You could see it in their faces: Governor John Kitzhaber, Secretary of State Kate Brown and Treasurer Ted Wheeler & Entourage…call it guilt, I guess. Shame is too kind a word to describe the mess behind the masks. Her, in this conference room at the Board of Forestry our elected leaders faced more than fifty Cascadia Forest Defenders; protesters grassroots activists and supporters. This was The Public, assembled for what by law, must be a “Public Hearing”. Alas, the decision to sell off our Public land to private investors had already been made at the “Private Hearing”. The documents signed, the handshakes exchanged…In Salem yesterday Cascadia Forest Defenders et al arrived prepared to use humor, street theater, laughter, tax laws and fiduciary duty – plus a 150 year birthday cake for the State of Oregon. And one other crucial element: science.
The Timber Lobby also had Game Faces flying high; they did not sign on to the list of those who had something of substance to say. The Timber Trash know (“The fox knows many things; The hedgehog knows one great thing.”) because private money had already shouted down all semblance of reason. Quite clearly the ‘Private Hearing’’ trumped the Public Hearing – as it predictably does under Republican leadership. But this is Oregon. This is a Democratic Governor. The ‘Public’ people are Kitzhaber’s constituents, the people who voted him into office, his ‘base’.
And yet he betrayed us. Again…
- KBOO