedback from agencies like DLCD and ODOT needs to have the same focused deadlines as the cities over 10,000. Our state can’t afford opened ended plannin’ to go on forever like the Ground Hog Day mess we have been subjected to in Molalla.
I am quite serious about this fantastic opportunity for money saving reform. I hope you look into this problem before more public monies are wasted on a “version 9 – version infinity” in Molalla, a town that can’t afford to build a sidewalk let alone produce infrastructure for “big lot equestrian estates”!
Here is a fantastic blog response to the Oregonian article about a Clackamas man who has filed a federal lawsuit for the right to express himself by flipping off police officers. I wish I could shake the hand of blogger “jonescat”! I couldn’t have said it better myself about some of the pathetic “play nice” old lady school teachers in Molalla trying to dictate behavior and language. Go “jonescat”:
Posted by jonescat/ Oregonlive
March 01-2010 5:05AM
Rights trump feelings, period. We have a right to express ourselves, even if others find it offensive or rude. People nowadays are so into not hurting others feelings that they have become over sensitized and are turning into children.
People need to grow up, recognize that freedom is the fundamental issue here, not feelings. A Constitutional right is just that. A right. A right is objective. Feelings are subjective. Fairness and justice rely on objectivity, not petty emotions.”
Since I was unable to attend Attorney General Kroger’s second transparency in government forum in Portland on Wednesday, I was happy that a couple of friends were able to send reports.
In Portland, over 250 people attended the forum to outline problems with obtaining public records and problems with fair conduct of public meetings. The meeting ran overtime because over half of the attendees gave on the record testimony about their problems with meetings and public records.
One person suggested that the Attorney General’s office become more involved with the public record process. Many of us who have experienced game playing/over charges from cities like Molalla (which apparently often wishes to hide records) now intend to submit evidence of our requests directly to the AG office. There then can be no question of “timely” or any quibbling about what “fair” charges represent. I expect that the AG’s office will get their eyes opened when they see that cities attempt to stop public access to simple documents by charging through the nose for “staff” time.
In Molalla, many of us have seen that when “staff” of the caliber of plannin’ Potter is retained, the city tries to charge usurious prices for public information based on incompetent “staff” time. When a city chooses to hire and retain “staff” that is not skilled at the given task, the case will be made in the future that the public can’t be punished via high costs for information that other, professional city staff can produce quickly for free. In other words, it is extremely easy to spot check with other cities – honest, well run, transparent cities – to see what similar public information would cost. Then it will be very easy to document any untimely or usurious charges directly to the AG.
Case in point in Molalla: A recent request was made to see a document(s) that Potter submitted in late 2006/early 2007 to DLCD in an attempt to jam through a “new” comp plan. The DLCD wrote a detailed letter many pages long on Feb 5, 2007 in response to whatever document(s) Potter submitted. When asked for that submitted document the city tried to claim that it would take TWO AND A HALF HOURS OF POTTER’S TIME TO PRODUCE THE DOCUMENT(S) FOR PUBLIC VIEWING!!!
That kind of game playing will be great fodder for Kroger – the usual “Potter” time/cost amounts to $80 for just about anything the public asks for the that city doesn’t want the public to see.
Anyone with interest in improving our public transparency should take a look at Kroger’s work. Google “Oregon Dept of Justice” and look for the Transparency links. Document your experiences and concerns directly to the AG’s office.
If you fail to follow through then you have no excuse for complaining about bad government. We have an advocate for open government in Attorney General Kroger and he is waiting to hear about your experiences in obtaining public records. He is also investigating the conduct of pubic meetings. Everything is PUBLIC – from the lowly CPO’s to the School Boards to the City Councils to the city administrations to the State agencies – they are all under AG Kroger’s microscope.
Oregonians own the desks, the paper, the computers, the buildings and we pay for the state and local staff – so we OWN THE INFORMATION THEY PRODUCE.
Public debate and fair public process is essential to democracy. Kroger is an extremely powerful advocate for open government. I celebrate that!
COP AT MOlALLA: THE TRUE STORY
Now that the the Molalla CPO has a new president, who is working to provide open and fair meeting structure, the true story about the noxious behind the scenes attempts by former “leader” Jim Gilbert and current secretary Fran Taylor to suppress free speech and citizen participation at the “old” Molalla CPO can be told in detail.
Starting in the summer of 09, members of the CPO grew tired of “president” Gilbert’s attempts to write positions and push agendas without the fair input of members.
In August, without detailed research, the CPO voted to allow Gilbert to write a letter to the county asking for a change in code enforcement policy because Gilbert had noticed that he couldn’t force the removal of a neighbor’s mfg home.
Code policy had a priority list which had a cut off date of ten years – if a temporary mfg home had been installed with proper permits and no one complained within ten years, to save money the county wouldn’t enforce removal because the county felt the mfg. home would eventually decay and be removed anyway.
In a last minute hasty move, the CPO approved that a letter could be written asking for a policy change. After the letter was written, Gilbert left the county and said that secretary Fran Taylor could chair the Sept CPO meeting in his absence.
Susan Hansen, a member in good standing, had immediate misgivings about this hasty move by the CPO. Upon researching code policy with a great county enforcement rep, Dean Brown, Hansen concluded that code enforcement priorities were a good thing for taxpayers. It was apparent after research that the priorities were in effect so that code enforcement could go after violations that could affect safety and health. It was also apparent that our county – and our taxpayers – could not afford to force the enforcement and removal of every petty “need” – like Gilbert’s interest in forcing the removal of a permitted mfg. home that couldn’t even be seen from Gilbert’s residence.
Hansen wrote a detailed account of her research and notified Fran Taylor WELL IN ADVANCE of the Sept CPO meeting that Hansen wished to be included on the agenda to discuss her findings about the code enforcement policy issues. Hansen believed that the CPO had not done adequate research before Gilbert forced what seemed to be a personal agenda issue to change the county policy.
Days before the CPO meeting, a CPO board member informed Hansen that Taylor was attempting to poll board members to “postpone” Hansen’s agenda item. Hansen strongly objected to the county, to Taylor, and to Gilbert via email. The county confirmed to Hansen that Taylor was flapping around trying to get permission to refuse an agenda item to a member of good standing at a public meeting sponsored by the county. The county told Taylor she had no grounds to refuse to let Hansen speak.
Hansen further objected to the polling of the CPO “board” because for months the “board” had been in violation of the bylaws – the “board” failed to have a full roster of members and the “board” included people who were in clear violation of the rule that “board” members must either attend meetings or be dismissed from the “board”.
In Hansen’s observation (and in the words of “president Gilbert”) the CPO had become a “personal cred” (Gilbert’s words) club pushing the limited personal agendas of 3-4 people. The “board” was clearly a sham board due to the lack of attendance of certain “board” members.
Hansen arrived at the Sept Molalla CPO meeting at the library and was met on the sidewalk by a Molalla policewoman. Hansen asked the policewoman if there was an emergency at the library. The Molalla policewoman replied “No, I am on my break”. Hansen walked into the meeting with the policewoman following her. The policewoman watched as Hansen signed the attendance sheet and remained watching for most of the meeting.
Taylor’s agenda noted “postponed” next to Hansen’s agenda item, but Hansen, knowing the rules about free speech and public meetings, successfully presented her report to the CPO.
After the meeting, and for weeks to come, Taylor/Gilbert refused to acknowledge their actions regarding the COP AT CPO. Hansen and members of the CPO, including Taylor/Gilbert, attempted mediation but Hansen’s position was and is that this cowardly PUBLIC ACT to try to use public safety officers to suppress free speech/fair participation at a county sanctioned forum was a PUBLIC ISSUE. Hansen steadfastly refused to sign any confidentially agreements unless and until the truth about this noxious incident was told to the CPO at an open meeting.
Taylor finally admitted to what she had done at the Nov. CPO meeting – that she called the COP TO CPO because she didn’t like the angry content of an email Hansen sent to Gilbert while he was in Russia trying to keep Hansen off the CPO agenda. No threats were made, Hansen simply said in no uncertain terms to “president ” Gilbert that Hansen would use her rights to speak at a public meeting.
So the Molalla police spent public monies to send a COP to CPO because a retired school teacher didn’t like the content of a “I will speak at CPO” email that wasn’t even addressed to her!!
That is the kind of public meeting abuse that Attorney General Kroger is working hard to stop. That is the kind of abuse of police “services” we should all be concerned about stopping. That is an abuse of free speech First Amendment rights in America! Be glad that there wasn’t a REAL emergency that night – and be aware that it is ok for COPS to lie!
In spite of a clear outline of that COP at CPO story at the Nov. CPO meeting (a meeting that included a great deal of outrage directed at the fake “board” and at the “officers” who consistently failed to honor resolutions by the membership), Taylor, as “secretary” of CPO has failed to ever write these FACTS into the CPO minutes.
That failure to document FACTS in the minutes of the CPO is yet another example of the need for Kroger’s reforms – minutes of public meetings are required to include the SUBSTANCE of meetings. Taylor’s interest in censorship produced minutes of the angry Nov. blowout meeting that said something pathetic like “the CPO cleared the air”.
Taylor is a master of “polite” evasion of FACTS. She seems to believe the world of adult debate must be reduced to grade school pap. Free speech/transparency demands officers who are neutral reporters of FACTS, even if the FACTS aren’t “polite”.
We are currently lucky that Gilbert was not re-elected as president. The current struggle is to reform the CPO bylaws. The greatest need is to open the CPO up to instant membership/instant voting for everyone who lives within the CPO boundaries.
The CPO, though it has little real power, still has the ability to weigh in on land use issues and can appeal county rulings for free. Rural citizens in the greater Molalla area represented by the CPO should take immediate interest in this issue. Bylaws will be discussed in May (watch the Pioneer for notice) and perhaps voted on in June.
The current rule that membership/voting rights occur only AFTER a person has attended one previous meeting in a calendar year, means that YOU might have a planning issue that comes up quickly and if YOU wished to raise the issue at CPO YOU would not have membership voting rights at your first meeting.
Planning issues can arise quickly – do YOU want a handful of people deciding YOUR issue at CPO without the right for YOU AND YOUR AFFECTED NEIGHBORS to vote on YOUR issue?
The Molalla CPO has pushed issues for years with the same tiny group deciding for the greater Molalla area. Isn’t it time to make sure that YOUR property rights aren’t decided by a handful of people?
I think the COP at CPO story needs to be a lesson for Molalla citizens – you need to know what groups represent you, you need to know your rights to participate in those groups, and you need to be sure that your rights to participate are as easy as walking into a meeting and signing a sheet to confirm that you live in the area represented by the group.
Short of that, you might be the next one followed into a public meeting by a COP because YOUR dissenting ideas don’t conform with the agenda a handful of “leaders”
are pushing.
It is something to think about, isn’t it?
To follow up on the need for citizens within the boundaries of the Molalla CPO to take an interest in reforming the voting policies of the Molalla CPO to stop the long term abuse of power by a handful of local people who have no interest in empowering our diverse community, here is another story and document to share.
As the handful of signers of the following letter – long term supposed “leaders” and members with their own limited agendas – realized last summer that other local citizens were sincere in their efforts to empower diverse voices, they began a behind the scenes campaign to form their “own” little CPO.
The obvious intent was to preserve their strangle hold on the “a” CPO to have a partisan force with the same “leaders” forever in place to dictate their personal agendas.
The most telling part of the following letter, which is public record at the County, is that the people writing and signing as “officers and members” of the Molalla CPO NEVER VETTED THIS LETTER WITH THE CPO MEMBERS OR THE REST OF THE CPO BOARD IN ADVANCE OF SENDING TO THE COUNTY.
Further, they were upset when the County released the letter out of concern that other Board members of the CPO had not been consulted!
Again, this pattern of abuse of power is the reason rural citizens in the Molalla area need to take interest in the voting/membership rules of the CPO.
The members who voted to oust Jim Gilbert as president in January have an earnest interest in creating a CPO that welcomes all citizens and listens to all concerns. We are working to demand that all actions by officers – especially by the “president” – will be fully vetted and approved by members before any letters like the following document get sent.
At the end of Gilbert’s “presidency”, he continued to ignore the member’s resolutions that official CPO letters needed to be fully vetted As noted in a former post, “secretary” Fran Taylor continues to impose her censorship tactics by refusing to post accurate, detailed minutes which reflect the true substance of the discussions and concerns.
It is overdue to reform the CPO. We are off to a great start with new president Bob McCallister, a local leader who knows how important it is to follow meeting rules so that all citizens have equal opportunities to participate in public meetings.
Our taxes go to County programs that provide a vast array of opportunities for citizen participation. Sadly, under the “rule” of Gilbert, members of the CPO never heard about these opportunities. With McCallister as president we finally are starting to see the proper flow of information to all members.
The “gang of 6″ who signed the below letter would like to keep the CPO an insider trading club. If you live in the rural areas north of Molalla and wonder why boundaries were drawn as they were, note the letter below where it is claimed the this tiny group of six “knows” via “informal polls” what their neighbors want.
DO THEY REALLY SPEAK FOR YOU?
Luckily, the County rules don’t allow CPO borders to be re-drawn in the manner suggested. The Molalla CPO is empowered to comment on local land use issues. Better oversight is in place in the form of a CPO board and officers who are interested in being fair and accountable to members.
Think hard – does this “gang of six” sound like they would like to work WITH YOU? Or should you be concerned and demand that the CPO switch to open membership/open voting just in case YOU need to weigh in on a land use issue?
You and your neighbors should be the primary force if a land use concern comes to your “neighborhood”. Be sure to become involved so the “gang of 6″ doesn’t impose its will on your property rights!
This isn’t the kind of “leadership” that leads to transparent government and accountability. To date, none of the signers of this letter have had the courage to discuss their rogue actions at a CPO meeting!
“North Molalla CPO letter” (QUOTE FOLLOWS):
“November 13, 2009
Chris Roth
Barbara Smolak
Dan Chandler
Clackamas County
2051 Kaen Road
Oregon City, Oregon 97045
Dear Chris, Barbara, and Dan,
As active members and officers of the Molalla Community Planning Organization, we would like to propose the redrawing of our existing boundaries to create a North Molalla CPO, which would not be part of the proposed Molalla Prairie Hamlet.
We believe our North Molalla region would be better served by a Community Planning Organization for the following reasons:
1. Informal polls of residents of the region north of the City of Molalla have indicated the interest and desire to continue being represented by a CPO instead of a hamlet.
2. As compared with the area of the Molalla CPO south of Molalla, our region contains a large amount of EFU land. This EFU land is growing diverse and productive crops, including livestock, poultry, berries, nursery stock, and hay.
3. As compared to the area of the Molalla CPO south of Molalla, residents of our North Molalla region have dealt with many specific issues concerning agricultural land use, including several proposals to create gravel mines on productive farmland.
4. The proposed hamlet may be larger than the current Molalla CPO boundary. Having a separate CPO in our area would provide for better representation of the concerns of our local citizens.
5. The Molalla CPO has operated effectively for over 9 years and has earned the recognition of the citizens it represents and the respect of the government agencies with which it works.
6. We and other residents of our region have a very different vision and approach to citizen involvement than the individuals involved in the formation of the proposed Molalla Prairie Hamlet. We believe that under this proposed hamlet, our region will lose the respect and trust necessary for effective representation.
7. A major portion of the Molalla CPO located north and northeast of the city of Molalla is now included in Clackamas County’s proposed Rural Reserve Area (RRA.) This proposed RRA will most likely be approved with possibly some minor changes.
This proposed RRA, if approved, would prevent the city of Molalla from expanding its Urban Reserve Area and Urban Growth Boundary northward and northeastward into the Molalla CPO. The proposed Hamlet is not affected by this RRA, and the Hamlet Formation Committee has different priorities and concerns than does that portion of the CPO located north and northeast of the city.
We plan to present this proposal at the Hamlet Formation Committee meeting on Wednesday, November 18th. We ask you to review this proposal so that we can be in compliance with County rules and regulations and to facilitate our interaction with the Hamlet Formation Committee. In particular, we need information about how the CPO boundaries can be redrawn and how the proposed North Molalla CPO can be excluded from the boundaries of the proposed hamlet. We need your input by Tuesday, November 17th so that we can be prepared with accurate information.
Attached is map showing the proposed boundaries of the North Molalla Community Planning Organization. We thank you in advance for your assistance.
Sincerely,
Jim Gilbert, President, Molalla CPO
Fran Taylor, Secretary, Molalla CPO
Bill Taylor, member, Molalla CPO
Laurie Freeman Swanson, member, Molalla CPO
Champ Vaughn, member, Molalla CPO
Lorraine Gardner, member, Molalla CPO ”
(END LETTER QUOTE)
And for the final kicker: two days after Gilbert lost the election in late January to be a six year president of the CPO, the same “gang” wrote a whiny letter to the County asking WHY THEY WEREN’T IN THE HAMLET! Go figure!
It sure seems to be all about keeping a strangle hold on power for the “gang of six”, doesn’t it?
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2010/04/kroger_aims_to_recharge_citize.html
http://www.oregonlive.com/clackamascounty/index.ssf/2010/04/damascus_advisory_committee_me.html
This might as well be a story on Molalla
The above Damascus story (the entire citizen involvement committee resigns in protest because city hall won’t listen to citizens in the Damascus comp plan process) could have been the story about Molalla – except Molalla is FAR WORSE! Molalla allows a guy who lives in another County to chair “our” planning commission – and then Molalla allows the planning commission, which is solely appointed by the mayor, to serve as both the planning body AND the citizen involvement committee. Not too “local” and not too diverse, if you get “our” picture.
It will be really fun to tear that apart at the County hearings. The County is always head and shoulders ahead of everyone in citizen involvement. Wait till we pull up the letters asking for better chances for input – and pull up all the notices City Councilor Needham posted about the lack of fair citizen involvement opportunities – and point out that the “old” (read current) comp plan states that the bigger the planning process the more the city is SUPPOSED to provide citizen involvement opportunities.
And the LIES TOLD – my favorite is when “lawyer” Chris Crean stood at the first hearing and told the angry crowd that Molalla “HAS TO DO THIS”. That abject LIE set the tone for everything that followed. It was – and is – a TOTAL LIE to claim that puny Molalla, a town of less than 10,000 people, HAS to do a comp plan, let alone do an urban reserve.
Let’s all thank our lucky stars that GREAT LAWYERS are lined up to make a TEST CASE out of the bogus population formula Winter$$$$$$$$$brook made up to try to stack the deck to prove a “need” for 50 yrs of land to the tune of 2,400 acres.
Molalla doesn’t have to do a thing per state land use laws – Molalla wants to do a urban reserve because the good old boy land speculators OWN THE CITY AND THE “LEADERS” who pretend to lead.
And speaking of “having” to do something – I got a funny email (after my THIRD REQUEST!) from plannin’ Potter. He now claims that it will be at least a month before he can submit the supposedly “finished” plans to the County. Gee, what DID the City Council vote to approve if it takes plannin’ dude at least 2 months to finish them there plans? Did the Council know what it was voting for? I’d guess it did NOT.
I’s a sure a hope plannin’ Potter knows whats to a put in all them there blanks so’s them there professional college trained planners at County don’t have to take them there mean ole red pencils and send them there CRAZY AND IDIOTIC plans a back to plannin dude with a mean message like DLCD just did!
Remember – a Clackamas County Commissioner just told me that “Molalla’s won’t be getting the urban reserves, we already told them that TWICE”.
And remember, a Clackamas County planner told a room full of County citizen leaders a few months ago, when asked about Molalla’s urban reserve that “Molalla came in with the plans and it was CRAZY”. (I must say, that is a moment I especially treasure for its naked truth – I was truly stunned that this professional planner would blurt that out to this roomful of leaders. I guess a visit from Molalla plannin’ was so CRAZY that the planner couldn’t think of what else to say – and I know because I have been through three years of Molalla plannin’ CRAZY WORLD).
Too bad CRAZY WORLD isn’t something you can sell. CRAZY isn’t a good marketing tool for Molalla, in case TEAM et all missed that point. People with money to invest tend to look for professional and ethical – “CRAZY” doesn’t cut it when it comes to investments!
So – if only Molalla citizens were lucky enough to even have a real citizen involvement committee! Dream on with the “leaders” Molalla is STUCK WITH! It is so CRAZY here that the outside world just looks on in awe and knows better than to expect much – let alone anything like a real citizen involvement committee.
It is hard to know exactly where to place this excellent article below but “transparency” fits – if we don’t examine our practices and plan quickly for the future “Mother Nature” will bite back – she already has bitten us with Peak Oil and Global Warming!
This article speaks directly to the non- sustainable, head in the sand “plans” for Molalla to grow. Molalla’s disrespect for the need to preserve resources is blatant and disrespect is what is holding the city back – more like killing it. It is far too expensive for infrastructure needed to expand a city – and it is certainly easy to understand that Molalla is in the economic dumps because “Mother Nature’s” timber bank was depleted and never restored, leaving Molalla a ghost town. Current peak oil – the need to drive a long way to jobs – knocks out any “cheaper than” billing for Molalla’s far off the beaten path, failing housing market as well. Molalla needs to clear its collective head and heed this article! Read on:
The Bank of Nature
We have no plan to repay our debts
By Jason Bradford
http://www.eugeneweekly.com/2010/04/22/views2.html
The following is a condensed version of a talk Jason Bradford, Ph.D. gave at a Food Security Town Hall Feb. 17 (see story 2/25). Bradford is managing director of Vital Farmland LP, a private equity fund based in San Francisco that was created to deliver superior returns for its investors by acquiring conventional farmland and converting it to high-value organic farmland using sustainable agriculture best-practices.
Imagine Mother Nature, in the personified sense. I realize this may be a stretch, but think of her also as a banker, perhaps a matronly Ben Bernanke. Got that image in your head? OK.
Several generations ago our forefathers walk into Bank of Nature and get a loan. Mother Nature approves our loan and offers us plenty of credit. Our ancestors are now endowed with the riches of ancient forests, prolific fisheries, fertile topsoil, clean water, concentrated mineral ores, vast reserves of fossil fuels, and a splendidly stable climate. These assets are the source of our wealth and comfort. Every widget, gizmo and Winnebago produced in our factories, sold in our stores, stuffed in our closets, piled in our landfills and spilled in our waters originated as a loan from Bank of Nature.
Why are we having economic troubles? Because loans also come with debt. While we gleefully liquidated the natural capital loan Mother Nature approved for us, we failed to develop a business plan that could pay back the debt. This ecological debt is the underlying drag on our financial system.
As soon as the economy tries to heat up again, which we like to call increasing demand, it will be capped on the knees by the henchmen Mother Nature hired. She will not extend us any more credit since we have done a poor job with the first loan.
One great protest sign states this succinctly: Nature Doesn’t Do Bailouts. The current policy of all central banks and governments to deal with the financial crisis, which is to essentially create and inject more money into the system, has no chance of success. More money doesn’t solve an ecological debt crisis, because money is a claim on resources and not worth anything by itself.
Oil is Special
Over the recent decades, we have built what is called a globalized economy where materials, labor and services are readily exchanged across the globe. This feat has only been possible due to cheap oil. The cheapness is key. Transportation costs are assumed to be only a small part of doing business.
Some economists have calculated what is called the Goldilocks Zone for oil prices. Below $70 per barrel and it makes no sense for oil companies to explore and develop new supplies, while prices above $80 per barrel lead to a curtailing of demand, basically cutting off prospects for U.S. economic growth. And as mature oil fields deplete, the price to explore and develop new oil wells goes higher than $70 per barrel, essentially locking the U.S. into economic stagnation.
Step back for a moment and think about how potent and special oil is. Oil is highly energy dense and easily portable. A gallon of oil contains enough energy to do the work of hundreds of people simultaneously or a single person for hundreds of hours. You can drive a 4,000 lb. car at great velocity for tens of miles on a gallon of gasoline. Try pushing a car that distance.
Peak oil is simply the point in time when the global supply of oil stops growing. Peak oil is not a theory, but an historic fact for two-thirds of oil producing countries, including the U.S., which peaked in 1970.
What we experience is less supply leading to a spike in prices. High oil prices then choke off economic growth because our globalized economy is structurally reliant on cheap oil. And without economic growth loans are not paid back sufficiently and a financial crisis ensues.
This is essentially what happened between 2005 and 2008. We had a credit bubble because of lax lending policies PLUS a flattening of oil production at the same time.
Connecting to Food Security
What does this have to do with food security? Globalization and cheap energy led to the development of centralized processing and distribution channels, with what is termed just-in-time delivery systems. The typical grocery store only has a three-day supply of food on the shelves, and relies on daily trucking from distance warehouses to restock basic supplies. An oil supply shock would disrupt getting food to stores.
Because of cheap and reliable transportation, it has been possible for entire agricultural regions to become highly specialized in production for export. So the Willamette Valley evolved into a grass seed capital, which replaced a diversified farm economy that contributed significantly to local consumption. Since we no longer have the local farms feeding us, we depend on global trade for basic sustenance.
Farming methods rely on cheap tractor fuel and imported fertilizers. Beyond the farm, energy is used extensively in processing, distribution, storage and cooking. All told, about seven calories of fossil fuel go into each calorie of food we eat.
Modern farming is highly connected to the financial system. A depressed economy makes credit scare. Many farms that are in debt and require bank credit to operate will likely go out of business. And some financing is going to be needed to help farms restructure for the transition towards new crops, new methods, and new markets.
What to Do
As energy flows to society decline, our social systems will become less complex structurally, but our daily lives more complex. We will become less of specialized cogs in a big machine and instead have to take on more diverse, practical, and flexible roles.
The kinds of work we do will shift too. Jobs are going to be more and more about securing basic needs, such as food, water, shelter, health, and security. Fewer paid jobs will be available. This will require people to rely more on the informal economy, which means getting paid through reciprocal exchange relationships. Start by getting to know your neighbors, joining social networks, and developing a few basic skills, such as gardening, bike repair, and inexpensive health care.
This is already the reality for a growing subpopulation of tens of millions of Americans, and most of the 6.7 billion humans on the planet.
The environment is our primary form of wealth. Bank of Nature, not Goldman Sachs or the Federal Reserve, is our master. It is far more important for us to pay back our ecological debts since these are non-negotiable, whereas financial ones are among people and can be forgiven. If you manage public funds, always ask whether allocating money is going to rebuild natural capital or further its liquidation.
I’d like to see community leaders ask people to consider themselves as contributors rather than consumers. We will thrive by creating an ecological identity, which is a deep appreciation for our relatedness and absolute interdependence with other people, other forms of life on this planet, and the fundamental forces of sunshine and geology.
Ultimately we have no choice so let’s not whine and delay. Let’s take it on as a great adventure, a thrilling challenge. Our success or failure is going to hinge on our attitude. We need to take control of the circumstances and become active participants in transition. I can assure you that doing so is tremendously energizing, healthy, and rewarding in so many ways
DEQ FLORAGON/AVISON TESTING FOR POLLUTION
Here is another true story of your tax dollars at work and here is another example of the way the burden of payment gets shifted by the Molalla area good old boy land owners to the public. Avison used and abused multiple sites around Molalla. Currently Floragon is the “name” on the 100+ acres of “old” Avison mill south of Molalla on the old Forest rd west of Molalla Ave.
For years, DEQ has demanded that the now abandoned site be tested for pollution (as well as poor Bear Creek). Floragon, the most recent (and quite short term user), claimed it was too broke to fund the testing (remember – this is on land long used and profited from by Avison). So now the taxpayers pay a fortune so DEQ can test via a “loan’. Let’s hope that the pollution isn’t so great that the site can’t eventually be sold and re-used so the taxpayers get the money back! How clever of Avison to manage to dodge the bullet since Avison was the actual user/profiteer and likely polluter of all that land!
This is called shifting the burden of responsibility and reminds me of Molalla’s pathetic SDC MILLION DOLLAR waiver. Molalla pumped up non-sustainable residential growth by failing to charge proper residential SDCs for future infrastructure (Molalla, with super low residential SDCs during the “boom”, promoted itself as a bit cheaper if a home buyer would take on the long commute the long commute to job centers).
Now the “growth” has turned to “shrinkage” and people can’t afford to live in a city far from the job centers. So Molalla again shifts the burden by claiming to try to attract jobs via a MILLION DOLLAR SDC waiver – but writes a proposal so weak that it can be twisted to allow it to be applied to more non- sustainable residential growth in the form of apts. And now Molalla is so lacking in infrastructure funds that it is proposing to make neighborhood residents PAY THE CTY BACK if the city can get loans to fix city owned roads. All of that could have been avoided if proper SDCs were applied on all residential and business developments.
So the lessons learned are: Avison rips us off for its pollution and the City rips us off for the short sighted lack of SDCs. And we pay, as taxpayers, for all these loopholes.
Here is the message from DEQ:
“The environmental consultant (PNG) is testing the whole site (approximately 100 acres). The testing is in progress. The consultant has collected initial samples of soil and groundwater and is sharing the information with DEQ and we are directing additional work, as needed.
Our preliminary schedule will produce a report that evaluates the new information for DEQ review by the end of June.
Thanks
Jim Orr
NW Region Cleanup Program
2020 SW 4th Ave. Suite 400
Portland, Oregon 97201
503-229-5039
orr.jim@deq.state.or.us
As Bradwood Landing’s flame out is revealed, the lesson in BANKRUPT SPECULATOR can be further applied to Molalla’s crazy urban reserves. The planning and promotion of urban reserves at the behest of private local land speculators has driven Molalla into deficit spending to the tune of $350,000 by the end of the third quarter. Molalla “borrows” from other tax funded departments to “help” fuel the planning flameout.
Molalla PAYS AND PAYS AND GETS NO RESULT. Like the speculators at Bradwood, the negative feedback piles up but the city refuses to listen. Molalla’s “leaders” don’t get it or are too owned by the local good old boy speculators – or else they would LONG AGO seen the FAILURE writing on the wall and stopped the insanity. Here is how Bradwood’s speculators are ripping off the people of Oregon with over 3 MILLION owed to the state in unsecured debt. The taxpayers of Molalla should be screaming bloody murder over any more public monies wasted on “long range” legally indefensible plannin’ garbage. Read on about NorthernStar’s RIP OFF OF OREGONIANS: (QUOTE):
Behind the Story: NorthernStar and Bradwood Landing’s Bankruptcy Filings
On May 4, 2010, NorthernStar Natural Gas and Bradwood Landing filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy-or total liquidation bankruptcy-in the Southern District of Texas. Bradwood Landing is a subsidiary of NorthernStar.The LNG companies’ bankruptcy filings demonstrate the depth and scope of their debt to many Pacific Northwest companies and government bodies.
For example, Bradwood’s “unsecured creditors”-the creditors who are least likely to recover their money-include Clatsop County ($186,492.70), the Oregon Department of Energy ($3,352.25), the Astoria Rotary Club ($190.00), and law firm Stoel Rives (over $1,000,000). Bradwood Landing’s estimated assets are under $300,000 while their estimated debt is in excess of $21,000,000.
Interestingly, Bradwood Landing saw fit to pay Energy Action Northwest, a special interest group that targeted Columbia Riverkeeper’s efforts to protect the River. In the ninety-days before folding, the LNG companies managed to pay Energy Action Northwest over $76,000, while leaving other bills unpaid. (END QUOTE)
It is happening in Molalla folks – and the out of control spending is now extending to giving over 20% raises to some city employees – what other company or public agency has the gall to RAISE PUBLIC SECTOR SALARIES in the face of the DEPRESSION? Only the nepotism based city of Molalla would be so disrespectful of taxpayers to allow that to happen. How does on get to be part of the MOLALLA HOG FEED INSIDER CLUB? Deficit spending and huge public sector spending on the back of the taxpayers – nice “work” if you can get it!
NorthernStar/Bradwood talked a good line – just like Molalla’s glib propaganda master Atkins tries to do – right till the CRASH. How long till CRUNCH time hits Molalla, too? Sooner or later the shit has to hit the fan. How large will the DEFICIT SPENDING GROW till Molalla’s party is over?
Here is how Molalla does “business” – if you can stand to see how nutty and non- transparent and anti-public information sharing the city really is read this exchange.
Keep in mind that the City is required by DLCD and the County to be the “keeper of records” for the Comp Plan/Urban Reserves and Potter has claimed for months to be “preparing” documents. A public information request was launched 5-10 to view these PUBLIC DOCUMENTS which any competent city would have immediately on hand for public viewing in City Hall. But hey this isn’t an honest or competent city so what’s new?
The sad part is that this kind of stuff KILLS MOLALLA’S FUTURE HOPES TO BE ANYTHING BUT A BACKWATER HICKSVILLE – can you imagine what the “outside world” thinks of places that can’t cough up PUBLIC INFO that any other city would just throw out on the table without any fuss?
Sent: Sat, 15 May 2010 08:38:18 -0800
To: cityrecorder@molalla.net
Subject: FW: RE: Public Records Request – 5/10/10
Sadie: Here are some possibilities for Molalla’s REFUSAL to date to honor a request to see PUBLIC FILES (never forget this sentence from DLCD in the March “return to sender” letter to Potter: “#6 Last you will be the keeper of the record which will include all the City of Molalla and Clackamas County documentation of the Urban Reserve Area action.”).
Check all the following that apply:
1.Potter has prepared nothing and therefore is not telling the truth in Round Ups and in his emails to me about “preparing findings”.
2.You are not telling the truth when you say that you are not “aware” of any documents – what did the City Council pass if you are not “aware” of any documents? If there is ONLY what Council passed than show me that. That will prove that Potter has not told the truth about “preparing findings” if you can’t show me anything but whatever Council passed, but don’t say you are “not aware” of any documents!
3.The City knows its “long range planning” is worthless and therefore won’t be sending it to County for adoption. So again someone is not telling the truth about “preparing findings”.
4.The City know its “planner” is so incompetent that it can’t dare send plans forward to County because the “planner” doesn’t have the skill to prepare the “findings” or to defend them at County hearings.
5.The City knows that it can’t afford to hire the outside consultant and legal help needed to take the “plans” to County – and the City knows it will fail without such help. Since Molalla planning is beyond bankrupt and people are noticing it might be difficult to justify stealing from other funds to float a losing planning boat without inciting a riot.
6.The City is WILLFULLY REFUSING to honor a simple LEGAL public records request and is therefore eager to hear from the Clackamas County DA and perhaps Oregon’s Attorney General who is very interested in such refusals of public information requests – the AG’s public transparency counsel is very accessible and has already heard about the “adventures” in public information requests in Molalla. He will be happy for more “proof” when he goes to the Legislature to mandate even tougher laws about transparency in government.
7. Potter has made such a nasty hash out of the “plans” that the City can’t even put them out for public view.
8. The City wishes to allow citizens the ability to kill the “plans” simply based on failure to honor Goal One (see former email noting State Goal One mandates regarding document/information sharing).
Sincerely
—–Original Message—–
Sent: Fri, 14 May 2010 10:19:41 -0800
To: cityrecorder@molalla.net
Subject: FW: RE: Public Records Request – 5/10/10
—–Original Message—–
Sent: Sat, 15 May 2010 08:01:06 -0800
To: cityrecorder@molalla.net
Subject: RE: Public Records Request – 5/10/10
Dear Sadie, Potter has written and has noted in the Round-Up and directly to me in saved emails that he has been preparing documents and “findings” to send to County for the Comp Plan adoption process. I am AGAIN requesting to come to City Hall to see EVERYTHING assembled to date for the Comp Plan/ Urban Reserve “package” – the “Plans” themselves in their current form and ALL DOCUMENTS Potter has prepared since the City Council’s adoption. Thanks for your help – this should not be taking this amount of time for a planning department that has been allegedly working for MONTHS AND YEARS on these documents. Just put it all out in the conference room as in the past – this is supposed to be a HIGHLY PUBLIC AND TRANSPARENT PROCESS.
I am happy to again forward all Potter’s emails telling me about his “work” to prepare (see below): So Sadie pass on the word that the PUBLIC who is supposed to have access to ALL DOCUMENTS AT ALL STAGES OF PLANNING “WORK” – and now the PUBLIC is asking to see what Potter has been “assembling” – the EXACT STATE OF THE CURRENT DOCUMENTS – ALL OF THEM – RIGHT AWAY WITHOUT ANY FURTHER RUN AROUND. And please don’t make me forward again the document where DLCD clearly states that Molalla Planning is the keep of both City and County documents in the process.
So either you all have thrown everything away or you have a pile of Comp Plan/Urban Reserve Docs plus whatever Potter has claimed to be preparing – put that out for view please asap. My next stop will be the DA. Show me the “format” Potter is assembling per his copious emails below.
Sincerely
—–Original Message—–
From: cityrecorder@molalla.net
Sent: Sat, 15 May 2010 08:38:56 -0700
Subject: RE: Public Records Request – 5/10/10
I was off yesterday due to having to work today, John was out sick and I was deferred to him by the Planning Department. As soon as I get any info from John, I can forward a response. However, I am unaware of any such items at this time.
Sadie
—-Original Message
From: planner@molalla.net
Sent: Fri, 7 May 2010 09:20:46 -0700
Subject: RE: RE: RE: plans to county?
As I have stated before we are preparing the application for the county in the format that they desire. Applications involve findings from the jurisdiction in which we are applying. No new findings will be made that the City Council did not vote on we are simply making application in the format and addressing the criteria that the county plan requires us to address for such a land use action. You could receive notice of the city application, at such time the application is made, by contacting the county and requesting to be notified of any actions. They will have a procedure for viewing any and all documents.
Sincerely,
Shane Potter, Planning Director
Subject: FW: RE: RE: plans to county?
—–Original Message—
From: planner@molalla.net
Sent: Fri, 7 May 2010 09:03:37 -0700
Subject: RE: RE: plans to county?
There is an application process which includes findings for the county that we are following. As you are aware there a lot of documents and findings which we made during this process and we are putting them together in the format that the county desires. It is no different than someone making application to the City for a land use action. They would be required to make findings consistent with the cities layout. This is what we are doing with the county at this point. We are putting the finishing touches on our report to the county and will be forwarding it off to them in the short term. I do not have a specific date but again you can request to be notified by the county of any such land use actions that we may follow.
Sincerely,
Shane Potter, Planning Director
Sent: Friday, May 14, 2010 2:44 PM
To: Sadie Cramer
Cc: ‘Shane Potter’; atkins@molalla.net; needham@molalla.net
Subject: RE: Public Records Request – 5/10/10
Sadie, I hope you are prepared to honor your reply below. Friday has almost come and gone. Sincerely,
—–Original Message—–
From: cityrecorder@molalla.net
Sent: Mon, 10 May 2010 13:10:27 -0700
Subject: Public Records Request – 5/10/10
This is to confirm that I have received your request as of today and I will be in contact with you regarding this request by Friday.
Respectfully,
Sadie Cramer
City Recorder
City of Molalla
503-829-6855 Ext. 291
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From: cityrecorder@molalla.net
Sent: Sat, 15 May 2010 08:38:56 -0700
To: ————————
Subject: RE: Public Records Request – 5/10/10
——
I was off yesterday due to having to work today, John was out sick and I was deferred to him by the Planning Department. As soon as I get any info from John, I can forward a response. However, I am unaware of any such items at this time.
Sadie
—Original Message—–
Sent: Fri, 14 May 2010 10:19:41 -0800
To: cityrecorder@molalla.net
Subject: FW: RE: Public Records Request – 5/10/10
Dear Sadie, I am expecting a reply to Molalla’s tardy response to what should have been an exceedingly easy to fulfill public records request to view ALL THE CURRENT COMP PLAN PLANNING DOCUMENTS INCLUDING ALL “FINDINGS” OR OTHER FORMS PREPARED IN ANTICIPATION OF SENDING TO COUNTY FOR ADOPTION.
Please note below copied DIRECTLY from DLCD’s Goal One mandates (attached):
“Citizens who have participated in this program shall receive a response from policy-makers. The rationale used to reach land-use policy decisions shall be available in the form of a written record
6. Revision – The general public, through the local citizen involvement programs, should have the opportunity to review and make recommendations on proposed changes in comprehensive land-use plans prior to the public hearing process to formally consider the proposed changes ”
Please furnish me with dates and times to view the requested information. What is the hold up – either there is a file to view or there is not a file to view – it is quite simple. Weeks of Round Up note that “planner” is “preparing” so why is it so difficult to view what has been “prepared”?.
Sincerely,
—–Original Message—–
From: ———————-
Sent: Mon, 10 May 2010 12:24
One has to laugh about how BAD the accountability and transparency issues are in Molalla. And now after I have a laugh at Molalla’s expense I make CERTAIN THAT I INFORM COUNTY AND STATE OFFICIALS ABOUT HOW BAD THE TRANSPARENCY ISSUE IS HERE.
In the past two weeks I have had to go to war against the School District and the Molalla Chamber of Commerce to obtain what should be no brainer public information releases.
In contrast, the staff at Clackamas County bends over backwards to help the public get answers. After I contacted the County regarding the Chamber’s inane refusal for full disclosure on a PUBLIC MONEY GRANT FROM THE COUNTY, the County employee actually THANKED ME verbally and via email for my proactive passion to force hidebound Molalla institutions to become ethical, accountable and transparent.
Then, I called the County tax assessors office to learn about how to find and read the charts that show how much OF OUR TAXES THE CITY OF MOLALLA IS STEALING FOR URBAN RENEWAL. What fun – the COMPETENT AND TRANSPARENT County employees walked me through the website with all those facts and figures boldly posted for all to see! Go County!!!
More to come on that issue of TAX BURDEN SHIFTING via urban renewal as we approach the time to vote on money measures this fall.
Then, those kind employees at the Assessors office directed me to the County Tax Appeal office where another COMPETENT AND PATIENT employee of the County found charts for me that show that property tax appeals are way up – and that the County and cities like Molalla will lose property tax funds as residents and commercial property owners appeal and win reductions in assessed values.
What a change from the IDIOTS in Molalla who think they are running the CIA and can try to hide the FACTS. Thanks, Molalla IDIOTS – in the School District, the City offices, and the Chamber – for providing me with GREAT EXAMPLES for Attorney General Kroger’s TRANSPARENCY IN GOVERNMENT campaign. Nothing could show the need for reform more than the results of public info requests in Molalla!
When the Attorney General’s reps read the compiled emails that result from what should be a simple to fulfill requests to Molalla “institutions” (you know, the places that take our taxes and spend them and want to hide the FACTS about the process!) it makes MOLALLA LIKE LIKE SOMETHING OUT OF THE DARK AGES.
So keep it up Molalla. Keep refusing to be transparent, keep acting like you have something to hide. The whole state gets to see the records of the idIotic refusals and overcharges that every other city, county, and state agency would fork over quickly FOR FREE.
Today’s forward to Kroger included a week’s worth of nutty emails from the “director” of the Molalla Chamber of Commerce. What a joke that she couldn’t quickly cough up the FACTS about the names/process connected with the distribution of a puny $20,000 tourism grant.
This pathetic “director” had to hand carry her silly pile of information to the County because she is too chicken to put the cards out on the table in Molalla.
No wonder no one with any $$$$ or brains starts anything of importance here – with “friends” like the Chamber ‘director” and bozo plannin’ dude POTTER there is NO WAY ANYTHING OF MERIT WILL LOCATE HERE.
And get ready folks – the County Board of Appeals documents (emailed to me on the spot as I chatted with the nice, TRANSPARENT AND ACCOUNTABLE COUNTY REP!) show that as property values drop below assessed values YOU TOO can appeal and win for lower property taxes. Last year there was a big downward adjustment. Look out – because as property values fall that much it will continue to limit the revenue for schools, fire, cities, and all the rest of the services we expect government funds to provide. TOUGH SLEDDING AHEAD WITH NO END IN SIGHT!
Here’s the funniest fact I learned from my transparency campaign to read all documents connected with the “we need a new school” campaign.
It was the survey done in 2006 that CLAIMED that Molalla needed a 37 Million dollar middle school for 800 students – and the voters need to jump on it or the PRICE WOULD GO UP.
Now, over 4 years later, we have the claim that we need a new 700 student, 33 MILLION DOLLAR middle school RIGHT NOW – or the price will go up. And we only have about 550 middle schoolers.
So let’s see – by waiting 4 years, the price and size has GONE DOWN. What baloney comes out of the District. Maybe if we wait four more years the price will drop again – and we certainly know the student census is dropping like a stone.
Aren’t we lucky that voters rejected the 800 student middle school – we’d have been paying to maintain infrastructure – school capacity – that we didn’t need. That’s the danger – overbuilding while virtual learning, charters, home schooling and other means of consolidation take the pressure off the need for new GIANT BUILDINGS WE CAN’T FILL.