Patti Milne was a terrible county commissioner. Vote for Courtney.

Democrat Peter Courtney has been an excellent state senator in the Oregon legislature.

His opponent is Republican Patti Milne, someone my wife and I, along with others in our rural south Salem neighborhood, know quite well as an elected official. 

Here's my well-founded advice to voters of all political persuasions in Courtney's district: Vote for him! Milne was a disaster as a county commissioner. There's no way she deserves to be a state senator.

This dismal opinion of Milne was shared by virtually everybody in my neighborhood, conservatives and liberals alike, during our five-year fight against a subdivision proposed to be built on high-value farmland that threatened our wells and surface water.

Along with Sam Brentano, Milne displayed a horrendous disregard for facts and the law. She kept voting to approve construction of the subdivision because of her personal feelings. 

We and our neighbors, along with water experts we'd hired, spent many hours testifying about why it was both illegal and wrong to allow the subdivision to be built in a groundwater limited area. Our attorneys correctly argued that the law didn't allow Marion County to approve the subdivision.

After we finally won our case in Marion County Circuit Court, I wrote "Judge slaps down Marion County Commissioner Patti Milne." The truth had to be told.

Ooh, I love it! A judge gets into a slapdown.

Not literally, of course, but judicially. A front page story in today's Statesman Journal tells the tale: "Judge blocks 43-lot subdivision in south Salem."
Download SJArticle-Laack subdivision

I had the news here first, in my Circuit Court reverses Marion County commissioners post. This was hugely reassuring for our neighborhood, which has been fighting the Ridge View Estates development (a.k.a. Laack subdivision) for almost five years.

Repeatedly, the Keep Our Water Safe committee formed to protect our property rights and senior water rights came out on the short end of 2-1 votes at meetings of the Board of Commissioners.

Patti Milne and Sam Brentano kept refusing to honor both facts and the law -- which isn't a good thing if you're an elected official sworn to defend the public interest, not your personal political and personal beliefs.

...My wife and I have spent a lot of time in Board of Commissioners meetings, a lot, so we're intimately familiar with how Patti Milne makes decisions. In short, poorly. She thinks from her gut, so to speak, not with her head.

Truthiness is her thing, not truth.

In satire, truthiness is a "truth" that a person claims to know intuitively "from the gut" without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts.

As I noted before, sixty-five people signed a letter from the Keep Our Water Safe committee asking Patti Milne and the other commissioners to hold a hearing before they voted on the vested rights application.

We correctly pointed out that a hearing officer's report was inconclusive, inaccurate, and incomplete.

Yet Milne and Brentano said there wasn't any need to learn key facts and legal information. They just had a feeling that the developers should be able to carry on with the subdivision.

Judge Johnson proved them wrong. Milne and Brentano gave the subdivision a pass on all six common law vesting factors; Johnson ruled fail on the most important five factors.

That's a serious judicial slapdown. Marion County voters should do the same in their own way come November, when Patti Milne is up for reelection.

Same advice applies now, in her race against Courtney. Milne simply isn't competent when it comes to being able to serve as an elected official. 

I've seen first-hand how she thinks and analyzes issues: extremely poorly and shallowly.

Milne makes up her mind first, then comes up with biased arguments that fit with her predetermined position. Sure, we all are prone to do this to some extent, but Milne takes twisted thinking to extremes.

Recently the Statesman Journal editorial board interviewed Courtney and Milne. Astoundingly, Milne claimed that she has never made a mistake in politics or in government. Milne also said she has never changed her mind about a political or governmental issue.
Download Mistakes: Peter Courtney, many; Patti Milne, none

This shows what a closed mind Milne has.

Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody changes their mind. Milne is just so unaware, so fearful of letting reality into her made-up psychological world, she doesn't know about her own mistakes and mind-changings.

Vote for Peter Courtney. He's honest, while Milne is untruthful. He's competent, while Milne is clueless (don't forget how she oversaw the failure of Courthouse Square).

Comments

[Aileen Kaye]

I agree with you 100%.

[Harry Vanderpool]

It really sucks to have to vote for Cortney, but it is the only way to vote no for "Pave it Over" Patty.

[Kit Whitegold]

It's clear from that headline who Dick Hughes is pulling for.