HinesSight

Ice storm conversation highlights

Tonight our monthly Salon discussion group met via Zoom.

Laurel, my wife, was able to host the meeting even though electricity is still off in our rural south Salem neighborhood, thanks to our generator and the Starlink satellite internet system.

Not surprisingly, most of the conversation centered around the recent ice storm and resulting power outages. We all shared our stories of how we're coping.

Here's some themes that emerged in the course of our 100 minute discussion.

How to prepare for no electricity. Some people favor going the green route. Others the fossil fuel route. Since we live in the country, with our nearest neighbor quite distant, I extolled the virtues of our 7,000 watt Honda generator, which naturally runs on gasoline.

One downside of a generator is noise. They aren't quiet, though smaller Honda generators make little noise. We have a transfer switch that enables various outlets/devices in our house to switch over to generator power when a cable is attached to an outside connector. The generator also powers our well pump.

But a generator isn't great to use in a city, unless you like annoying your neighbors. So the city dwellers in our group talked about solar-powered battery options. Of course, if there isn't much sunlight, recharging would be problematic. Tesla offers large batteries that can connect to their electric cars, if I have this right. 

On a smaller scale, there are batteries (we have a Goal Zero one) that, once charged, can power a cell phone, computer, and such for quite a while. 

It was agreed that having a working fireplace or wood stove is a great idea, though you need a decent supply of wood. A pellet stove can be installed either as a freestanding stove or as a fireplace insert. They require electricity, but not a whole lot. Just a few hundred watts, I believe, which could be supplied by a small outdoor gas generator and an extension cord.

With all the fallen trees and branches from the ice storm, many homes have a plentiful supply of wood. Having that available to burn during the next power outage is a good idea, assuming someone has a fireplace or wood stove.

Independence versus reliance on society. Most of our group lives in single family homes, while several live in apartments. One of the apartment dwellers made an interesting point.

Rather than everybody figuring out on their own how to survive without electricity, that effort would be better spent on working on a societal level to make it less likely that power outages will occur. For example, electrical lines could be underground rather than strung along poles next to or under trees.

Amazingly, several people who were children in Europe during World War II said that power never went off during air raids. I couldn't resist saying, "Sounds like PGE wasn't operating in England or Germany." 

Their point was that it is possible to make electrical systems much more resistant to outages. In modern Europe, virtually all power is underground. And people recalled that in their younger days, power outages seemed to be less common than now. The rise of giant profit-driven utility companies could be a reason for this.

I said that today I'd talked with a neighbor during an afternoon dog walk. He told me that he'd worked for a citizen utility in Iowa akin to Salem Electric. Ice and snow storms are common in Iowa. When they occurred, crews from citizen utilities in neighboring states would rush in to help.

A balance needs to be struck, I guess. Each of us should prepare for a power outage, and we also need to urge politicians to spend tax money on measures to prevent outages from occurring. Personally, I'd like to see PGE broken up into a bunch of smaller citizen-owned companies like Salem Electric. 

One of our members lives in West Salem. She said her power was restored just a few hours after it went out. Me, I have PGE and am still waiting for electricity to come back on eight days after the storm.

Staying in touch with others. My wife and I are stressed from our lengthy power outage. But we felt much better after our group meeting this evening. We humans need other people. Isolation is bad for all sorts of reasons.

A couple in our group live in a close-knit neighborhood. After the storm hit, they said that phones (land line variety, since cell phones weren't working well, if at all) were ringing many times a day as a neighbor would either express a need of their own, or what someone else needed.

In this fashion people were able to band together to help each other get through the ice storm aftermath. Those with chain saws aided those who didn't have one. People who had something to share gave it to people in need of it. Self-reliance is fine. Community support is even better.

For a few days after the storm hit, our cell phone coverage was almost nonexistent. We had to walk up our long driveway to get a decent signal. For almost a week, our land line phone didn't work. This produced a feeling of isolation in us.

Which gets back to the notion that our society needs to invest in ways to keep people connected, both during emergencies and at other times. 

Cellular systems should be made more resilient so cell phones aren't useless after an ice storm. Ditto for internet systems like the one offered by Comcast. I noted that it made a big difference when our Starlink satellite internet system continued to work just fine after the storm.

It felt good to be able to keep up with the news, Facebook, Twitter, and such. For several days we couldn't talk to people by phone. Keeping in touch via broadband raised my spirits in the ice storm aftermath. Yet many people in the United States don't have access to fast broadband.

Troy and Lori Anderson land use applications to Marion County

Because neighbors here in rural south Salem, Oregon are interested in the plans by Troy and Lori Anderson to build a farm dwelling on 80 acres of their 217 acre property just north of our Spring Lake Estates neighborhood, here are the documents related to their land use application to Marion County.

(1) Below is a PDF file of the application submitted to Marion County by Lori Anderson in March 2020 for a primary farm dwelling on 80 acres north of Spring Lake Estates.

Download Application

(2) Below is a PDF file of the April 2020 Marion County decision on the application. It was denied because the applicant didn't prove that the required farm income came from the 80 acre property.

Download AR20-009 Decision

(3) Below is a PDF file of the March 2020 Marion County request for comments on the application.

Download RFC-1

(4) Below is a a PDF file of the second application to Marion County by Lori Anderson in July 2020 for a primary farm dwelling on 80 acres north of Spring Lake Estates. My understanding is that this application has been withdrawn.

Download Second application

Evacuation checklist a good way to relieve wildfire anxiety

Right now Oregon is suffering though a wildfire perfect storm of longstanding drought, high winds, and many fires burning across our state. 

My wife and I lost electricity in the early evening yesterday, along with about thirty of our neighbors. Apparently the windy conditions caused a utility pole to catch fire, with electrical lines lying in the road. 

I fired up our generator, so we had a fairly normal night -- aside from the fact that because of the smoke from wildfires in the area we didn't want to open any windows, and our air conditioning wasn't working because of the electrical outage.

Thankfully, the power came on when we were waking up.

But as shown in the photo above, at nine a.m. it was still very dark outside our house. The gusty winds had spread the Beachie Creek fire rapidly in the Santiam Canyon to the east of Salem. With the winds coming out of the east, our area was hit with dense unhealthy smoke that obscured the rising sun.

Since we've lived on ten mostly natural acres in rural south Salem for the past thirty years, wildfire is on our minds every summer. We have cleared vegetation for quite a ways around our house, but there still are plenty of trees surrounding our home. 

So even though it is quite unlikely that the Beachie Creek fire could reach our neighborhood, the high winds yesterday and today were a reminder that a wildfire could be sparked locally at any moment and spread like, well, wildfire. My anxiety was pretty high up until noon, when I decided to do something that had been on my mind for a long time.

Prepare an evacuation checklist. And even better, to actually do some of the things on the list.

We have emergency bags in our cars filled with things we'd need if stranded somewhere. However, that wasn't my concern as I envisaged how I'd feel if we got a notification that a fast-moving wildfire was close by and we only had a short time to evacuate our home.

I like to think that I'd be calm, cool, and collected. But almost certainly I'd be frantic, heated, and scattered. What do we take in our cars?! What do we leave behind?! 

I had imagined the answers to these questions. Yet I also had imagined how easy it would be to forget something important in the course of running around, getting ready to evacuate, knowing that our house might be a smoldering ash heap the next time we saw it.

So I Googled "evacuation checklist."

Just doing that made me feel better. Preparing for something that hopefully wouldn't ever happen provided an outlet for the nervous anxious energy that came with the electricity outage, red sky, smoky air, and high wind. I started by printing out this Fire Evacuation Check List.

It was a way to get me going. Later today I found a couple of other checklists that I like, here and here. 

I've got more to do, as does my wife. But it didn't take me long to mostly fill up a couple of suitcases with clothes, treasured personal/family items, health needs, and such. I also jotted down reminders about what else I need to put into a ready-to-go backpack that is sitting in my office -- my laptop, charging cables, iPhone charger, other things.

Naturally we'd never forget our dog or dog food. But we might forget essentials like the chew sticks that she enjoys for a doggie dessert after she has her dinner. So those now are part of a dog go-bag.

It pains me to see images of the homes and businesses that have been destroyed in the Santiam Canyon. When it is safe for people to return there, I'm sure the devastation will be even more horrific. But as people often say when they learn their house has been lost, "We can rebuild. And we're thankful we're safe."

Exactly. If Laurel and I ever have to flee our home in the face of a wildfire, that will be hugely stressful. After preparing some for that eventuality today, I'm feeling a bit more confident that we could do this without losing our minds -- too much. 

Dumb stuff our HOA is trying to do

From what I can tell, Homeowners Associations (HOAs) are about as beloved as the IRS -- a necessary evil that people want to have as little to do with as possible.

Which means I must be an aberration, since for about 25 years I was the secretary for our HOA, Spring Lake Estates Recreation Property, Inc. here in rural south Salem, Oregon. 

That meant I not only had to attend almost every meeting of our HOA board for a quarter century, I also had to stay awake enough to take notes and write minutes that were close enough to what actually happened to be approved by the board at the next meeting, by which time, thankfully, most board members couldn't remember what occurred very well.

But seriously, or let's say even more seriously, I enjoyed being the HOA secretary for the most part.

Our meetings were informal, often filled with gossip, jokes, and laughter. We welcomed the occasional property owner who would come to a board meeting out of curiosity, because they were interested in an agenda item, or had a problem they wanted fixed.

Partly things were so relaxed because we're an old development, formed in the early 1970s, without CC&Rs. So we have few rules, just some charmingly archaic deed restrictions like "No poultry in commercial quantity." So if you've ever wanted to have a lot of chickens on your property, right up to a factory farm level, give us a look-see.

I resigned a few years ago after Dumb Stuff #1 our board did. I'd put considerable effort into fashioning a trial web site for our HOA using software from a company specializing in this. About a third of our 96 members signed up for the site and liked its features: calendar, message board, online documents, and such.

However, a few nit-pickers in our community worried that the web site wasn't secure enough, even though it required a password to access it and didn't contain any sensitive information.

The fact that we were behind the Internet times, lacking the ability to let our members quickly know about "breaking news" such as water test results for our community lake, which got a lot of use during the summer months, was ignored by our HOA board. That lack of neighborly concern caused me to bail out on being secretary. 

Since, the board has had two short-lived secretaries, each lasting about a year, and now is on a third. That tells me that either I should be admitted to the HOA Secretary Hall of Fame or I am even crazier than I thought for spending so many years laboring in the secretarial trenches.

My wife has served on the board for many years, too many for me to remember. This month she lost her re-election bid by one vote, so she's now an outsider like I am. But we still are keeping tabs on other dumb stuff our HOA board is trying to do, which led us to spend a frustrating couple of hours yesterday at the Annual Membership Meeting at the Spring Lake picnic area.

This gets me to Dumb Stuff #2 our board did. Well, actually just the board president, who keep saying at yesterday's meeting, when the discussion about my next dumb stuff #3 got a bit heated, "We're now in Executive Session! Only board members can speak."

The president obviously didn't know what an Executive Session actually is, a fact I was pleased to remind her about today, along with the other board members, in an email I sent to them. Here's a few excerpts.

It was obvious to those of us familiar with how executive sessions work that _____’s repeated “we’re now in executive session” at yesterday’s membership meeting had no basis. 

 

Here’s some links on this subject for board members to educate themselves, since it is important that yesterday be the first and only time “executive session” is proclaimed by a SLERP board president in the midst of a meeting. 

 

https://kuester.com/can-hoa-board-call-executive-session/

https://blog.realmanage.com/6-reasons-a-board-should-hold-an-hoa-executive-session

https://findhoalaw.com/executive-session/

https://blog.hignellhoa.com/when-can-an-hoa-board-call-an-executive-session

 

...So none of the reasons a HOA board could meet in executive session pertained to yesterday’s membership meeting. And even if there was, the board would have to vote in an open meeting whether to meet in executive session.

 

Since executive sessions are private, obviously saying “executive session!” at our membership meeting was even more outrageous, since that would have required all non-board members to leave the picnic area, thereby defeating the purpose of a membership meeting.

 

Lastly, here’s an additional link from a law firm regarding Oregon and Washington law concerning executive sessions.

http://www.barkermartin.com/blog/condo-hoa-blog/post/executive-session-lifting-the-veil-of-secrecy

 

This post contains a pertinent statement, because this is exactly what _____, the board president, was trying to do with her repeated off-base calls of “executive session” — shut down discussion of a controversial subject.

 

Executive session should not be used as an avoidance tactic. Boards should not convene or threaten to convene in executive session every time a controversial or contentious issue arises. The issues upon which a board can legally enter executive session are stated expressly within the statute applicable to their association, and the statutes can be used as guidelines for all communities.  

 

Dumb Stuff #3 a few misguided members of our HOA board are trying to inflict on our community concerns trying to change how our bylaws can be amended. 

This obviously is a big deal, because the bylaws for an HOA are akin to the United States Constitution, the core guide to how the HOA operates. Our bylaws say that the bylaws can only be amended in this way: 

The By-Laws of this Corporation may be amended, added to, or replaced only when approved by a mail vote of the majority of the membership of the Corporation.

Now, it seems obvious to my wife and I, seemingly along with anyone else who can read English, that a "majority of the membership of the Corporation" means 50% plus one of our 96 property owners, each of whom gets one vote for each lot owned (a few people own more than a single lot). So roughly 49 votes would be needed to approve a change to the bylaws

This also is the view of a land use attorney we hired after our HOA board indicated that it wanted to start making bylaws changes that only required a majority vote of those returning ballots.

Since we have a rather apathetic group of property owners (many people live in rural areas like ours because they want to be left alone), this would mean that if, say, 10 out of the 96 property owners returned a bylaws change ballot, six votes would enable that change to pass.

Which seems really wrong, since a very small minority could make changes to the bylaws that affect everybody in our community.

Yesterday we made some strong arguments against that interpretation (or rather, misinterpretation) of how our bylaws can be amended, including the possibiity of a lawsuit by disgruntled property owners who don't appreciate having the HOA board ignore what the current bylaws say.

Pleasingly, our board voted to get a legal opinion from another attorney before moving ahead with bylaws amendments. That was good news, so hopefully I'll be able to scratch Dumb Stuff #3 from my list of HOA grievances fairly soon.

I'll end by saying that I do have considerable sympathy for the current HOA president, even though I don't think she is doing a very good job. This cartoon is apt.

Smoky air in Salem points to global warming as culprit

Here's a not-so-cheery air quality map for the Pacific Northwest. In two words, it sucks.

When I set off for a dog walk about an hour ago, the setting sun was as red as the Unhealthy coded color for most of Oregon, including Salem, where I live. 

There aren't any wildfires in our immediate area. But smoke is drifting into the Willamette Valley from British Columbia and Eastern Washington.

Wildfire smoke has been an annoying aspect of summers in Oregon for the past few years. It wasn't always this way. I've lived in Oregon since 1971. Summers are much hotter and drier than they used to be. Climate change is the culprit.

Which means climate change, a.k.a. global warming, is the main reason wildfires are burning considerably more fiercely and more often than they used to. This is a fact, no matter what the clueless Secretary of Interior, Ryan Zinke, says about "environmental terrorist groups" being the problem. 

Here's a quote from the Washington Post story that speaks the truth, not Trumpian propaganda. 

Many took issue with Zinke's refusal to acknowledge that climate change is a major factor in the California fires.

"This has nothing to do with climate change," Zinke told NBC affiliate KCRA this month. "This has to do with active forest management."

Research shows that human-caused climate change is a primary factor behind the recent increase in fire severity. A 2016 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that the heat and drought brought about by climate change was responsible for doubling the amount of land burned in the western U.S. between 1984 and 2015.

"There is a broad effort to deny the science of climate change and its links to the horrible wildfires in California and it’s just not accurate," Leah C. Stokes, professor of environmental and political science at UC Santa Barbara, told the Post.

My wife and I have lived in rural south Salem since 1990. The tree changes in our neighborhood are undeniable. Douglas firs are turning brown and dying at a rapid rate. Here's some photos I took on today's dog walk.

It's infuriating that Donald Trump and his fellow global-warming-denying lackeys are reversing Obama-era policies aimed at reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that are creating the hotter and drier conditions which fuel fires and kill trees. 

And it isn't just the folks in Washington D.C. who are to blame. I'm pleased to live in a city that voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, but 38% of Salem voters cast a ballot for Trump -- so they're complicit in creating the smoky air that appears to be with us for many years to come.

For sure, 2020 can't come soon enough for me and my wife. The quicker our country gets rid of Trump and his cronies, the quicker we can get back to taking strong steps to keep our one and only Planet Earth habitable for humans. 

Buy a lakeside home in Spring Lake Estates, near our house

When a house is for sale near us, naturally we hope that it will end up in the hands of someone we'd like to get to know. Ideally, someone liberal, environmental, neighborly, friendly. 

So if this describes you, or someone you know who's looking for a home in the country, check out a new listing for 10322 Liberty Road S in rural south Salem (Oregon). 

A great feature of this house is that it's right next to Spring Lake. We're several lots away from the lake, but this house is right there.

Here's screenshots of part of the Zillow listing.

A real estate sign speaks volumes about citizen activism

A few weeks ago a new sign went up along Liberty Road S, just north of Spring Lake Estates, where my wife and I live. It meant a lot to me, for reasons I'll explain.

Here's a photo of the land being offered for sale. The property extends beyond the crest of the hill. The acreage suitable for a vineyard is shown in the photograph I took, which includes a shadow of me taking the photo.

Back in 2005 I wrote my first blog post about these 217 acres, "Measure 37 hits close to our home."

For a lot of people, Measure 37 is a legal abstraction. For us, it means 215 nearby acres of farmland may become a subdivision. These rolling hills along Liberty Road about five miles south of the Salem city limits currently are zoned EFU (exclusive farm use).

If the Measure 37 applicants have their way 80 homes will be built and 80 wells will be dug in an area that already is designated as €œgroundwater limited. I call that eventuality AFU (all...up; you can guess the rest of the acronym).

Measure 37 was a property rights initiative that voters mistakenly approved in 2004. It gave property owners the right to develop in accord with the zoning that was in place prior to Oregon's pioneering land use laws being put in place in 1973.

For five years my wife and I led our neighborhood's fight against this proposed subdivision. Laurel started off being the main subdivision battler. Then I took over. It was the toughest thing I've ever done. There were so many twists and turns, I'd get dizzy if I tried to describe them all. 

In 2010 a Circuit Court judge ruled in favor of our neighborhood following the passage of Measure 49 in 2007, which negated most of Measure 37. I wrote about the victory in "Circuit Court reverses Marion County commissioners."

Last Friday our rural south Salem neighborhood got some great news: in Marion County Circuit Court Judge Nely Johnson reversed the Marion County Board of Commissioners' approval of Ridge View Estates, a 217 acre, 43 lot Measure 37 subdivision on Liberty Road.

That dry language didn't begin to capture how I felt, in part because it took time to realize what preserving the 217 acres from becoming a subdivision development meant to me. I've tried to do this over the years in some other blog posts, notably, "Judge's final decision on Laack subdivision: the meaning for me."

In this post I want to talk about the meaning this neighborhood land use fight has had for me. Hopefully I can share some ideas that will resonate with people who have no interest in land use issues, but can relate to the general nature of this sort of experience: working really hard on something, for a long time, when there is no guarantee of success.

As is the case with most things in life. Such as...

Raising a child. Pursuing a college undergraduate or graduate degree. Starting a business. Aiming for a martial arts black belt. Cultivating a happy marriage. Seeking better health. Writing a book for publication.

I've done all of the above, plus a lot more in my sixty-two years of living. Your list will be different, as the activities people engage in and the goals they pursue are marvelously diverse.

Now I can add "Struggling to save a neighborhood's water supply." A new activity, one of the most intense, difficult, and complex things I've ever done. But the meaning-of-life lessons I've learned in the process are extensions of earlier lessons.

I don't want to repeat what I said in that 2010 post.

I haven't even re-read it, because this is 2018, and I'm now 69, not 62. How I feel today about the sign that went up offering 111 acres of vineyard property for sale, along with an additional 106 acres, is different from how I felt eight years ago.

What I want to say now, in this age of Trump, when many people are feeling disillusioned, disheartened, and disturbed about where our country is heading, is this:

Citizen activism is both tremendously important and tremendously satisfying. I readily admit that the satisfying part obviously is most acutely felt when activism leads to success, as it did in the case of our fight against the subdivision. 

But though this is a truism, it's a truth that needs repeated saying -- usually it's impossible to tell whether a fight is winnable. So the activist has to step into a battle without knowing if their efforts will produce a victory. 

Writing those words reminded me that here in Salem, Jackie Leung stepped up to challenge incumbent city councilor Steve McCoid in the Ward 4 race last May. Most people didn't think Leung had a chance. Yet she won. A national example is the surprising victory of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over 10-term incumbent Democrat Joe Crowley.

You just never know. Well, except for this. If potential citizen activists don't try to make a difference, they can know for sure that their not-doing will lead to no change.

What kept me going during our five year fight against the Measure 37 subdivision was a conviction that I needed to do everything within my power to stop this threat to our neighborhood's surface and groundwater. I paid as much attention to tiny details as to grand strategy. 

In the end, and I could only know this looking back, not forward, a few of those details played an outside role in our eventually successful legal battle. Again, though, I couldn't tell this at the time. All I could do was hope that a bunch of small things would add up to a large thing.

When I drive by the sign advertising the property for sale, I feel good.

Sure, there are many things larger than 217 acres of rural south Salem land. But the older I get, and I'm getting pretty damn old, I'm finding it more and more difficult to distinguish between the BIG things in life and the small things. 

Is saving 217 acres from becoming a subdivision a major or minor accomplishment? I have no idea. All I know is that when I look at the still vacant land, that sight means a lot to me. I even imagine a scene that likely won't ever happen, but still manages to elicit a few wet spots in my eyes.

I'm near death. At my request, I'm taken in a wheelchair to a wide spot on Liberty Road where my wife and I can have a view of what has become a successful vineyard. Laurel holds my hand. I say to her, "Hey, way back when, we did something good here, didn't we?" She smiles. No more words are needed. We both know what we feel.

Why two inches of snow can be a big deal here in western Oregon

As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. So in this blog post I'll be sharing photos of how my wife and I have been dealing with, and enjoying, a seemingly minor storm that dropped two inches of snow out here in rural south Salem.

I italicized "seemingly" because people from cold-weather states who make fun of how us Willamette Valley Oregonians panic over snow that they'd consider a dusting don't realize that our snow here usually isn't like their snow there. 

This photo was taken today on a dog walk that led the family canine and I around the Lake Drive/Oak Drive loop in our neighborhood. You can see from the snow in the foreground that not much has fallen in the past few days. But look how shiny the road is.

It's basically a sheet of ice. Drive on it without traction tires or chains, and you'd realize this as soon as you tried to go up a hill, or brake while going down one. 

Some of the ice accumulated as freezing rain -- a frequent occurrence in western Oregon at the beginning or end of a snow event, because the temperature often is right around 32 degrees.

This is nasty stuff. A 1/4 inch of freezing rain can make roads nearly impassable, because the surface is coated with ice (sometimes black ice; meaning, it is almost invisible, so you think the dark pavement is just asphalt... until you feel your car starting to slip and slide).

So this is why I put our Toyota Highlander SUV and VW GTI at the top of our long, sloping driveway after I realized freezing rain had started to fall. Even though both cars have studless winter tires on them, I've learned that when a bit of snow falls on ice, even an all-wheel drive vehicle equipped with Blizzaks can have trouble getting up a steep slope.

Again, driving on snow is a whole different thing than driving on ice. Further, snow often turns to ice in western Oregon, since the temperature usually is close to freezing. 

Here's a selfie taken just before I began shoveling snow from our long, wide driveway this morning. I figured this would substitute for my usual Friday workout at an athletic club. Plus, getting rid of the several inches of snow would help the ice underneath melt faster when the temperature warms up in a few days.

I took this photo to show our shoveling implements, but it also shows the track left by some idiot who sledded down our driveway yesterday -- which compressed the snow down to the ice, leaving the track much icier than the rest of the driveway (another factor: the temperature rose a bit above freezing late yesterday, then dropped to about 20 degrees at night, refreezing whatever had melted).

When I fell on my butt after stepping onto the very icy sled track, I got pissed at the guy who had sledded down our driveway. He wasn't hard to find, because the idiot had made a video of his exploit that showed him clearly. I recognized the jacket, his face, and even his name.

Which wasn't surprising, since the guy was me. I'd forgotten about the downside of sliding over a few inches of snow underlaid by ice: you remove the walkable snow and reveal the almost unwalkable ice. 

My wife, Laurel, and dog, ZuZu, helped out with the shoveling. ZuZu, mainly by looking bored, her expression saying Is watching you guys shovel the driveway supposed to be a substitute for my usual morning dog walk? Well, screw that!

Nevertheless, ZuZu managed to look halfway happy when Laurel took a celebratory photo of us after we reached the top of the driveway.

Note the curve of my oh-so-cool snow shovel. This is an ergonomic feature, not a bent problem. I like how it makes pushing snow to the side of the driveway much easier. I push the handle into my midsection and use my whole body to push the shovel, rather than mainly my arms.

Later in the day I took our aggrieved walk-deprived dog on a lengthy stroll around our rural environs. Now I could enjoy the snow without worrying about dealing with it.

On the trail at the back of our property I was struck by the beauty of the leaves that had fallen on top of the snow, a decoration of "last-gasp" leaves impelled to drop by the unusually cold temperature the past few nights.

Our dog added her paw prints to those left by other passers-by on the top of the earthen dam that holds in Spring Lake.

In wintry weather the lake dock definitely doesn't look like a great place to jump into the water, as it does during the summer months.

Continuing on a trail that has a hillside view of the Willamette Valley below, the setting sun illuminated oak trees in a neighbor's field.

So, yes, snow in western Oregon can be a pain, and also a pleasure. I ended up slipping twice on the driveway sled trail I'd made yesterday (yeah, I'm a slow learner), yet it was worth the fun I had the day before. Behold the video I made.

 

Update: re-reading this post, I realized that I forgot to mention a couple of other factors that make snow in western Oregon more treacherous than snow in the midwest, say:

(1) We have hills. Steep ones. In cities. And outside of cities.

(2) We typically get wet snow. Because, like I said, the temperature is close to freezing. It's a heck of lot easier to drive on feathery powdery snow than dense moist snow.

(3) We don't put much salt on our roads. "Green" environment-friendly Oregon rarely applies salt to snowy roads. So we slip and slide more than we would otherwise.

Rural south Salem wildlife caught on our trail camera

OK, let's get this clear right off the bat: these photos from the trail camera my wife, Laurel, tends to -- moving it around our property in rural south Salem in attempts to capture what our non-human neighbors are doing -- aren't exactly National Geographic quality.

But, hey, they show wild creatures living their animal lives on what sure seems to be a popular spot. (The dates on the photos appear to be off; so is the time, probably.)


Coyote! Wily canines who we occasionally see in the daytime, but not often.

We have some irrational coyote-hating neighbors who tried to shoot them, not recognizing that coyotes are a valuable part of nature's ecosystem. For example, I assume (and hope) that they kill non-native California ground squirrels, who are a major pain in the butt for us given their propensity for digging under the foundation of our house.


Laurel thought she heard some coyote howls last night. That's a good sign.

They used to "sing" frequently near our house, excited over this or that, or just howling for the fun of it. When our neighbors started shooting at them, the coyotes became a lot more silent. They didn't leave the area; they just adapted to the need to be stealthier. Which shows how smart they are, like other canines.

A bunny in mid-hop, it appears. 

A doe, with one of her two fawns peeking out from between her legs. The fawns are super-cute, naturally. All mottled/spotted.

A fawn in front and back of the headless mother. 

Good photo of one of the fawns. My, what big ears you have! 

Another fawn-shot.

Raccoon coming toward the motion-activated camera.

Raccoon moving away from the camera. Hopefully you took your heart medicine before viewing these photos, because they are damn exciting, right? 

A non-elusive gray squirrel. Still, it's wildlife!

We were surprised to see that bunnies are out and about at night. Haven't they gotten the news about coyotes frequenting this trail?

Another raccoon. 

Possum? Can't think what else would have a tail like that.

A final shot of fawn and mom. 

A plea to dysfunctional HOA's: trust, relax, loosen up

For twenty-three freaking years, yes, 23, I've been the secretary of our homeowner's association here in rural south Salem, Oregon. 

A few days ago, I resigned. You'll learn why in a bit.

I was asked to run for the board of directors soon after my wife and I moved here in 1990. A few years later, in 1992, I agreed to be board secretary. The rest is history, an almost quarter-century of it.

Being a writer/author/blogger, I was comfortable taking notes and writing minutes. Plus, doing all the other stuff that came with the position. I kept being re-elected every year for a simple reason: nobody else wanted to be secretary, and I was doing a good job.

Members of the board of directors came and went. I stayed. And stayed... and stayed.

I became the institutional memory of the board, having pawed enough times through the notebooks of ancient minutes dating back to when our rural subdivision was founded in the early 1970s to recognize when an issue confronting the board now, had been talked about way back when. 

A recurring issue, unfortunately, was HOA dysfunction. This is common, I found, after Googling "dysfunctional HOA board." (See, for example, here, here, here, and here.)

This is what led me to call it quits after serving as board secretary for so long: I got frustrated with how a majority of board members were unable to trust, relax, and loosen up.

Geez, guys and gals, we are a 92-member group of neighbors and property owners. This isn't the United Nations Security Council. We're not dealing with matters of war and peace. We speak the same language, live in the same area, have the same interest in fostering a sense of community. 

But human nature being what it is, when some people are given a position of power and control over other people, they are prone to wield it in an overly authoritarian way. Also, far too seriously. 

In my case, the Sin Against Our Almighty Board was to spend my own money to get a trial HOA web site up and running -- something we've never had before.

After those 23 years of printing out minutes, taking them to a copy center in town, afixing labels/stamps, and mailing them to our members, I wanted to bring our neighborhood association into the 21st century. I looked around cyberspace a lot, finally settling on HOA Sites as a promising web site service. 

The promise turned out to be reality.

The folks at HOA Sites were wonderfully competent. Their web site software was powerful and easy to use. In less than a week I had a site for our neighborhood association ready to try out.

I invited our members to register for it. I'd told our board of directors that I was fronting the money to get the web site going on a trial basis, because the only way to know if we liked it, was to try it. 

Everybody who did try it, did like it.

I got numerous positive comments from our property owners. They appreciated having up-to-date information about our HOA right at hand, along with being able to communicate with each other through a discussion board, blog postings, and other means.

However, it didn't take long before I realized that only one person on our seven-member board of directors had registered for the web site -- which was required to access the "member only" parts of it beyond the home page. 

That person was my wife. I kept reminding the other board members to register so they could try out the web site. After all, I'd set up the site knowing that a board meeting was scheduled just before the 30-day money back guarantee period ended. 

Our board needed to decide at that meeting whether the web site should be continued. Since we had money in the budget for it, and current secretarial costs would be reduced with a web site, I figured it was a no-brainer to continue on with it -- especially since our HOA members were liking it a lot.

Well, I was wrong.

Three of five board members who attended the crucial meeting voted to abolish the web site. Amazingly, those three people did this without ever registering for the site, which meant they had very little idea how the site worked, and what its benefits were.

Ignorance is bliss, I guess.

Because the central reason that was given to me for doing away with the web site didn't have anything to do with the site itself. Rather, I was told "As secretary, you did this without first getting permission from the board."

So initiative, enthusiasm, and energy had to be punished. Even when the end result was beneficial to our community.

I couldn't stand this bullshit. That sort of top-down bureaucratic crap bothered me a lot when I was working and earning a salary. Now that I'm retired, and doing my board secretary gig as a volunteer, it bothered me even more.

HOA boards should treasure people, whether board officers or regular members of the association, who have a good idea and the energy to run with it. 

I wasn't making a unilateral decision for the board. I'd told them that I was getting the web site up and running on a trial basis, using my own VISA card to do so. They could either decide to keep the web site, or let it go.

But I sure figured that the board of directors would make an informed decision about this, not being so petty as to abolish the web site just because I'd taken the initiative to get it started without jumping through every hoop they held up for me.

A HOA board should have TRUST, RELAX, LOOSEN UP figuratively tattooed on their minds.

Those four words should help guide every decision they make on behalf of their community. They should act for the benefit of their neighbors, not to stroke their own egos. That's my view, at least -- a damn informed view, given my 23 years of being the secretary of our HOA board. 

Until I resigned. Because I wasn't trusted, and the board failed to relax and loosen up.

Let's make Salem more gnarly and less smooth

"Gnarly." A great word. Also, an admirable quality. For people, like you and me. For a town, like Salem, Oregon, where I live.

Some of the meanings of gnarly are powerful, misshapen, difficult, outstanding. 

My Tai Chi instructor used the word in telling a story about what happened after he asked a martial arts acquaintance he hadn't seen for quite a while to demonstrate his Yang Long Form.

"Oh, no, you don't want to see it," the guy replied. "My form is gnarly, man, not pretty at all." 

Which meant, his Tai Chi had evolved into a practical fighting art, not the smooth, pretty Tai Chi most people are familiar with. His Long Form had bumps and rough edges -- which are needed in real life if someone is attacking you.

I got to thinking about gnarliness today after listening to the Willamette Wake Up program on KMUZ, Salem's community radio station. 

Ken Adam's guests were city councilors Chuck Bennett and Tom Andersen, plus former councilor Kasia Quillinan. They talked about proposed revisions to Salem's street tree ordinance, Chapter 86, which include a call for an Urban Tree Commission -- something I strongly favor.

I heard quite a few mentions of how much Salemians love their trees, how people in a neighborhood are shocked and dismayed when large beautiful trees are removed, and how many benefits trees provide us.

The impetus for making improvements to the street tree ordinance came after five large healthy Japanese Zelkovas on downtown's State Street were cut down for no good reason in 2013 by U.S. Bank and the City of Salem.

In my tell-all report about this debacle, I included this photo I took of the Zelkova closest to Commercial Street. Being most gnarly, it was my favorite U.S. Bank tree. 

There's beauty in gnarliness. Natural beauty. Wild beauty.

Trees like this one remind us that nature doesn't create with straight lines, or smooth out rough spots. I believe this helps explain why trees are so beloved, and why people feel such a sense of loss when they are removed unnecessarily.

Cities, particularly, need gnarly. Pavement, buildings, parking lots, sidewalks -- these human creations are geometric, regular, predictable. They're constructed, not grown; designed, not naturally arisen.

In the KMUZ radio discussion this morning, I heard talk about how street trees need to be removed if they are causing problems with sidewalks that can't be ameliorated by root trimming. OK, this makes sense. 

Sort of. 

I live in rural south Salem. My wife and I mostly go for walks on bare earth, not roads or sidewalks. We're in our mid-60's. We navigate paths that are way more irregular and bumpy than any Salem sidewalk I've seen. These paths are -- take a guess -- gnarly. 

On my evening dog walk today I mused about the possibility of City officials looking upon trees and sidewalks differently.

What if a sidewalk with some cracks and bumps was viewed as a positive, rather than a negative, if this meant that a beautiful large tree wouldn't need to be cut down because its roots were impacting the concrete?

How many people, even those using a walker or a wheelchair, couldn't make it past the sidewalk's rough parts by slowing down and taking care? How smooth does everything in a city need to be? How much gnarliness can we accept?

No, more... embrace, because gnarly is life-affirming. 

Most of us enjoy people with some rough edges. They're more interesting, more attractive, than a man or woman who seems perfectly put together. We like unpredictability, surprises, quirks, a whiff of danger and darkness.

This large pine tree is near the edge of our property, adjacent to a path my wife and I take every day to a nearby community lake. Quite a bit taller than I could capture in a photo, the tree has a marvelous bend about halfway up its trunk. 

Again, gnarly. It's my favorite tree on our ten acres. Not because it is beautiful in a lovely graceful symmetrical sense. Because it isn't.

I also like the tree, along with neighboring firs, because they have big limbs that overhang the path. Some of them are dead. In wind storms the limbs sometimes break. I see them on the ground and think, "If I'd been walking here when that branch fell, I could have been seriously hurt, or even killed."

That thought doesn't stop me from going for walks during wind storms. Rather, it encourages me. I enjoy being out in wild gnarly nature. I like feeling that I'm in some danger. It wakes me up, makes me feel more alive. 

When I get to the community lake, I encounter another gnarly tree. This old oak is missing at least five major limbs. It has a split down the middle. But it has so much amazing character, such stories to tell about it's several hundred years of living.

If this were a Salem street tree, almost certainly it would have been cut down long ago. Because it is out in the country, it survives. Even thrives, judging by the healthy growth on its remaining limbs. 

My hope is that people in Salem increasingly will embrace both their own gnarliness and that of others. Along with the natural rough edges of our city's "built environment." 

Everything and everyone don't have to be polished, smooth, risk-free, predictable, safe, perfectly aligned. Without rough-edged wildness, life is too tame, too mechanical, too symmetrical.

We're all broken and misshapen in various ways.

Therein lies our beauty.

A "For Sale" sign for 217 south Salem acres that warms my heart

For five years, 2005-2010, my wife and I led our rural neighborhood's fight against a subdivision that threatened our wells and surface water -- springs that feed the lake our community, Spring Lake Estates, is named for.

We eventually won. A legal ruling caused me to write, "Judge's final decision on Laack subdivision: the meaning for me."

Today I drove by the property on south Liberty Road, which has remained undeveloped. Our neighbors and us have been wondering what would happen to the 217 acres. Finally looks like something is.

The Gysin listing shows the asking price as $2,300,000. That's $10,600 an acre. Seems reasonable. In a 2007 post, "If you love Pinot Noir, vote for Measure 49, " I said:

My wife and I are leading our neighborhood's fight against a Measure 37 subdivision on groundwater limited high-value farmland. Recently road construction was started illegally on the property. 

Any grape grower or Pinot Noir lover who drove by before Marion County shut down the un-permitted work would have thought, "What a crazy thing to do."

Crazy, because these rolling hills are perfect for a vineyard. Almost 99% of the 217 acres is composed of high value soil (Class I-IV). And nearly all of that soil is Nekia Silty clay loam.

...Leroy Laack, the Measure 37 claimant, likes to talk about how unfarmable this EFU (exclusive farm use) property is. Yet at one of the many hearings on his subdivision plans, a local farmer testified that he had put some Willamette Valley acreage up for sale and got a phone call from a Californian.

The man said, "I'm not interested in the flatland you're selling. But do you know of any available farmland in the south Salem hills?" He wanted to grow grapes here, like so many other people.

The farmer said that he guessed the Measure 37 property was worth $10-15,000 an acre to a grape grower.

I hope the current owners get a good price for the property. And that a good use is made of it. I don't know how strong the market now is for south Salem grape-growing land. Several nearby vineyards seem to be prospering.

The listing suggests these uses: Agricultural/Farm, Pasture/Ranch, Recreational, Single Family Residence

From the top of the twin hills there must be great views of the Cascades and Coast Range. I took this photograph today. The exposed reddish dirt in the middle of the photo is where the above-mentioned subdivision road was roughed in years ago.

Maybe a wine fancier will buy the property, plant a vineyard on the southwest facing acreage, and build a residence on the highest elevation, or just over the hills.

Our neighborhood will welcome the new owner(s). We've got no objection to any use that is compatible with the existing homes/development in this groundwater limited area.

If a vineyard comes to be, I'll look forward to buying one of the first bottles of locally-grown wine.

Year supply of Costco vegetarian emergency food fits in small closet

I haven't opened any of the 21 boxes of vegetarian emergency food that arrived yesterday courtesy of Costco (and my VISA card). I hope I never have to.

My wife and I are involved with emergency preparedness efforts in our neighborhood. It's been kind of difficult to get people interested in dealing with a problem that isn't readily apparent -- such as the "Big One" earthquake that is overdue to hit the Pacific Northwest. 

But now that we've learned about how devastating a major earthquake would be to Oregon, I couldn't stop thinking about what life would like here if major bridges on I-5 were destroyed, power lines were toppled, and people in a vast region between the Canadian border and northern California required massive outside help.

It could be months before things got semi-back to normal. So one goal of our neighborhood's emergency preparedness effort is to encourage planning ahead for what hopefully won't happen in our lifetime. But definitely could.

With a time line of 41 events the science team at OSU has now calculated that the California–Oregon end of Cascadia’s fault has a 37 percent chance of producing a major earthquake in the next 50 years. The odds are 10 percent that an even larger quake will strike the upper end, in a full-margin rupture, within 50 years. Given that the last big quake was 312 years ago, one might argue that a very bad day on the Cascadia Subduction Zone is ominously overdue. It appears that three centuries of silence along the fault has been entirely misleading. The monster is only sleeping.

So last week I decided to research vegetarian emergency food supplies. A few hours of Googling revealed that Costco seemed to have the best "package deal," a nutritionally complete, varied, long-lasting supply of food aimed at keeping one person fed for about a year. 

It arrived yesterday.

I was sort of worried about where we'd put it, as the Costco information didn't specify the size of the 21 boxes. Knowing that the shipment consisted of 126 #10 cans, I calculated that it probably would only take up about half of the available space in a small closet that I'd cleared out.

I was right. The stack of 21 boxes (one of which got mildly crunched in transport) measures about 19 inches deep, 39 inches wide, and 54 inches tall. That's 24.2 cubic feet. To me, it's worth taking up that space in our house for some peace of mind.

Which is what Costco's emergency food department offers. I was fortunate to get $300 off my order, because the vegetarian food was on sale at the time I decided we needed it. However, even at full price ($1,800) I consider it to be a good deal.

This amount of food supposedly feeds two people for six months. Based on the 680,000 calories, I suspect it would be a bit less than that for my wife and me. But I just did a rough calculation.

Anyway, I figure that we have insurance on our house, even though it probably is less likely that it will burn down in the next twenty years than the likelihood of a large earthquake hitting Oregon in that timespan. So why not take out some "insurance" that reduces the risk of suffering from a major emergency?

I felt better as soon as the Fed Ex semi truck appeared at the top of our driveway. Engaging in magical thinking, I'd been ruminating "Now that I finally ordered emergency food, probably the Big One will hit just before the food arrives."

Well, it didn't. And like I said, I hope we never have to open the boxes, most of which have a shelf life of more than 20 years. 

Since I haven't tasted any of the food, I can't comment on its culinary goodness. All I know is that most of the food in the boxes is on my "like to eat" list, with the notable exception of some items in one category:

Beans & Protein:   

• 6 Whole Egg Powder (236 servings per can/1416 total servings)  
• 1 Black Beans (65 servings per can/65 total servings)  
• 6 Pinto Beans (58 servings per can/348 total servings)  
• 2 Lima Beans (67 servings per can/134 total servings)  
• 3 Lentils (78 servings per can/234 total servings)  
• 3 Chicken TVP (45 servings per can/135 total servings)     
• 3 Bacon TVP (47 servings per can/141 total servings)  
• 5 Taco TVP (42 servings per can/210 total servings)

I don't like black beans, pinto beans, and lima beans.

So I ordered some other containers to compensate for my bean phobia (I believe it started in elementary school, where I often heard the disturbing song "Beans, beans, the musical fruit; the more you eat, the more you toot." Why would I want to eat food that makes me toot?)

Here's a photo of the other corner of the closet, where two containers of Costco dog food and one each of lentils and pasta reside. After an earthquake I will zealously control the lentils and pasta; fortunately, I'm married to a woman who likes beans.

[Note to self: you forgot about the "cheese" side of "macaroni and cheese." Order some from Costco before the earthquake hits!]

The other items are a water pump with filter and ninety fuel pucks. I pictured using these as one means to boil the water needed to reconstitute the freeze-dried and dehydrated emergency food. 

I was impressed with how easy it was to order these supplies from the Costco web site. Shipping was free. (Meaning, included with the price.) Everything came within a week. The cost seemed eminently reasonable, judging from other sources of vegetarian emergency food I found online.

And the other stuff in the boxes struck me as being nicely thought out. Good variety of grains, fruit, and vegetables. All of which I like. Because they're not beans.

Grains:   

• 12 White Rice (53 servings per can/636 total servings)  
• 6 Millet (52 servings per can/312 total servings)  
• 6 Cornmeal (46 servings per can/ 276 total servings)  
• 6 Rice Flour (75 servings per can/450 total servings)  
• 4 Quinoa (36 servings per can/144 total servings)  
• 6 Amaranth (44 servings per can/264 total servings)

Fruit & Vegetables:   

• 6 Potato Chunks (25 servings per can/150 total servings)  
• 1 FD Sweet Corn (46 servings per can/46 total servings)  
• 1 FD Broccoli (52 servings per can/52 total servings)  
• 4 Carrot Dices (49 servings per can/196 total servings)  
• 2 Onions (45 servings per can/90 total servings)  
• 2 Split Green Peas (46 servings per can/92 total servings)  
• 1 FD Potato Dices (41 servings per can/41 total servings)  
• 3 FD Green Peas (41 servings per can/123 total servings)  
• 6 Tomato Powder (49 servings per can/294 total servings)  
• 2 FD Banana Slices (49 servings per can/98 total servings)  
• 2 FD Strawberries (45 servings per can/90 total servings)  
• 2 FD Raspberries (48 servings per can 96 total servings)  
• 6 Apple Slices (48 servings per can/288 total servings )  
• 1 FD Pineapple (41 servings per can/41 total servings)  
• 1 FD Blueberries (50 servings per can/50 total servings)  
• 1 FD Blackberries (49 servings per can/49 total servings)

Dairy & Basics:   

• 10 Powdered Milk (61 servings per can/610 total servings)  
• 4 Cheese Blend (52 servings per can/208 total servings)  
• 2 White Sugar (646 servings per can/1292 total servings)

Oregon HOA's lose out on liens after foreclosure (probably)

I'm the secretary of our planned community's homeowners association (HOA). Our HOA has had to file liens on property owners who fail to pay their dues two years in a row.

The dues are only $185 a year. Payment plans are allowed. Volunteers do a lot of the work needed to maintain the common property (we also hire a contractor for mowing, spraying, bark mulching, and such). When dues aren't paid by some of our 90 property owners, the other owners have to make up the lost money.

Being the secretary, I have the not-so-fun duty of filing the liens with Marion County. I don't like doing this, especially if the person/people behind in their dues are having a tough time financially.

But I know that our HOA needs to be sure that even if dues aren't paid while someone is living here, when they sell their property the lien will have to be honored. Meaning, the HOA will finally get the unpaid dues.

I was wrong about being sure. Well, probably I was wrong.

We're still trying to figure out the legal ins and outs of what happens to a HOA lien in Oregon when a property goes into foreclosure. Currently it sure looks like HOA's get screwed (a non-legal but apt term) if a bank forecloses on a property that has a lien for unpaid dues on it.

I discovered this late last year after I got a phone call from a title company that would go nameless if I didn't call it AmeriTitle. A woman wanted to know what the annual HOA dues were, saying that the property was up for sale after being foreclosed on by a bank that also would go nameless if I didn't call it Wells Fargo.

I told her, adding "Of course, there is a lien on the property for unpaid dues, which I assume will be paid." That simple comment led to a series of complex back-and-forth exchanges between me, our HOA treasurer, AmeriTitle, and Wells Fargo.

In the end, we got stiffed (another non-legal but apt term). After several fruitless attempts to learn what the legal basis was for not honoring the HOA lien, I got a response from Amerititle that said:

Per Oregon Statute 94.709 ‘Whenever a homeowners association levies any assessment against a lot, the association shall have a lien upon the individual lot for any unpaid assessments…The lien is prior to a homestead exemption and all other liens or encumbrances upon the lot except:…(b) A first mortgage or trust deed of record.’ 

Per Oregon Statute 94.723 Common expenses; liability of first mortgagee, once a lot in a planned community is foreclosed upon the ‘mortgagee and subsequent purchaser shall not be liable for any of the common expenses chargeable to the lot which became due before the mortgagee or purchaser acquired title to the lot.  The unpaid expenses shall become a common expense of all lot owners including the mortgagee or purchaser.’. 

Per Oregon Statute 94.712 ‘An owner shall be personally liable for all assessments imposed on the owner or assessed against the owner’s lot by the homeowners association.’  Accordingly, the servicer on this property, Wells Fargo, paid the past due amounts owing against the lot according to the state statute, which is from the foreclosure sales date forward.  

So we got paid for the few months of unpaid dues that accrued between the time Wells Fargo foreclosed on the property. But not for the several years of unpaid dues prior to that date. Seems unfair to me. 

Our HOA lost out on about $300. However, another foreclosed property in our development owes considerably more. Those dues go to pay for maintenance of the common property, an asset of our community which increases considerably the value of homes and bare lots.

Sixteen states reportedly give HOA liens a "superlien" status, treating them as akin to property taxes: a bill that has to be paid by whoever forecloses on a property. I agree with this:

"The argument that HOAs should be senior to everything is like property taxes — they are part of preserving the collective value of the neighborhood," says Goodman, who represents servicers, HOAs and investors in distressed properties.

Confusing the issue, my Googling revealed quite a few references to Oregon being a superlien state. However, when I checked out the Oregon Statutes cited in the AmeriTitle letter (ORS 94.709, 94.723, 94.712), it sure seems like HOA liens get wiped out in a foreclosure.

Again, unfairly.

Wells Fargo is making plenty of money, along with other banks -- $4.9 billion in the third quarter of 2012. Billion. But they refused to pay our HOA $300 for dues that went toward increasing the value of the home and lot they foreclosed on, and recently sold. 

Our HOA board of directors will have to decide what to do in the future, if it turns out that our liens for unpaid dues indeed are wiped out in a foreclosure. We could go after the previous owner who failed to pay the dues. 

Collection Agency? Small Claims Court? Maybe.Since they refused to pay their dues while they lived here, almost surely a polite letter asking for the money is going to have even less effect after they've moved on following the foreclosure. 

It's a tough situation.

I can (sort of) understand why a bank or other mortage holder doesn't feel like they're responsible for dues incurred by the owner of the property being foreclosed on. However, the bank is reaping the benefits of our HOA's maintenance work on the common assets of our development. 

Oregon law may be on the banks' side. Right and wrong, though, often is different from lawful and unlawful. 

If anyone reading this knows more about the subject of HOA liens and foreclosures than I do, a highly distinct possibility, please leave a comment and enlighten me. Or email me (link in the sidebar). 

Salem's Todd Davidson heading up international tourism efforts

One of our neighbors here in rural south Salem has become a celebrity -- in the tourism promotion world. Recently President Obama announced at Walt Disney World that Todd Davidson will lead an effort to increase international tourism through the U.S. Tourism and Travel Advisory Board. 

Here's a KGW story about Todd's appointment (after a brief ad). 

Davidson is CEO of Travel Oregon, which has been successful in boosting tourism in our state.

"The travel industry is an important part of Oregon's economy," said Governor Kitzhaber. "Appointing Todd Davidson to Chair the U.S. Travel and Tourism Advisory Board was an excellent selection. Todd is a thoughtful and effective leader who will continue to promote Oregon's tourism advantages in his national position."

Davidson was appointed Executive Director of Travel Oregon in June 1996 and was named Chief Executive Officer in September 2004. Under his leadership, the tourism industry in Oregon has flourished into an $8.7 billion industry that employs more than 90,000 Oregonians; in 2011 more than 8,000 jobs were created. 

Way to go, Todd!

I've got some great ideas for luring international tourists to our very own neighborhood, Spring Lake Estates, which those of us who have lived here for a long time like to call "Poison Oak Estates." There's got to be an untapped market of people who want to experience some of the world's largest and most potent poison oak vines.

I'm visualizing busloads of Japanese (and other) tourists pulling up to vacant lots in our neighborhood after they've had their fill of the Woodburn Mall. We'd give them white jumpsuits to put on, complete with masks and gloves.

Then we'd go on a walking tour of our amazing poison oak forests. There'd be some exciting acrobatic acts featuring scantily clad attractive guys and gals who would do their thing above, below, and around dense thickets of poison oak. And every one of them would be super-allergic to it!

Thrill a minute. We'd sell souvenir poison oak leaves enclosed in plastic, suitable for a necklace, earrings, or gift to someone you can't stand.

Anyway, Todd, feel free to give me a call when the Tourism Advisory Board starts discussing plans to increase international tourism. If you meet at Walt Disney World, where I hear you shook Obama's hand, I'll just have to put country first and accept an all-expenses trip to consult with the Board. 

Salem's great Spring Creek flood of 2012

This is one for our rural south Salem neighborhood's memory book. Until we die or move away, us old-timers will be saying, "Remember the flooding back in 2012? Man, that was something we've never seen before, or since."

Spring Creek is only half a mile long, at most. It's fed by, no big surprise, springs. The creek winds through our property on the way to Spring Lake. Usually it's quite small, even in winter. But the rainfall we've gotten this week isn't usual.

Here's a seven minute video of how Spring Creek and Spring Lake looked to me, my wife, and family dog today. My photographic journey ends with me being out-machoed by a neighbor (but I didn't have to dump water out of my boots).

 

After Laurel got back from our walk, she headed off to the Willamette Humane Society for her usual Thursday dog-walking volunteer duties. Again, though, today wasn't usual.

Instead of walking dogs, Laurel mostly filled sandbags to keep rising water out of the Humane Society building. Then it was announced that all of the animals had to be evacuated because of a broken dike. Laurel grabbed a smallish dog and brought it home.

Sally and I are getting along fine.

However, after some anatomical inspecting Laurel has renamed her/him Sam. Sam and our dog aren't exactly best friends, given Sam's understandable nervousness and barking. Hopefully he will be a fairly brief house guest. (Update: especially since we've discovered he has fleas..)

But for a while, we're pleased to shelter a canine refugee from the great Salem flood of 2012.
Download Salem flooding newspaper story 

Successful south Salem subdivision fight makes the news

A few days ago the Portland Oregonian ran a story about a judge's ruling that said "no way" to a 43-lot, 217 acre subdivision that threatened water supplies in our neighborhood.

A Marion County judge has ruled that property owners who started building a South Salem subdivision before voters limited such development didn't meet the legal guidelines that would allow them to finish the project.

The ruling reverses a decision by the Marion County Board of Commissioners, who in July 2009 voted 2-1 that Leroy and Jean Laack and five associates had a "vested right" to continue building a 42-unit subdivision in the South Salem hills.

Neighbors, the conservation group Friends of Marion County and the Keep Our Water Safe Committee protested the county's decision and took it to court. Among other things, opponents argued that the subdivision would require so much water that it would threaten existing wells in the area.

I was disappointed that the story didn't mention the Crag Law Center, because attorney Ralph Bloemers was key to our legal success -- along with Eugene attorney Sean Malone, a protege of Ralph's who took the lead in writing the Circuit Court briefs.

The Crag Law Center web site also publicized our victory in "Local Citizens Praise Victory Protecting South Salem Hills from Sprawl."

Ralph Bloemers, a staff attorney with the Crag Law Center, stated: “Many people sought to take advantage of Measure 37 and develop large residential subdivisions, commercial developments and gravel mines. These proposals threatened neighboring property rights, water supplies and undermined the efforts of people with more reasonable goals. This decision protects neighboring property owners and preserves Oregon’s valuable agricultural capabilities.”

For sure.

The subdivision was going to be built on high value, groundwater limited farmland. There are plenty of places where houses can be built in Oregon without paving over irreplaceable agricultural soil.

Here's a photo which accompanied the Crag Law Center press release that shows Laurel and me standing on Liberty Road in front of the rolling hills where 43 homes were on their way to being built. (As a blogger, it's appropriate that I have my mouth open.)

The 1000 Friends of Oregon blog also gave us a shout-out.

Well, back at you 1000 Friends. We couldn't have succeeded without your help. Friends of Marion County, an affiliate of the statewide organization, supported our fight -- as mentioned in the Oregonian story.

I enjoyed perusing comments from readers (including one from Eric Mortenson, who wrote the story). Since the story couldn't include all of the facts about Judge Johnson's decision, some people had misconceptions about it.

Accordingly, I added a comment of my own:

Mortenson had to leave out some key facts in his short story. (1) The would-be developers spent $84,000 on road construction even though they didn't have required permits. Legally, Judge Johnson said this needed to be subtracted from the allowable "vesting expenses."

(2) Based on an Oregon Supreme Court ruling and other case law, about 7% of the total cost of development needs to be spent on a project before it passes the "ratio test." Here, Laack and his co-owners only spent about 3%, even assuming an unrealistically low total cost.

(3) In line with the above, Johnson said that $18 to $20 million was the true total cost of development based on the owners' stated plans for the project. (Later a low-ball estimate was cooked up in an attempt to get vested.)

(4) Several Marion County Circuit Court judges recused themselves from this case, probably because they had some past connection with the county Board of Commissioners. So Johnson, a retired Multnomah County judge, was brought in by Marion County Circuit Court to hear the case.

My memory failed me when I wrote the comment, since actually Judge Johnson said that the total cost of development, as the subdivision was originally envisioned prior to the passage of Measure 49 in 2007, was $22 million, not $18 to $20 million.

So the ratio of actual legal expenditures to the total cost of development is about $400,000 : $22,000,000, or 1.8%. Not much. If somebody only had completed less than 2% of a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle (20 pieces or so), would it be valid to say "They've done a substantial amount of work on it?"

No. This is one of the reasons Judge Johnson correctly ruled that the subdivision didn't have a vested right to continue development.

I'll end with someone else's comment on the story that contained some wise observations about the rights of people already living in an area.(However, the commenter didn't realize that a "municipal water system" couldn't be built in our area, since we are five miles from the Salem city limits; water for the subdivision was going to have to come from the already depleted aquifer lying under the 217 acres):

It might be a big pile of money they already spent, but nonetheless it is reckless and irresponsible to develop enough housing units on a piece of land that it would affect well-water supplies for existing neighbors.

If the project had gone forward and drained these wells to unusable levels, would neighbors have grounds for a lawsuit against the developer? The new homeowners?

Would the new homeowners agree to abandon the subdivision and replenish the water supply to undo the damages against the existing neighbors?

Would the developer (who would no longer be the property owner) or the new homeowners foot the bill for a municipal water district, to relieve the pressure on the ground water supply for nearby neighbors?

Or would groundwater supplies be so far gone by the time anybody took action that the neighbors would have to pay to connect their houses to this unpaid-for and not-yet-built municipal water supply? Would those costs be paid for by the developer? The new homeowners?

Would the developer or new homeowners pay for nearby residents to relocate when it's determined that the costs of creating said municipal water district infrastructure is far too great to be practical?

Why is that a landowner who intends to recklessly develop property in a fashion that will impose very tangible negative externalities against surrounding landowners is treated as a "victim"? If this development had been allowed to move forward, and people actually bought and occupied the housing units, the true victims would be the surrounding landowners whose governing laws failed to protect them from the very thing those laws were written to prevent.

This isn't the kind of thing you just "let happen" and allow litigation to solve subsequent problems later. Some problems can't be practically resolved later.

Judge's final decision on Laack subdivision: the meaning for me

A few days ago Judge Nely Johnson finalized her oral opinion in Marion County (Oregon) Circuit Court that overturned a flawed Board of Commissioners' decision to let a 43-lot, 217-acre subdivision move ahead on high value, groundwater limited farmland.

Land use junkies and interested neighbors can read all about it here (4.1 MB PDF file):
Download Final decision FOMC v. Marion County (Laack)

This has been a long journey for our neighborhood and me. It started in 2005, when plans for this Measure 37 development first surfaced.

My wife, Laurel, initially led the fight to protect our area's ground and surface water -- household wells and springs that feed Spring Lake -- from drying up, as was predicted by hydrogeologists and the state Water Resources Department.

I became more active as the battle began to be fought on legal and governmental territory. The skirmishes were many and convoluted. It'd be difficult to describe how much time, effort, and money we and our neighbors put into this cause.

So I won't.

The most recent chapters in the tale have been related here, here, and here. A press release from the Crag Law Center provides more info on Judge Johnson's ruling.
Download Press Release - Measure 37 & 49 - Laack - December 2010

In this post I want to talk about the meaning this neighborhood land use fight has had for me. Hopefully I can share some ideas that will resonate with people who have no interest in land use issues, but can relate to the general nature of this sort of experience: working really hard on something, for a long time, when there is no guarantee of success.

As is the case with most things in life. Such as...

Raising a child. Pursuing a college undergraduate or graduate degree. Starting a business. Aiming for a martial arts black belt. Cultivating a happy marriage. Seeking better health. Writing a book for publication.

I've done all of the above, plus a lot more in my sixty-two years of living. Your list will be different, as the activities people engage in and the goals they pursue are marvelously diverse.

Now I can add "Struggling to save a neighborhood's water supply." A new activity, one of the most intense, difficult, and complex things I've ever done. But the meaning-of-life lessons I've learned in the process are extensions of earlier lessons.

Namely...

What I'm doing isn't right or wrong; it's just what I'm doing. Like most people, I can feel pretty damn self-righteous at times.

Not a day goes by when I don't read the newspaper, watch TV, surf the Internet, or simply observe everyday life and say to myself, "What the #@$&%#!! That person is acting like a freaking idiot!"

However, equally often I remind myself that everybody is doing what makes sense to them, what feels right to them, what strikes them as the proper course of action.

Once I start labeling things as "right" and "wrong," I set myself up as the Grand Poohbah Decider of Morality in the Universe -- a role I neither want, nor am qualified, to play. Whether the issue is the building of a subdivision, national tax policy, or anything else, people are going to have different opinions about it.

I can respect someone else's differing view of an ideal world even as I work as hard as I can to make my view reality. They're going to do the same. Each of us isn't better or worse than the other -- simply different.

Little things turn into bigger things. Not always physically, though children and saplings do just that. What I'm talking about is how a string of seemingly inconsequential, petty, and minimally-meaningful actions can turn into something that makes us go, "Wow, look at that!"

This is so obvious, it hardly needs saying. But sometimes the obvious begs for attention because we pay so little attention to what is continually evident.

Whenever I've tried to do something difficult, I've had moments of despair.

By "moment" I don't mean a few seconds; my despairing periods occasionally were lengthy. All I could do then was turn to whatever small thing needed doing, and try to keep my mind off of the prospect that the entire venture might, as the saying goes, end up down the crapper.

There's no 100% guarantee of success. Even when we're taking one step after another, a seemingly predictable exercise, in the next instant an earthquake could open up a crevasse beneath our feet, or a heart attack could stop us in our tracks.

Unlikely. Yet possible.

For five years my wife and I, along with the many other people who supported efforts to stop the subdivision in our neighborhood, weren't sure where our efforts were going to end up. All we knew was what lay right before us; the future was unseen behind a corner.

Quite a while ago I jotted down some ideas for a book. Mostly what I had was a title: "Fabulous Failure." What makes life fabulous isn't so much the final outcome (that's going to be death, after all) but how it is lived moment by moment.

Yes, much of the time our efforts are rewarded by attaining a desired goal. Not always, though.

So I try to have this attitude: if I attend to the little things that come up every day as diligently, mindfully, and energetically as possible, they will add up to a Big Thing: a meaningful life. (This doesn't equate to achieving a particular outcome; meaning is an inward state of mind, not an objective state of affairs.)

As time goes on, even the bigger things shrink. Here I wish I was adept at composing a haiku, because those preceding bold-faced words probably are better elucidated with poetry than prose. I have a strong intuition of what they mean, but it's largely inexpressible.

Which won't stop me from trying, though. So I'll express away, starting with something firmly concrete: my reading of the judge's final order.

I was struck by how weeks (or even months) of my work ended up becoming a line or two of legal substance in Judge Johnson's opinion. Sometimes she disagreed with a position that we and our attorneys took; other times, she agreed.

Regardless, the twenty-five pages of her "Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law" were numerically a small fraction of the hundreds of pages submitted by the attorneys for both sides in their legal arguments that led up to this decision; and all of that was a small fraction of the thousands of pages in the complete record of the case.

Further, the information in all of this written material pales beside the content of the much more extensive personal experiences of everyone involved with the subdivision issue over the past five years.

We and our neighbors. The owners and would-be developers of the property. Marion County staff and elected officials. Consultants. Contrators. Attorneys. Employees of state and federal agencies. Newspaper reporters. And more...

Life ends up getting boiled down. This is its nature.

Someone recently asked me, "How long have you been married?" I said, "Twenty years." Two words. Just two. Yet what they represent, point to, signify, mean to me... the thickest book in the world wouldn't be enough to capture all of that.

On my other blog I've written about this is it. Not the movie about Michael Jackson, but the realization that each and every moment in life never will come again.

Not only that: the memory, traces, and remembrances of moments become increasingly condensed with time. The day after Laurel and I were married, I could describe to someone almost everything we'd experienced since our "I do's." (Keeping a few intimacies confidential, of course.)

Now, no way.

I can't even recall most of what has happened during our marriage, just as most of what has transpired in the course of our fight against the subdivision has disappeared from both the legal record and my psyche's recollections.

This is life.

It goes on, until it doesn't. Past moments are replaced by present ones. Even the satisfaction we may feel upon remembering a prior accomplishment or pleasure is occurring now.

When I was younger, I had the misconception that my life would be a success if I achieved great things. Now, at sixty-two, I've realized this is a fantasy. Small things are all I have. They don't aggregate, clump, or combine into big things.

It's time for a dog walk. That's a small thing. Which for me (and the family pet, Serena), is the same as a big thing.

Is Tea Party anger filtering into neighborhood groups?

Until last night I'd thought of Tea Party craziness as being mostly confined to the national and state levels.

But after attending a meeting of our rural south Salem (Oregon) neighborhood association last night, I'm wondering if that sort of free-floating irrational anger is making its way into deeply local concerns.

I've been the secretary of our association for many years -- almost twenty. In the not-so-good old days, soon after we moved into this area, some of the neighborhood association meetings were so vehement, people would almost come to blows.

Then the hotheads departed, or got older and a bit wiser.

For a long time we've had a pleasurably neighborly neighborhood group, a board of directors with members who have divergent political views and personalities, but who come together to make our community a better place.

After all, maintaining the common property (riding/hiking trails and a lake) doesn't have anything to do with conservatism or liberalism, Republican or Democrat, or such. I'm a Suzuki scooter-riding vegetarian Prius-driving Democrat who gets along great with a Harley-riding meat-loving pickup-driving Republican board member.

A recent election, though, brought some fresh faces to the board of directors. I don't know exactly what these two guys' political leanings are, but they strike me as quintessential Tea Party types.

Last night's meeting went on for three and a half freaking long hours. I think this is a record for the hundred or so neighborhood association board meetings I've attended. Since I had to take notes for the minutes, I almost had writer's cramp by the time my watch showed 10:30 pm.

The main reason: an astounding amount of anger, negativism, and criticism from the two Tea Party'ish guys. This was their first board meeting after being elected. It didn't take long for them to question whether a homeowner's association should even exist.

Amazing.

They run for the board of directors so they can try to dismantle the organization that is charged with maintaining the common property that makes our neighborhood so livable.

This is just like Tea Party candidates who are running for Congress so they can do away with the federal government, which is illogically bizarre. If you don't believe in people coming together to pool their money and effort so they can do things together which individuals can't on their own, why would you become part of the government that you hate so much?

Why not simply do your own thing? Why so much anger at people, like me, who value the common good rather than rampant "me, me, me" separatism?

It was interesting, and also more than a little disturbing, to watch the Tea Party philosophy in action at such a neighborhood level. These guys like living in our community, but they dont' like spending money to keep it livable (again, just like the crazy "Keep government out of my Medicare!" attitude).

Mark Morford's recent column is called "I am outraged! Are you not outraged?" This is right on:

It all adds up to one conclusion: We are so wildly, stupidly free, it's rather hilarious. And savagely ironic. Because you can also say it culminates in perhaps the ultimate expression of Outrage USA, the single place where all such screeching congeals in a shrill, silly little group, signifying nothing.

It's called the Tea Party, that gaggle of terrified, white, middle-aged men whose actual slogan is "mad as hell." What are they mad about, exactly? They have no idea. What do they want to do to change it? No clue. From whence does their timorous fear and dread come? They can't quite say. Perfect.

Photos of Independence, Oregon Fourth of July celebration

On Independence Day 2009, it seemed oh so appropriate to head over to nearby Independence to see how a namesake Oregon small town celebrates the Fourth of July.

I hadn't been to this annual event for a long time. But now that I have a Suzuki Burgman 650 scooter, I look for reasons to go for a drive. Even on a 93 degree day.

My timing wasn't so great, because I got to Main Street just as the parade had ended. Onlookers hadn't left yet, so at least I could pick up a hint of the parade vibe.

The town of Independence has a strong Latino presence. At first I thought this guy was a traditional bicycling ice cream vendor. Then I saw the Hispanic side to the tradition.

The town's amphitheater, in a park next to the Willamette River, is a great place to listen to music on a hot July day.

I didn't know that "lowriders" came in a bicycle version. This guy was cool. Later I saw him with two buddies, who also rode similar cruisin' bikes.

Staking out spots for tonight's fireworks display over the river, I suppose.

This pool by the park entrance, just off Main Street, was popular with the kids. Given how hot it was, I wished I was fifty years younger. Or not wearing so many clothes.

When these boys saw me taking photos, they yelled "take one of us!" I told them, "You've got to do something interesting." They did. My new camera got a nice shot.

I love the bright Independence Day colors. And the appealing all-American tackiness of the booths.

This booth didn't appeal to me, though. Good god! Why would a kid want to listen to a Bible story at a fair? However, they had a decent audience when I walked by.

Kudos to this woman on her Fourth of July color coordinated outfit. Including accessories. She needs to get her guy matching better, though.

Another religious booth. Must be an Independence, Oregon thing. I didn't stop to get my answer. Figured I already knew what it would be.

Great view of the Willamette River.

I didn't realize so many things could be deep-fried until my hungry, but health-conscious, mind studied the menus on the food booths.

Starting at one end of the food area, I walked all the way to the end, and back again -- pondering the chances of not immediately suffering a cholesterol/fat-fueled heart attack if I ate what was being purveyed.

Ended up with a tasty strawberry shortcake. Which featured Oregon strawberries, the best in the world.

Live with coyotes, don't kill them

Excellent story in the Portland Oregonian today, "Coping with neighborhood coyotes." It makes the same points that my wife and I have shared with some coyote-hating neighbors of ours recently.

(Since the Oregonian eventually archives its online stories, I scanned the piece by Jacques Von Lunen so it will be permanently available.)
Download Oregonian coyote story 4-28-09

Coyotes are part of nature's balance. Von Lunen says they weren't in western Oregon until wolves were eradicated and clear-cutting of forests enabled them to cross the Cascades.

Laurel and I wish we had more of them here in semi-rural south Salem. Ground squirrels are a problem for us. Coyotes aren't. As the story says:

There's no reason to want coyotes gone anyway, say the experts. Without coyotes, the local rodent population would skyrocket to four or five times its current level, Sallinger says. [Bob Sallinger is conservation director for the Audubon Society of Portland.]

Urban legends about coyotes abound. We've heard neighbors say, "I'm worried they'll kill a small child."

Actually, points out Von Lunen, there's only one recorded case of a coyote killing a human in U.S. history. And that was after a family continuously fed a coyote, causing it to be unafraid of humans. It then attacked a 3-year old child.

Don't leave food out for coyotes, and they are much less likely to come around. This is rule #1 for dealing with them.

Another rule is: don't kill them. This just leads to more coyotes.

Killing an individual coyote only opens up its habitat to other coyotes, which replace it almost instantly. Coyotes also employ "compensatory breeding strategies," Sallinger says. Typically, only the alpha male and female of a pack breed. But if pack members are killed, the remaining coyotes start breeding, pushing their numbers higher.

Being animal lovers, we can understand why people worry about their pet cats and small dogs in coyote territory. But keeping cats indoors (especially at night) and not letting your chihuahua roam on its own will go a long way toward keeping pets safe.

Our coyote-hating neighbors are fond of feral cats, feeding and taking care of them. That's nice. But feral cats aren't part of the natural Oregon ecosystem, whereas coyotes are.

Cats decimate the wild songbird population, as evidenced by how much they hang around our bird feeders. Coyotes control rodent pests.

Give me a coyote over a feral cat anytime. The Oregonian story concludes with:

"Coyotes are amazing animals," Sallinger says. "We're very fortunate to have them around. We shouldn't want to get rid of them."

California ground squirrels are driving us nutty

Maybe this is karma for a one-time Californian, moi, defying Oregon governor Tom McCall's plea in the 1970s to "come visit, but please don't live here." 

I stayed, and now I've got plenty of California company --  ground squirrels who have migrated into the northwest and are making a mess of our yard and crawl space. 

They are super cute, which makes dealing with the critters a lot more difficult. We can't imagine killing them. But their reputation as "one of the most troublesome pests to homeowners and gardeners" seems well-deserved.

For most of the nineteen years we've lived in rural south Salem, gray tree squirrels have been our bushy-tailed wildlife neighbors. Now, the California ground squirrels seem to be taking over.

They hibernated during the winter, undoubtedly dreaming of the good life on a warm beach. When they emerged in the spring, we enjoyed watching them frolicking around our yard.

As noted here, the squirrels are skilled at getting into adorable positions. (Maybe natural selection has evolved them into adopting a look of "I'm too cute to shoot!")

I especially like the contemplative pose, similar to the photo above, where a squirrel sits on a rock just beyond our deck, looking like a Chinese courtesan with her hands folded neatly in front under her kimono.

Not nearly so cute, though, is what we discovered today.

Crawling under the deck, Laurel found that the little bastards had dug completely under our house's concrete foundation and had made their way into our crawl space. Evidence: insulation that they had dragged out through the tunnel (probably to make a bed where they will have sex and create more California ground squirrels to drive us even nuttier).

Speaking of sex, we've seen them doing the deed on the same rock where contemplation occurs.

Since the average litter is seven to eight, this is worrisome. We'd just as soon not have a big commune of ground squirrels tunneling all over our property.

Burrows, which are about four or five inches in diameter, may vary in length from five feet to more than thirty-five feet and may be used by many generations of ground squirrels...In studying California Ground Squirrels, one group of scientists found a squirrel home with six females and five males which consisted of tunnels totaling 741 feet in length and had thirty-three openings. The deepest tunnel was twenty-eight feet below ground. Although most tunnel excavation work is done in the spring, digging and burrow improvement is a continuing process.

I went to Lowe's today and got some hardware cloth. We'll seal up the openings around our deck, which should keep them away from the foundation.

We've also borrowed a live trap from a neighbor. If you've ever wanted a cute California ground squirrel, let me know. Hopefully we'll be able to accommodate adoption requests soon.

Other options listed under "best management practices" for controlling the critters don't appeal to us. The burrow exploder seems like overkill (especially since we don't want to kill them).

There is much equipment involved in this burrow explosion method.  You will need personal safety gear, which includes a hard hat, heavy gloves, safety glasses, ear plugs, ear protectors, and full body protective clothing.  A fire extinguisher and shovels are highly recommended. 

Reminds me of Caddyshack, a great movie about getting rid of gophers by any and all means on a golf course. But we'll stick with the hardware cloth and live trap for now.

Killing coyotes isn't necessary. Our neighbors are wrong.

We're engaged in a not-entirely-friendly debate with some neighbors about coyote killing. They're out to shoot the critters. We want to live with them.

The facts are on our side, because killing coyotes generally results in more of them, not less.

So says a factsheet, "Living With Coyotes," from the city of Tigard here in Oregon.
Download Coyote factsheet

While coyote control can be effective in eliminating specific individuals, it will not help reduce local populations. Coyotes have a compensatory, density-dependent breeding rate. Killing coyotes disrupts population structure causing more coyotes to breed and have larger litters. Coyotes will also quickly fill into vacated habitat from adjacent areas. For these reasons, eradication efforts frequently lead to increases in local coyote populations.

This conclusion is echoed by a scientific opinion letter on coyote control written for Predator Defense.
Download Coyotes_letter_Dr_Crabtree_11-04-97

Although removal of offending individuals can temporarily alleviate predation rates on the protected species, the alleviation is usually short-term and likely has long-term side-effects that make control activities ineffective. It can not be over-emphasized how powerfully coyote populations compensate for population reductions.

Over six years ago our neighborhood association was debating this same issue. The facts haven't changed. Coyotes aren't a big problem out here.

Or even a small problem, with rare exceptions, except when people attract them onto their property by feeding animals outside, not properly closing garbage cans, and other actions that put out a "Welcome" sign to coyotes.

As the Arizona Game and Fish Department points out:

Coyotes are curious, clever, and adaptable. They quickly learn to take advantage of any newly discovered food source, and are often attracted to yards with abundant fruit and wildlife to eat.

It's strange that our neighbors moved to their five acres, just as we did, to be closer to nature than is possible in the city. Yet they want to kill animals that fill an important role in our local natural ecosystem (coyotes are great at controlling rodent populations).

It bothers us when people shoot guns in a populated area when it isn't necessary. Especially since we have a coyote-colored dog who goes with us on walks along a community trail that extends through the neighbor's property.

Hunting is a lot more dangerous to humans than coyotes are. Or, cougars. Or, wolves.

But at least our neighbors haven't taken seriously the tongue-in-cheek land mine suggestion another humorously-minded resident came up with. Guess we should be thankful for that.

Fall walk takes mind off of political talk

What's real? What's not? Philosophers, mystics, and theologians have argued this question for millennia. I don't know the answer.

But a fall walk late this afternoon helped put the upcoming election into perspective. Both are real -- nature and politics. Yet only one calms the spirit.

Which I needed right now.
(click a photo to enlarge)

Here's a vine maple that Laurel planted on our property. This is its reddish year.

Another one, even more dramatic than its neighbor.

Find the dog in the photo. Tough to do. Her Shepherd coloring blends with Oregon's early November hue.

Having turned 60 this year, falling leaves have become a more meaningful metaphor for life's evanescence.

There's also simply what they are: damn pretty.

I started my walk too late in the day to get a lot of sun.

But what was left -- just fine.

A massive golden oak tree near the lake.

Trees on the other side of the Spring Lake dam.

The setting sun, doing its thing.

Spring Lake, asking, "So, tell me, what's wrong with the world?"

Hangers-on. Doing what they do.

The dock. Saying a lot. Wordlessly.

End with a sunset? Sure. I'm not afraid of a cliche. Especially a beautiful one.

Images of Oregon’s Ides of March

It's yin and yang time in the Willamette Valley. Oregon is doing its changing thing. Rain most of the day, then a burst of late afternoon sunshine.

The daffodils in our garden use it to show off. Look at me, so bloomin' beautiful!

Down the path, Spring Creek is springing. New growth on winter's bare branches.

Nearing the lake, a long shadow pointed the way to the sun.

A first cherry blossom welcomed me to the lake shore.

Aging oak. Aging bird house. Belonging together.

Cattails, old. Willows, new. More yin and yang.

Last year's cattails.

This year's willows. Each as they should be. Just on different schedules.

I keep trying to steer the lake. Haven't succeeded so far. Need some WD 40 for the rust, I suppose. Then I can move Spring Lake closer to home.

Sometimes in Oregon, the water marks the path. Waterproof shoes: highly desirable.

Nearing our house, shadows show up a satisfyingly well-trod path. I always think, "Machu Picchu." Isn't that where countless generations have worn distinct steps in hard rock? We're talking regular ground here. Still, I like that we're leaving some dog-walk traces behind. I want to be remembered for something.

After wine tasting, I end up with a dog of a Pinot Noir

Would a wine connoisseur buy a bottle because it has a dog face on it? Surely, not.

But I'm surely not a wine connoisseur, so the outcome of my first Oregon wine tasting experience was entirely fitting to my oenophile standard.

Actually, it was my first wine tasting anywhere, a fact I stated repeatedly during my visit to the nearby Ankeny Vineyard this afternoon in hopes any faux pas I committed would be more easily forgiven.

I'm sure I made a few, but my wife was the only person who pointed one out to me. After a smidgen of the first red (we don't like white wine) was poured into my glass, I gulped it down.

"You're supposed to sip it!" Laurel said, and not in a whisper. I also didn't smell it. Or roll the wine around in the glass before drinking it, as I've seen oenophiles do in movies.

My assessment of the Ankeny Vineyard offerings also wasn't hugely sophisticated. After the first glass I said "This is good." After the second, I said "This is even better."

The even better was a Pinot Noir called Hershy's Red. It's aptly named after Hershy, a chocolate lab who ran up to greet us when we drove into the vineyard parking lot. He clearly was more interested in our dog, Serena, than the humans who accompanied her.

But I managed to talk Hershy into posing for a photo with me and a bottle of his namesake wine – mostly by holding onto his collar while he gazed toward more interesting pursuits. Like, our dog.

Now that I've read the label on the Hershy's Red I know what to say next time I have a taste.

"Grown near the valley floor in fertile Steiwer clay soil, these grapes ripen early in the fall, resulting in wine with complex dark fruit aromas with flavors of black cherry, blackberry, blueberry and plum predominating."

Exactly. That's what I meant by my "even better." Just couldn't put it into those words.

The $18 I spent on this dog-faced bottle was a record for me, I think. I've only been drinking wine for a few years, after about thirty-five years of teetotaling. At first I wouldn't pay more than $10 for a bottle.

But my tastes have been getting more expensive. By and large I've been learning that you get what you pay for with wine, as with most other things.

Plus, one of the staff at LifeSource Natural Foods, where I buy most of my wine, told me once that $14 is the dividing line between "good" and "not-so-good" vintages. Meaning, you need to spend that much to get a decent bottle.

He used to work for a wine distributor and is a straight-shooting conversationalist, so I'm confident that he didn't tell me this just to increase the value of his store's wine sales.

Well, hopefully this $18 bottle of Hershy's Red won't whet my taste and lead me into even higher priced Pinot Noir territory.

A dog face on the label easily could be worth $4 though. Especially when the canine is willing (with a bit of coaxing) to pose with the purchaser.

The sorrow of sowing invasive deer food

Laurel likes deer. She also dislikes barren slopes filled with dead, decaying blackberry vines. So last year this combined like and dislike led her to sow deer food on part of our property.

Fortunately, not a large part. Big enough, though, for us to spend much of yesterday and today pulling up the damn stuff.

Laurel thought that it would only come up once. Since this vegetation, a "deer greens" blend of brassica and purple top turnip, isn't very attractive, that was the hope when it sprouted and grew rapidly. The deer liked it. We didn't, so hoped that it'd just make a one-time appearance.

With the weather warming, that hope was dashed, even though the blend supposedly is an annual. As spouts began to appear, it dawned on Laurel that she'd seemingly unleashed an invasive plant on the land that we'd just cleared of the invasive Himalayan Blackberry.

Often leaving well enough alone is the best approach. Especially when dealing with nature. Left to its own devices, bare rural land in western Oregon has no trouble replanting itself.

I'd reminded Laurel of this when we stood and stared at the plot that finally had been cleared of what had previously been filled with really expensive blackberries. But wives, like our president, are the deciders. She wanted green growth, now.

Well, we got it. Along with sore backs and knees today.

So, think twice before you spread deer food around your property. I guess this is pretty common. Not being a hunter, or even a meat-eater, until I Googled "deer food" I didn't realize that planting food plots to attract deer is an accepted practice.

Our motivation was to do something nice for the deer. But I suspect a more nefarious reason is involved when the ad copy for a planting mix says "Best of all, every buck, young and old, will carry a heavier rack and more body weight!"

Well, our neighborhood deer will have to adjust to being a touch leaner from now on. Hopefully they aren't able to read certain news stories. We want them to believe that thin is in.

Measure 37 fight gets us on the 11 o’clock news

Whew. After being relegated five times to the early KATU news programs, our fight against a Measure 37 subdivision finally made the prestigious 11 o’clock program last night.

Thank you, Channel 2. Love you. (Though my “Local Portland news focused on fluff and crime” post still holds, notwithstanding the 1:45 devoted to our serious story).

Here’s the YouTubed news clip of the Marion County Planning Commission decision on the 217 acre subdivision application.

Note my concentrated focus on the camcorder with which I videoed the proceedings. It’s healthy for public officials to know that their deliberations and decisions might appear on the Internet, as is happening with the overly secretive Virginia legislature.

The Statesman-Journal also ran a story on the decision. Which was pretty complicated. We’re still digesting the ramifications of the final Planning Commission motion that was approved 4-3. (Read this previous post to better understand the following).

--five acre minimum lot size is required for the subdivision
--the big 92 acre lot can be reduced to 80 acres, if desired by the developer
--only one house can be built on the 80 (or 92) acre lot
--that leaves up to 137 acres for the subdivision (original 125 acres plus potential 12 acres from the big lot)
--which means a theoretical maximum of 28 homes can be built (137/5 = 27, plus one on the 80 acre lot), though roads and other infrastructure would reduce the available acreage
--any attempt to partition the 28 lots would trigger a hydrogeological study (not review) of the entire property
--a hydrogeological review must be conducted now
--both a conceptual and detailed approval of the application was passed (no additional public hearing required)

Basically, we’re happy. Not ecstatic. Leroy Laack originally wanted to build 80 homes on the property. After his geologist told him there wasn’t enough water, the plan changed to 43 homes. Now it’s down to a maximum of 28.

Better for our neighborhood’s limited groundwater supply. However, the state Water Resources Department says that any further development in the area threatens existing wells. So we wanted the Planning Commission to require a more extensive groundwater study before approving the application.

Measure 37 has created a mess. That was evident last night. The commissioners talked about how this EFU (exclusive farm use) land never was intended to become a subdivision. So when Marion County laid the foundation for its groundwater ordinance, those 217 acres weren’t part of the area that was studied.

People bought property here figuring they could trust in fair and equitable zoning practices. If they built a house adjacent to farmland, they assumed it wouldn’t change into a subdivision without going through an open, deliberate, rational planning process.

Measure 37 took away that assumption. Which is why it needs to be suspended by the legislature and governor until fairness is restored to Oregon’s land use system. We and our neighbors achieved a halfway acceptable outcome yesterday.

But this state can do a lot better than “halfway.” Sign the Fix Measure 37 petition if you haven’t done so already.

How to fix Measure 37

Measure 37 has made a mess of Oregon’s land use laws. That’s undisputed. My state now has a crazily complex patchwork of land use time zones, each governed by a different set of rules based on when the owner acquired the property.

This is no way to run a society. It’s unfair, inefficient, damaging, and divisive. The governor says that we need to fix Measure 37. Legislative leaders say that we need to fix Measure 37.

So let’s get ‘er done. Or git-r-done. I don’t care which, so long as it’s done.

My wife and I are fully acquainted with the problems Measure 37 is creating. Scroll through this blog’s “Measure 37” category (past this post, which will temporarily head the list) and you’ll see that we know whereof we speak.

So here’s my speaking about how to fix Measure 37. The foundation of my fixing is some simple philosophy: land is sacred, but not in the way extreme property rights activists would have us believe.

Land is sacred—using this term in a broad non-religious sense—because humans can’t exist without it. Water is sacred to fish. Air is sacred to clouds. Space is sacred to stars. But sacredness obviously is not limited to land, water, air, and space.

For every entity in the universe, living or non-living, is part of an interconnected web that allows it to exist and do whatever it is capable of doing. A few days ago I went to a Measure 37 workshop at the Salem Public Library where Mitch Rohse, a land use planner, made this same point.

“Land is not a discrete object,” he said. It’s nature is connectedness. Water flows between legal parcels, both above and below the ground. Ditto with air, wildlife, and the photons that allow me to see what is on my neighbor’s lot, and for him to see what is on mine.

In addition, Rohse pointed out, land is not a product of man. It isn’t created. A religious person would say land is the result of God’s grace. A scientific person, that it is the result of natural processes. Whichever, land clearly isn’t an item that anyone can claim proud ownership of: “This is mine. I made it.”

As Rohse said, you can make a cell phone. You can make a jacket. But you can’t make land. So if there is anything on earth that a person doesn’t have a right to use as he or she wants, this would be land. (See my “Property rights and wrongs,” where I ask if it’d be okay to sell the entire planet).

However, most of us intuitively recognize that there is one use for which land is almost always well suited: the owner should be able to live on it (so long as the living can be done safely without seriously inconveniencing neighbors).

This is how Measure 37 was sold to voters by Oregonians in Action. We heard horror stories of how hard-hearted government bureaucrats were preventing people from building a house on long-held land that wasn’t much good for anything else, including farming. And voters bought it.

As they should have.

I believe that Oregon’s land use laws had indeed gotten overly rigid and needed some loosening up. But not a demolishing. The governor says that fewer than a thousand of the almost 6,500 Measure 37 claims filed to date are asking to build a home on land bought for that purpose years ago.

No, most are like the 217 acre claim adjacent to our neighborhood, where Leroy Laack and his iinvestment partners want to put 43 homes on 125 acres that are officially designated “groundwater limited.”

If Mr. Laack wanted to live on his property, we’d welcome him to the south Salem hills. However, since he wants to take the money and run by dividing his land into small parcels, we most certainly do have a problem with his proposal to turn productive farmland into a subdivision.

Let’s agree, then, that almost always people should be allowed to build a single home on their land. Again, this is what most voters thought they were getting with Measure 37. I’ve got no problem with that. Any Measure 37 fix should allow this to happen.

And that’s about all it should allow. For while I’d agree that there is a “sacred” right to live on one’s land, there is no such right to profit commercially from land. As Mitch Rohse said at the workshop I attended, bare land generally rises in value even when no improvements are made to it.

This is because the increased value comes from the community, not an individual. Rohse noted that we all created the increase in the value of land his family owns in eastern Oregon, for we all maintained a successful society. He called this the “great giving”—wealth given by the community to landowners.

In my quasi-grandiose “Could I become the anti-Measure 37 Dorothy English?” I argued that government actions affect the value of all kinds of investments: stocks, bonds, precious metals, commodities, and so forth. Why should commercial property investors expect special treatment through laws like Measure 37?

Governmental bodies are making decisions all the time that increase or decrease the value of assets held by people. If the Federal Reserve raises interest rates, the price of bonds goes down. Bond traders don’t moan and cry, “Government, reimburse me for the money that I’ve lost because of you.”

Similarly, I told Beth [a newspaper reporter] that both Laurel and I owned limited partnerships in the 1980s (we weren’t married to each other then, but had the same financial planner). They were touted as good investments because of the federal tax code in effect at the time.

Well, they weren’t nearly as good an investment after Congress tinkered with the tax code. As I recall, Oregon’s Mark Hatfield (or Bob Packwood?) was one of the prime movers behind the closing of this tax loophole. Overnight, the monetary benefit we were enjoying from the partnerships fell. A lot, I remember.

Investments rise. Investments fall. That’s the nature of investing. Why should property investments be the exception to this rule? The 217-acre Measure 37 claim next to our neighborhood is a proposed 82 lot subdivision, not a single-family home site.

There’s no reason why the owner of this investment property should be given a special dispensation to harm the limited groundwater supply in our area just because zoning laws changed after he bought the land. Tax laws changed after we bought our partnerships. Nobody compensated us for lost value caused by government action. Why should Leroy Laack and his partners get a free pass?

So this is the other way Measure 37 should be fixed: make a distinction between property held for personal use and investment property. Again, people usually should have the right to live on their land. However, they don’t have a right to roll back land use laws just so they can profit from their land.

Government doesn’t roll back laws for people who have lost money because of a change in a tax or fiscal policy. Neither should government waive Oregon’s land use laws just because the value of a property investment supposedly has been reduced a bit. That’s the way investing works: it’s risky business.

Thus the bottom line on fixing Measure 37 is simple: a landowner should almost always be able to build a house on his or her property. Aside from that, he or she has to abide by the current land use laws.

Get 'er done, governor and legislature. Making such a simple fix shouldn’t take long.

Our Measure 37 fight makes TV news and Loaded Orygun

Kudos to KATU Channel 2 for devoting about four and a half minutes to coverage of Measure 37 in general, and our neighborhood’s battle against a M-37 subdivision in particular.

Three versions of the story aired on KATU’s early evening news programs last Monday. I uploaded the clips to YouTube, even the ones that didn’t feature me saying anything (Laurel came up with the most quotable remarks, which is only fair, as I got more air time on the previous Channel 2 coverage).

Here are links to the clips (Story #2 is the longest and most complete):

Story #1, 4:30 pm news, 1:13, 1.4 MB

Story #2, 5:00 pm news, 2:28, 2.8 MB

Story #3, 6:30 pm news, :50, 1.0 MB

Also, over on Loaded Orygun blogger Carla has a post about us being “Screwed sideways by Measure 37.” Carla talked with Laurel by phone recently and got the scoop on how a 217 acre subdivision threatens to dry up both nearby wells and the springs that feed Spring Lake.

The Marion County Planning Commission was supposed to make a decision on the subdivision yesterday, but the evening meeting was called off because of the weather. It’s been rescheduled for January 30.

Hopefully the Commission won’t let Measure 37 screw our neighborhood, where groundwater problems are already evident—and will only be made worse if 44 additional wells are allowed to be dug without requiring the Measure 37 claimant to demonstrate that there is enough water for his subdivision.

Measure 37 subdivision battle hits front page again

If nothing else, we’re sure helping to publicize the danger Measure 37 poses to Oregon’s groundwater.

Today’s Salem Statesman-Journal had another front page story, “Marion county decision may set precedent for farmland,” about the fight Laurel is leading against a 217 acre subdivision planned for nearby farmland. (Plus a related story about a similar situation in the Eola Hills).

When I say “if nothing else,” I’m pointing toward the disturbing possibility that the Marion County Planning Commission might approve the subdivision application tomorrow night without requiring a study of how much groundwater actually is available in the area.

Last Friday we sent a letter to 92 of our neighbors, updating them on what’s going on with the Keep Our Water Safe (KOWS) committee that Laurel chairs. We said:

Even the applicant’s hydrogeologist, Malia Kupillas, has testified that more information is needed about water availability, usage, and problems in this area before the development moves forward. So it seems unthinkable that the Planning Commission would ignore the recommendations of both the applicant, Leroy Laack, and the opposition, which includes the KOWS committee.

(Here’s the entire letter.)
Download kows_update_11107.doc

But the unthinkable can happen if a government body fails to carefully think through a problem. All we and our neighbors are asking is that approval of the 43-lot subdivision (which could be as large as 80 lots) be held up until a hydrogeological study proves that there is adequate water to support 43 more wells.

People already living here shouldn’t have their wells go dry because of poor planning. Nor should the creek that feeds Spring Lake, which has senior rights to the water that flows off of the proposed subdivision. Leroy Laack, the Measure 37 claimant, has waited thirty years to develop his property. It won’t hurt him to wait three more months so a study can be conducted.

Especially when the only evidence of groundwater adequacy the Marion County Planning Commission has so far is based on “fuzzy math.” This well-deserved term was heard frequently during the first hearing on the Laack subdivision. Even from some of the commissioners.

The Salem KATU (Portland Channel 2) news team came out today to interview Laurel and me again. (The story reportedly will run on the 5 o’clock news). Before Melica Johnson and her cameraman arrived, I grabbed a paper plate and made a video-friendly depiction of the fuzzy math.

Unfortunately, it probably wasn’t friendly enough to make it on air, notwithstanding my intense effort to print as legibly as possible. Since I spent all of, um, a couple of minutes on this graphic arts beauty, I’ll blog my explanation of the plate.

The red line divides two aquifers on the 217 acre property. Laack has made a 92 acre marine sediment aquifer parcel into one lot. The other 125 acre basalt aquifer parcel is proposed to have 42 lots, with 42 wells.

This subdivision is in a groundwater limited SGO (sensitive groundwater overlay) zone where five acres is considered necessary to support one well. Divide 217 acres by 43 wells, and you’ll see that the average lot size of the Laack subdivision is 5.05 acres.

So Marion County might allow Laack and his co-owners to scoot through the requirements of the groundwater ordinance because the average lot in the proposed subdivision is larger than five acres.

Fuzzy math! Because the average is based on one big 92 acre lot and 42 small lots, which average three acres in size. Fuzzy math! Because the water under the single large lot is in a different aquifer from the small lots, so even though Laack may have passed a legality, his subdivision isn’t in accord with groundwater reality.

Those 42 wells are going to be built on acreages of mostly two to three acres. A well on anything less than five acres in an SGO zone is supposed to raise a red flag. But the Measure 37 claimant is trying to play games with the county groundwater ordinance.

Problem is, water is real. Simplistic formulas aren’t. That’s why a study of what really is going on with the groundwater in our area is needed before the subdivision is approved, not just a fuzzy math stamp of approval from the Planning Commission.

Tomorrow we’ll find out whether the Commission is more concerned with a non-sensical legality or the hard facts of reality. Hopefully, the latter. When people in our neighborhood turn on their faucets, they want water to come out—not fuzzy math.

We make the KATU Measure 37 subdivision news

Here’s two YouTubed videos of the Channel 2 news stories yesterday that featured our fight against a nearby subdivision. The first, aired at 4:30, was a brief one minute. The second was on the 5 o’clock news and ran 2:22.

For the benefit of our broadband impaired rural south Salem neighbors, who mostly struggle by with internet dial-up, I reduced the size of the videos considerably (to about 1.2 MB and 2.7 MB). This had the pleasant effect of blurring the picture, thereby taking years off of my visage.

Take a look. Our dog did indeed make it into a shot, just as I hoped for yesterday. You can watch the clips by clicking below, or via YouTube. Shorter story is here and longer story is here.

Shorter:

Longer:

Measure 37 could get us on KATU News tonight

Laurel and I were just interviewed at home by KATU, Portland Channel 2. We talked about the Measure 37 claim adjacent to our neighborhood—how a large proposed subdivision on farmland threatens the right of people already living here to not have their wells go dry.

I’m not usually a praying sort of guy. But I won’t object if you want to pray, “Dear _____, please make sure that KATU doesn’t put on air the close-up of Brian sitting at a table drinking a glass of water. Or at least, that the video is blurred.” (like the photo above; recently got a new camera; still learning how to focus, obviously)

Possible air times today (Friday) are 4:30-6:00, 6:30-7:00, and 11:00. Of course, we might be bumped by a traffic accident, fire, or animal story, these being the main focus of Portland TV news, based on our viewing experience.

I think we sounded moderately coherent. Editing, of course, will reduce us to a few short sound bites. Hopefully our dog will make it into the cut. If so, we’ll be waiting by the phone for offers from Hollywood to have Serena appear as an animal extra (or even lead).

A waterfall on the creek that runs through our property got filmed quite a bit by the cameraman, who thought it was beautiful. We emphasized that the water comes from the aquifer on which the subdivision would be built.

And that Larry Eaton, a hydrogeologist hired by Spring Lake Estates and the Keep Our Water Safe committee (chaired by Laurel) says that the subdivision’s forty three wells could suck dry the springs feeding the creek.

If KATU airs our story I’ll be sure to YouTube it, plus post a link to the Channel 2 archive if it’s viewable there. Even if I’m shown in an unflattering fashion. At first I was worried about whether the cameraman was on my good side during the water drinking scene.

Then I realized that both sides are my gray side, so what’s the difference, really? Anyway, I’m pleased to sacrifice my ego in order to publicize the horror show that Measure 37 has become.

The governor and legislature need to put this travesty of a law on hold until it can be fixed. Click on over to Jim Gilbert’s online petition and ask them to do just that.

After three hours, a moment of Measure 37 clarity

Well, another day, another front page Salem Statesman-Journal story about our neighborhood’s fight to prevent wells from being sucked dry by a Measure 37 subdivision.

The headline sums it up: “Concerns about water hinder development plan.” Once again (the first hearing was two weeks ago) the Marion County Planning Commission got an earful from nearby property owners as well as consultants hired by the Keep Our Water Safe (KOWS) committee that Laurel chairs.

Much of the testimony was technical and long-winded. The hearing lasted from 8 pm until after 11. But there was a moment when the absurdity of Measure 37, the ill-considered attempt to trash Oregon’s land use laws, came into cogent crystal-clear focus.

Leroy Laack, one of the owners of the 217 farmland acres that are proposed to become a subdivision, sat at the witness table for the first time. He told the commissioners that he’d waited thirty years to have a chance to develop his property (soon after he bought it, SB 100 went into effect and prevented productive farmland like his from being paved over).

“Property rights are the basis of our democracy,” Laack said. I thought, hmmm, I’m not so sure about that. Still, who can argue with such a fine all-American concept like “property rights”? Shouldn’t people be able to do what they want with their own land?

Short answer: no. One of the commissioners asked Laack, “Don’t your property rights stop when they infringe on mine?” Almost instantly Laack answered, “Yes, I agree.”

Honest answer, Mr. Laack. An answer that means your subdivision application should be turned down. Or at least, put on hold until a full hydrogeological study of the aquifer that you intend to tap for your 43 wells is conducted.

Even Laack’s own hydrogeologist, Malia Kupillas, testified that she should complete her assessment of the area’s groundwater capacity, and have it reviewed by an independent hydrogeologist, before the Planning Commission considered giving final approval to the subdivision application.

There simply is too great a risk that existing wells and the creek that feeds Spring Lake will be harmed by the proposed development. Larry Eaton, a hydrogeologist hired by our KOWS committee, discussed his most recent conclusions about the danger 43 new wells would pose to Spring Lake. Here’s his (4MB) memo, for groundwater detail junkies.
Download Sp_Lk_Post_Mt_Memo.pdf

The commission also heard from additional neighbors (many others testified at the first hearing) who already have well problems. Plant a subdivision into the aquifer that they’re tapping, and those problems almost certainly will be exacerbated.

My wife, Laurel, presented her own persuasive testimony. Which, I have to say, looked and read nicely thanks to editing by her blogger husband. I’ll attach her memos in case you want a quick education in south Salem hills groundwater problems, and why current Marion County planning policies are inadequate to protect against further declines.
Download testimony_for_sub_0603_for_107.doc
Download testimony_on_1997_pl_com_min_for_hearing.doc

Laurel emphasized what Rick Kienle, who established the foundation for Marion County’s groundwater ordinance, told her in emails and a phone conversation: it’s necessary to conduct site-specific studies to find out what really is going on with an area’s water supply.

You can’t plug some numbers into a simplistic formula and claim that there’s enough water to support a subdivision, like Laack and company are trying to do. Kienle says that even if the lots are ten acres in size, a site-specific study still should be conducted.

By the way, ten acres is the minimum lot size if someone currently applies to convert Marion County farmland to housing. By contrast, Laack wants to put most of his homes on two to three acre lots. As a Measure 37 claimant, he feels that he’s entitled to do so. Even if that hurts surrounding property owners.

We’re confident that the Planning Commission will end up making the right decision: to either reject the application or require proof that existing wells and water rights won’t be harmed by the subdivision.

The commission is going to have a work session next Wednesday to discuss Measure 37 legal issues. Then they’ll have a third hearing on the Laack application on January 9.

Leroy Laack tried to play the “I’m 78 years old and just want a chance to do what I planned with my property” card. But I don’t feel a lot of sympathy for him. Hey, life isn’t predictable. Situations change. Land use laws change. Everything changes, if you believe the Buddhists.

He could have profitably farmed his property if he had wanted to, rather than leaving it mostly fallow all these years. A local farmer testified that he tried to lease Laack’s land, but was rebuffed. Laack wants to plant concrete and asphalt, not Christmas trees or grape vines.

The farmer said that the 217 acres Laack wants to make into a subdivision are perfect for a vineyard. Laack and his owners would have made millions of dollars by selling their property to a grape-grower. They still could. I’d buy the first case of wine. That’s a promise.

Lastly, we just received an informative PowerPoint presentation (1MB) by Todd Jarvis on Measure 37 and water issues. Jarvis is on the Water Resources faculty at Oregon State University and involved with the Institute for Water and Watersheds. Take a look.
Download aoc_measure37.ppt

(You can download a free PowerPoint viewer here.)

Our Measure 37 fight makes the front page

Kudos to the Salem Statesman-Journal for today’s excellent front page story, “Groundwater dispute surfaces as a result of Measure 37.” Laurel is heading up the disputants, neighbors of ours who object to a subdivision being built on nearby farm land.

Some of her testimony at a Marion County Planning Commission hearing, where opposition to the development was strong from many property owners who don’t want their wells going dry, was quoted in the story:

“Marion County keeps allowing more development of new properties and new well entitlements in groundwater limited areas, with inadequate studies to determine whether even the current level of development can be sustained,” said Laurel Hines, a homeowner in Spring Lake Estates.

“Now, large numbers of new lots and new wells are being considered for this proposed subdivision on areas zoned only for farmland, where very little information is known about how many wells can be supported without causing harm to existing surface and groundwater rights.”

The statistics on Measure 37, an attempt to get around Oregon’s land use rules, are scary. To date 473 claims have been filed in Marion County covering 26, 781 acres, about 17,000 of which are zoned exclusive farm use.

Soon bulldozers are going to start paving over irreplaceable farm land. That’s why the legislature and governor need to suspend Measure 37 until this horribly flawed law can be fixed.

The Keep Our Water Safe (KOWS) committee that Laurel chairs will be leading the fight against the subdivision at a second Planning Commission hearing tomorrow night. As the headline of another Statesman-Journal story by Casper said, “Dispute about development goes beyond groundwater.”

A herd of KOWSians will provide persuasive reasons why Leroy Laack’s subdivision proposal needs to be turned down or put on hold until a hydrogeological study is conducted of the area’s groundwater. Hopefully the Planning Commission will do the right thing.

It’s aggravating that neighbors have to put so much time, money, and effort into preventing our wells from going dry because an avaricious developer wants to plunk 42 homes on two and three acre lots in an area that has been designated as requiring at least five acres per well.

Laack is quoted as saying that water rights are the same as development rights. He doesn’t see any problem with him making money at the expense of the people who already live here.

Well, I’m with the person who left this comment on the Statesman-Journal web site:

Another greedy, self-centered "neighbor" (and I use the term loosely) only concerned with filling his own pockets; and to hell with anyone & everyone else. Sorry, Laacky old man, but safe, clean drinking water trumps your desire to get rich by destroying the livability & beauty of your neighborhood.

On BlueOregon Jim Gilbert urges us to fix Measure 37. Take a moment and sign a petition asking the legislature to do that. We and our neighbors will be appreciative. Especially when water keeps coming out of our taps.

Dog and man walk in an Oregon windstorm

My wife offered the first review of my recently released YouTube feature, Walk in Oregon windstorm. “The dramatic mood of danger is undermined by Serena wagging her tail so much,” she said.

True. But such is the challenge of cinema verite. I show what it was actually like to walk through our south Salem woods in the late afternoon of Thursday, December 14, 2006, as a major windstorm was blowing in.

I wish these seven and a half minutes contained more adventure. However, I’m glad that this didn’t include a large Douglas Fir falling on me. That possibility was in my mind throughout the walk.

It would have made for some terrific YouTube footage, assuming my camcorder had survived. I’m not that hungry for fifteen minutes of posthumous fame though, especially if it means sacrificing what I hope is more than fifteen years of remaining life.

I can add at least a little bit of background excitement to my video with this photo I took today. A fir tree at the edge of our property did indeed fall over in the windstorm. It was caught in the crook of another tree. We’ll have to decide whether to leave it leaning or have it cut down.

In the Salem area the wind got up to 80 miles an hour. I don’t know if it was that high at our house. We got through the storm with just some fallen fir branches. Plus eight hours of no electricity, which I thought was going to be a lot longer. Way to go, PGE! Great work, given the hundreds of thousands of homes in Oregon that lost power.

On Thursday I thought about skipping the traditional dog walk: across the creek, through the woods, around the lake, and home again. But I figured that if those 100 foot plus firs had stayed upright for as long as they have, the chance of one falling on me or Serena was pretty slim.

Plus, I love the elemental sound of the wind howling as tall firs sway above me. It’s nice to be reminded that even with all of our towering human accomplishments, we’re still very small in the eyes of Mother Nature.

[technical note: I’m a YouTube neophyte. I’d be interested in learning whether any broadband users have trouble viewing the video. At first I used Windows Movie Maker to make it viewable by very slow broadband, but upped the bandwith ante after seeing how grainy and jerky it looked. The darkness isn't the fault of my Sony DCR-SR60; it's the fault of the sun going down.]

Could I become the anti-Measure 37 Dorothy English?

Sorry, Dorothy. You’re going down. Back in 2004 you were the face of pro-Measure 37 ads, a sweet 92 year-old who, as I’ve noted before, supposedly just wanted the right to develop her land so she could give some property to her children and fund her retirement.

Oregonians now reject Measure 37, which trashed our state’s land use laws and created a privileged class of property owners. So it’s time for an anti-Measure 37 icon to pop up.

I nominate me. My qualifications recently were burnished by a quote of yours truly that appeared in a Salem Statesman-Journal story by Beth Casper, “Report: Support for Measure 37 dips.”

Brian said Measure 37 proponents touted the benefits of reducing government and allowing people to keep their land and their own money. But the result is exactly the opposite, he said.

"It runs in the face of reality," he said. "We are all interconnected. What my neighbor does affects us. What I do affects my neighbor."

Why, I sound almost Biblical. In addition to New Agey.

In a wide-ranging interview at our home, Laurel and I talked with Beth about quite a few subjects. First, we agreed in person to a previously negotiated reporter-interviewees truce concerning which of us had the most attractive dog.

When I emailed Beth directions to our house I threw in a mention that she’d soon be gazing upon the world’s most beautiful Lab-Shepherd mix, our Serena. Beth questioned my claim, replying with a photo of her own Lab. I responded that the dogs were in different categories, Lab-Shepherd mix and Labrador, so couldn’t we agree that they both were world champions?

Once that issue was behind us, Laurel and I made many wise observations that didn’t make it into the story. One that I particularly favor, so will quote myself here, concerns the absurd assumption that if government action reduces the value of someone’s property, then they are entitled to be compensated.

That’s ridiculous. Governmental bodies are making decisions all the time that increase or decrease the value of assets held by people. If the Federal Reserve raises interest rates, the price of bonds goes down. Bond traders don’t moan and cry, “Government, reimburse me for the money that I’ve lost because of you.”

Similarly, I told Beth that both Laurel and I owned limited partnerships in the 1980s (we weren’t married to each other then, but had the same financial planner). They were touted as good investments because of the federal tax code in effect at the time.

Well, they weren’t nearly as good an investment after Congress tinkered with the tax code. As I recall, Oregon’s Mark Hatfield (or Bob Packwood?) was one of the prime movers behind the closing of this tax loophole. Overnight, the monetary benefit we were enjoying from the partnerships fell. A lot, I remember.

Investments rise. Investments fall. That’s the nature of investing. Why should property investments be the exception to this rule? The 217-acre Measure 37 claim next to our neighborhood is a proposed 82 lot subdivision, not a single-family home site.

There’s no reason why the owner of this investment property should be given a special dispensation to harm the limited groundwater supply in our area just because zoning laws changed after he bought the land. Tax laws changed after we bought our partnerships. Nobody compensated us for lost value caused by government action. Why should Leroy Laack and his partners get a free pass?

Thankfully, Oregonians are recognizing that Measure 37 was, is, and always will be unfair. It was good to see that Washingtonians seem to be rejecting I-933, an initiative that would be as harmful to our neighbor to the north as Measure 37 has been to Oregon. (Also via Land Use Watch, you can check out a persuasive anti I-933 ad prepared by the Sightline Institute).

Another poll shows that Californians are likely to vote down Proposition 90, a Measure 37 clone.

The tide seems to be turning against trashing land-use laws. I’m pleased to play my part in this effort. If that means being prominently featured in television advertisements where I turn the faucet in our kitchen sink and sand comes out, our well having been sucked dry because of excessive unregulated development by the nearby Measure 37 claim, then so be it.

I’m willing to be famous for this just cause.

(Note: our well hasn’t been affected yet since the subdivision is still in the planning phase. But Oregonians in Action didn’t let facts stand in their way when they made their deceptive pro-Measure 37 ads, so some karmic back-at-you seems justified).

“Property Wrongs” report about Measure 37 features our neighborhood

Supporters of Oregon’s Measure 37, which trashed our state’s land use laws, like to talk about property rights. But now Oregon is facing property wrongs caused by the inherent unfairness of Measure 37, which created a privileged class of landowner.

Such is the conclusion of a report, “Property Wrongs: Lessons from Oregon on ‘property rights’” that was released today by Seattle’s Sightline Institute.

It features six case studies of the ill effects of Measure 37. Our Spring Lake Estates neighborhood is one of them. As I described in my previous post, a hydrogeologist has found that commonly-owned Spring Lake is threatened by a 215 acre subdivision.

The Measure 37 claimant, Leroy Laack, plans to sell 82 lots, each of which would have its own well. Currently his land is zoned for exclusive farm use. If it weren’t for his being able to roll back the clock via Measure 37, Marion County would require him to subdivide into parcels of at least ten acres if he wanted to change his zoning to AR (acreage residential).

So our neighborhood stands to get screwed, water-wise, while Laack plans to make out like a bandit, money-wise. Laurel and I are doing our best to right this wrong, along with many of our neighbors. The Sightline Report says (p.11):

Laurel Hines is another resident concerned about the new development’s effects on her property. She says she moved to Oregon in 1979 from the Midwest partially because she respected the state’s land use laws. Laurel says that in contrast to the shared sense of community at Spring Lake Estates, the adjacent landowner so far appears unconcerned about the impact of the proposed development on the community.

“We expected things to be the way they were and that the land use laws would protect us, and now we can’t depend on them,” Hines says.

Don Dean, a neighbor of ours, is quoted as saying that he believes he voted for Measure 37, but didn’t take as much time as he should have to review and understand the measure.

Like a lot of other people.

Oregonians got conned into voting for Measure 37 by Oregonians in Action, which made it look as if this would help people overcome heartless government bureaucrats who were preventing them from building a single home on long-held family land.

The reality is far different.

As this report shows, it’s a gravel mine moving in next door to an alpaca farm; it’s building a geothermal plant in a national monument; it’s surrounding a working forest with suburbs; it’s losing farmland and gaining lawsuits; it’s a subdivision sucking up a lake’s water supply; it’s farmers not being able to sell their land because of an adjacent Measure 37 claim.

Oregonians were deceived into passing a destructive law. Hopefully the states that are voting on similar proposals in November will learn from our experience.

Arizona, California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, and Washington: vote “No” on these so-called pay or waive schemes. Oregon used to be admired as a pioneering state. I guess we still are, but now we’re showing the rest of the country what not to do.

Fair land use laws protect everybody’s interests. Heed the lesson of the Sightline report:

In each case profiled here, Measure 37 has allowed one property owner to harm the interests, and sometimes the property values, of neighbors.

In case you have trouble accessing the report via the link above, click on this direct link.
Download Property_wrongsfinal.pdf

Behold the ugly face of Measure 37

Here’s what Oregon’s Measure 37 looks like. An 82 lot subdivision next to our Spring Lake Estates neighborhood. This is a map of the first phase, 43 lots. Which means 43 homes, with 43 wells, on land intended for exclusive farm use that already has limited groundwater.

Crazy.

If you voted for Measure 37, which exempted some property owners from complying with the state’s land use laws, you probably thought the face of Measure 37 was Dorothy English—a 92 year-old who, ads in favor of the measure said, just wanted the right to develop her land so she could give some property to her children and fund her retirement.

The reality is much different. It’s subdivisions on land that can’t sustain such dense development. My wife and I know that, because we’re experts on the groundwater problems here in the south Salem hills.

And a licensed hydrogeologist, Larry Eaton, also knows that. He’s prepared a report for our neighborhood association that concludes the Spring Lake Estates water rights likely will be adversely impacted by the Laack subdivision.

There will be lots of other adverse impacts also. This map shows the AR (acreage residential) properties that border the proposed cross-hatched subdivision on two sides. The Laack property currently is zoned EFU, exclusive farm use.

Those who bought property next to that farm land figured that either it would stay zoned that way, or there would be a fair and open governmental process if a change in the zoning were to be considered.

But Measure 37 isn’t fair. Or open. It created a privileged class of landowners in Oregon. These people can do what they want with their property, even if it hurts the value of adjacent properties that still have to comply with land use laws.

Currently Marion County requires that if land is re-zoned from EFU to AR, the lot sizes in the residential development have to be at least ten acres. Yet Laack and his three co-owners (none of whom qualify for Measure 37 other than him) are planning to sell lots that mostly are two to three acres. Again, special treatment for a few at the expense of the many.

Ron Saxton, the Republican candidate for governor, wants to continue the unfairness. Ted Kulongoski has been pretty wishy-washy on Measure 37, but he and his fellow Democratic office-seekers still deserve your vote if you want to restore equity to Oregon’s land use laws.

Environmentally they aren’t as Green as I’d like. However, these days Oregon Republicans love the prospect of putting an open-pit mine in the Newberry National Volcanic Monument south of Bend.

Their vision of Oregon is to Californicate it. If I wanted to be surrounded by subdivisions that devoured farm land, I’d be living in the L.A. area. Help stop the Measure 37 madness. Vote for Oregon Democrats in November.

My wife has to call 911 because I’m out of breath

Fortunately, the reason was that I’d just run uphill from a trail where a rider had fallen off his horse and was in bad shape. I didn’t want the 911 operator to think that this was some sort of heavy breathing crank call. So Laurel did the talking and I gasped out the details.

“Guy. Fell off horse. Woman is with him. Can’t move. Lots of pain. Conscious. Looks to be in his 60s.”

This morning I’d heard yelling through an open window. At first I figured it was kids playing on the trail easement that runs along the lower part of our ten acres. But the more I listened, the less the sounds appeared to be playful. Painful was more like it.

I decided to walk down to the trail and see what was going on. First I saw two horses tied to a fence. Then I came upon a man lying on his side, moaning. It was Raul, a neighbor. Debi was kneeling beside him. Their young chocolate Lab was licking Raul’s face.

Debi asked Raul if he could stand up. “I can’t even move,” he said. “It hurts too much.” I said that it probably would be best if he didn’t move. I offered to call 911. There wasn’t much hesitation on Debi’s part. “OK, go ahead.”

That led to my dash back to the house. Along the way I thought that it’d be weird if I had a heart attack while running to call 911, because I hadn’t warmed up and my heart was pounding.

After handling the phoning, Laurel took a blanket and pillow down to Raul and Debi. I waited for the ambulance. Since we live six miles from the Salem city limits, and about the same distance from Jefferson, I figured it’d be a while.

But a pre-first responder drove up in just a few minutes. A Jefferson Fire Department volunteer, I assumed. He was walkie-talkie equipped. I took him down to the trail, where he advised the ambulance folks about what they’d find after they arrived.

I walked back to the house to meet the ambulance. Fast, but not running. Didn’t want to stretch my luck on the heart attack front. I’d started the timer on my watch after the first guy arrived. Ten minutes later the ambulance pulled up. Pretty darn good for the country.

I took them down to the accident scene. Then went back to the house to meet a second ambulance that was bringing a different stretcher. Raul had been given morphine. Yet every time someone touched his back, he told them “That hurts. Stop it.”

Raul had been a cop for over twenty years. He was no weenie. I hoped that carrying him out on the stretcher wasn’t going to be too painful. Laurel and I tried to figure out the best way of getting Raul to the ambulance.

Our trail was narrow, steep, and crossed the creek over some narrow boards. Driving around Spring Lake risked getting the ambulance stuck. Finally it dawned on us that carrying Raul further down the riding trail to a neighbor’s house would be best, if they were home and could open their gate.

They were. We aren’t on the closest terms with these neighbors—a dispute over whether coyotes should be killed created some bad blood (we said “no,” they said “yes”)—but when I hopped their fence and told them what had happened, we were on the same page.

Crises bring people together. We forget our differences when life and limb (or a back) is on the line. It’s too bad we can’t always focus more on our commonalities and less on what divides us. Today, helping an injured rider brought us together.

By the time Raul had been transferred from the “carry” stretcher to the “rolling” stretcher, an impressive bunch of Jefferson Fire Department staff were on hand. I was impressed with all of them.

Living out in the boonies like we do, I’d wondered what level of competence would turn up if we needed emergency medical assistance ourselves. I’m not going to worry anymore. And the next time I send in a check to the Marion County Tax Assessor, I’m going to feel that I’m getting darn good value for the relative pittance that goes to the Jefferson Fire District.

Recently they tried to pass a bond levy that would fund some needed improvements. If I recall correctly, it failed. I only wish those who voted “no” had been able to watch their tax dollars in action like I was able to today. Next time, Jefferson area voters, make that a “yes.”

Dead deer could be cougar kills

Warning: this post contains explicit photos. Of dead deer possibly killed by a cougar. I’ll tell the story and share the evidence. Maybe someone who knows more about predator behavior than we do can shed more light on these kills via a comment or email.

Near dusk yesterday I went for my usual walk with our dog, Serena, around Spring Lake, which is about half a mile from our rural south Salem home. When I got to the dock area I saw a small dead deer on the grass.

That’s not too unusual. A few years ago another deer was found nearby, half in and half out of the water. It seemed to have died of natural causes. This present-day deer was partly chewed up, but I figured that could have happened post-mortem. Dogs or coyotes could have wandered by and taken some bites.

I don’t like to look at dead animals, so I got Serena to stop her curious sniffing and continued around the lake. A couple of hundred yards further on I found another dead deer.

This time I took a photo. That’s a (detached) deer ear on the right side. It was getting dark but I could see bits of fur and flesh in the grass nearby. Now I began thinking, “cougar.” The walk back home through the woods had a bit different feel to it than usual, though I figured that Serena would let me know if a big kitty-cat was around and the dog was acting normal.

Today Laurel and I walked back to the lake to do some crime scene investigating. The dead deer that I had taken a photo of was gone. We noticed drag marks leading into the brush.

Where the deer had been stashed and further eaten. A round organ (stomach?) was detached from the body. I didn’t want to crawl too far into the brush and disturb any tracks that might be there, so this flash photo is rather dark.

The first deer that I’d found hadn't been moved. I’m pretty sure that it had been gnawed on some more. Laurel thinks that these deer are the “twins” that we used to frequently see in our yard or elsewhere around the neighborhood. We’re sad to see them dead. However, the balance of nature has to work itself out.

So, did a cougar kill these deer? I suspect so, for several reasons. First, someone on the other side of our Spring Lake Estates development is certain that a cougar killed one of his goats last year. “What else,” he told us, “could kill a goat and then leap over a 6 foot fence with the animal in its mouth?”

Further, this description of cougar predation says:

They usually carry or drag their kills to a secluded area under cover to feed and drag marks are frequently found at fresh kill sites. Cougars generally begin feeding on the viscera (liver, heart, lungs, etc.) through the abdomen or thorax but like other carnivores, individuals differ. Some begin feeding on the neck or shoulder while others prefer the hindquarters. Like other cats, cougars normally leave relatively clean-cut edges when they feed compared to the ragged edges of tissue and bone left by coyotes.

Clean-cut edges. That’s what my first photo shows.

And on another cougar-related web page I read, “The deer's rumen (major stomach) was almost always buried in a separate leaf mound several feet away from the carcass. The rumen was never consumed.”

Check. Just what we saw today (though the stomach wasn’t buried).

It was cool to also read that “The cougar usually bedded down for the day near the carcass, but sometimes up to 1.5 km away.” Laurel and I enjoy the thought that Big Wild Things are nearby, unseen yet seeing us.

We don’t believe in killing cougars just because they’re close to human habitation. So welcome to the neighborhood, my feline friend, if you truly have paid us a visit. We’ll respect you but not fear you.

Geese walking on water, a miracle!

I’m ready for rain. Maybe (ugh!) even freezing rain. Here’s Laurel and Serena by our frozen pond. It’s never looked like this before, for sure.

This has been a strangely cold dry December. The moonset one clear morning made me feel like I was in Narnia. Still. Quiet. 21 degrees cold. Kind of eerie.

Our nearby Spring Lake is almost completely frozen over. We’ve lived here fifteen years. This is a first. Probably can be traced to global warming temperature extremes. “Damn you, climate change apathetic George Bush!” I imagine the ducks are quacking, as their swimming area gets smaller and smaller.

Geese walking on water! A Christmas miracle. Or, it would be, if it weren’t for the ice.

I figure that ice isn’t all that unfamiliar to a goose. Especially Canadian geese. Which these may be. I’m not good about distinguishing geese. Telling them and ducks apart is as much as I can do (ducks, small; geese, big).

I pick up a hitchhiker

I started to pull over as soon as I saw her raise her hand and gesture at my car. A thirty-something woman in a long dress standing all alone on the side of Liberty Road five miles from Salem. I had to stop.

My first thought was that she had car trouble and needed help. But there wasn’t any car in sight. I rolled down the passenger side window.

“Oh, thank you for stopping,” she said. “I’ve been here for 45 minutes. I need a ride into town so I can catch a bus to go for a job interview.” “Hop in,” I told her. “No problem.”

As she settled into our Prius I realized that this was the first time I’d picked up a hitchhiker since the ‘60s when I drove a VW bug and was a lot wilder and crazier. Still, I couldn’t believe that no one else had stopped for this gentle-appearing soul.

“Even some of my neighbors passed me by,” she told me. “It must have been because you’re so scary looking,” I said with a smile. She was nicely dressed and clutching a purse. Not exactly the sort of woman that you should be afraid of stopping for on a rural road, especially on a sunny afternoon.

Her car was beyond repair. She and her boyfriend had tried to keep it going but now it had a major axle problem. They’d had to call a tow truck driver several times. She said that the driver finally said, “I’m tired of coming all the way out here. I’ll try to find you a cheap car from our repo lot.”

She was looking forward to picking up a $200 Ford Fiesta. She had put $100 down and needed to work for a week before she could pay the other $100. “They told me that it runs fine. It has a broken window, and you have to start it with a screwdriver, but I can live with that.”

She had left home three hours early to be sure she got to the job interview on time. It would have taken her twenty minutes to drive there. “It’s really more of a job orientation at T-Mobile. This is my third interview with them. I’m pretty sure I’ve got the job. It pays $10.20. That’s so much better than minimum wage. I’ll be so happy if I get the job.”

I could easily understand her words, but her voice had the intonation of a deaf person. Indeed, she told me that her new hearing aids were much better than her old ones. At a previous call center job she kept having to raise her hand for a supervisor because she couldn’t make out what a customer was saying. She had been born nearly deaf.

“Voc Rehab has been so helpful to me,” she said. “They gave me $100 to buy some new clothes. And I have a bus pass. They’ve been great.”

I asked her where she wanted to be dropped off. “There’s a bus stop by the Liberty Inn. I can get a bus to downtown from there, then get a transfer to where T-Mobile is. I have the address.”

It turned out that we had a mutual friend, Ted, who used to live in our Spring Lake Estates development. Ted is in assisted living now. She washes Ted’s clothes every Thursday evening for him. I gave her my name. She said she’d say hello to Ted for me. I left her at the bus stop.

I felt shitty. Horribly guilty. I needed to mail some stuff, then I was going to go to Best Buy to buy a router for the broadband satellite Internet connection that is going to be installed Wednesday. It’ll cost us $69 a month. That was close to what she had left to pay on her $200 car that she needed to get to her $10 an hour job.

After leaving the post office I drove back to the bus stop. She was still there. “How about if I give you a ride to T-Mobile?” I said. “I’ve got to go to Best Buy and I’ll be driving right by there.”

She was deeply appreciative. “The orientation starts at 3:30. I just looked at the schedule and my transfer leaves at 3:09.” “That’s cutting it close for a job interview,” I told her. “It’s better to get there too early than too late.”

We found the T-Mobile building. “Oh, look,” she said excitedly as we turned down the call center’s street. “There’s a covered bus stop with a seat. That’s so great!”

I kept thinking that this morning I had spent half an hour researching Honda generators on the Internet. We already have a generator to keep our well, refrigerator, and such running when the electricity goes out. I wanted a better one, something quieter, easier to start, with inverter technology so I could keep on using my computer and watch TV.

The sophisticated 7000 watt generator I was considering costs $3295. We could afford it. This woman was getting out of my car and thanking me profusely. She had almost nothing to her name. I hoped that she couldn’t see the guilt streaming out of my pores.

I thought about driving to an ATM, getting $100 out, and telling her that this was a loan so she could get her Ford Fiesta a week early and not have to hitchhike into town to catch a bus at 6 in the morning. But I sensed a lot of pride in her. It didn’t feel right. I kept my mouth shut.

“Wish me luck with getting the job,” she said. “Luck, I wish you,” I told her. She smiled and headed toward the T-Mobile front door. I drove off to Best Buy.

Thinking…I’m so glad I stopped to give her a ride…We’re so damn fortunate…There’s so many people out there struggling to just get by, whose dream is to purchase a $200 car that you start with a screwdriver, who spend hours waiting at bus stops to get to a $10 an hour job…We aren’t aware of them, we who zip by the bus stops in our 2004 Prius on the way to buy a broadband router for our $69 a month Internet connection that we’ll keep going with a $3295 Honda generator.

There’s something seriously wrong with our country. And me. I don’t know what to do about it. Or if I really even want to do anything about it. I want everything that I have now. Plus, more.

I’m selfish. I carefully titer my charitable impulses, giving just enough help to people less well off than me to keep my guilt at a level that won’t interfere with my own happiness. Once in a while, like this afternoon, the real world breaks through my protective progressive bubble. I get a glimpse of what it’s like, really like, for those at the bottom end of the income ladder.

It’s tough to see. On my way to Best Buy I shed a few tears.

Salem escapees head for Portland’s Sellwood area

Sellwood neighborhood residents: notwithstanding the title of this post, you don’t need to lock your doors and keep a baseball bat near at hand. The Salem escapees I’m referring to are utterly gentle souls, Mark and Lynda. They’re friends of ours who recently bought a Sellwood condo on the Willamette River.

I ran into Mark yesterday at Salem’s one and only decent natural food store, LifeSource. Mark said that they had started moving into the condo on Saturday and should be finished this coming weekend. So they’re short-timers. Just a few days left on their Salem sentence.

That’s the way Salemites tend to talk when a fellow captive succeeds in escaping our sleepy, boring, moribund capital city. “You’re getting out! That’s great. I’m happy for you. You’re going to enjoy _____ [name of new location] so much more.”

It reminds me of an old-fashioned gang movie where a bunch of losers are sitting on some tenement steps in a rundown urban wasteland. They’ve got nowhere to go, nothing to do. Drink some beer, raise some hell, get in a fight with another gang. That’s it. There’s no hope, no jobs, no future for them.

Mario walks down the sidewalk and stops to talk. “Hey, guys, I got the scholarship. I’m going to college, man. I’m getting out of this hellhole. And I’m not looking back.” His soon-to-be forgotten comrades say, “Way to go, Mario. You gotta make it for all of us. We’ll still be here shooting the same shit when you graduate. Come back and tell us what it’s like in the real world.”

I’m happy for Mark and Linda. They’re going to have to commute to their jobs in Salem, but when they get home to Sellwood they’ll be in a city that’s alive, not dead. Mark shamelessly poured it on during our chat by the deli food. By the end of our conversation I felt like shooting myself (a familiar feeling if you live in Salem).

“Our condo looks right out on the river. We see boats, wildlife, paddlers. I can get on my bike and ride the Eastbank Esplanade all the way to the Pearl District. There’s a Starbucks within walking distance. We’re close to the New Seasons Market.”

On and on Mark went, contrasting his upcoming Portland rebirth with my continuing Salem zombie existence, but I couldn’t blame him. He’d just about finished serving his time and was looking forward to life on the outside, where people walk briskly because they’ve got somewhere to go.

As I’ve observed before, “Salem is a boring town. I like to say that Salem is the amorphous undistinguished center between four interesting one-hour-away compass points. North is Portland. South is Eugene. West is the Pacific Ocean. East is the Cascades. And in between all these wonders? Blahville USA.”

I wish I could come up with another way to put it than how I said it before, but I don’t have the energy. Might as well repeat myself. I live in Salem, Groundhog Day capital of the world.

Messing with mallard natural selection

Laurel, avid animal lover that she is, can’t resist messing around with natural selection. Today she put up this sign at our nearby Spring Lake, warning people that a wild duck, or mallard, has chosen to lay her eggs in a highly public spot (maybe she’s an exhibitionist).

Before showing you the nest, I want to point out the professional quality of this sign. It’s good to know that, if all else fails, we can always open up a sign shop. Laurel contributed the printing, the UPS man brought us the cardboard, and I thought of the protective cling wrap. Result: a warning sign that will last for the ages, or at least until the next heavy rain.

Laurel also put up the stakes that mark the nest’s location. You can see that it is just a few feet from the rocky top of Spring Lake’s earthen dam, across which people, dogs, and horses frequently walk. The nest is barely visible midway between the stakes.

Here’s a close-up of the six eggs. I hope that the ducklings are able to hatch and waddle their way across the rocks and into the lake (probably quacking all the way, “Damn it, Mom! Why did you have to nest on the side of the rocks away from the water?! My feet hurt! When are we going to get there?! I need to go potty!)

Nature probably intends that ducks who don’t have the good sense to nest in a safe place shouldn’t have babies with the same genetic predisposition. But Laurel also is part of nature, and she’ll do her best to help out Mommy Mallard.

However, there is one mallard that neither of us would lift a finger for. We'd be joyous if this duck disappeared.

Wildfire risk-assessing on a rainy day

I told our dog, “Serena, do you see all those people with clipboards walking around our yard? They’re looking for canine rooters, dogs who root around in tall grass looking for field mice until their noses are brown with dirt and their lips are raw. Could you be one of the dogs they’re looking for?”

Well, it was worth a try. Serena is going to lose all the hair on her muzzle if she doesn’t moderate her Spring obsession with rooting up newly active (and, sadly, probably newly born) rodents. Unfortunately, she didn’t seem to be wary of our clipboard-toting guests, appearing much more eager to give them a welcoming pounce than to promise them that she’d change her rooting ways.

Maybe she knew that they were State Farm Insurance agents who were finishing up a two-day training workshop put on by a fire safety consultant. An ex-neighbor who works for the Oregon Department of Forestry, Brian Ballou, suggested that we here in Spring Lake Estates are a good example of people living on the urban/rural interface who face wildfire risks every dry season.

I was happy to volunteer our house for some practice risk-assessing. In a burst of candidness I even blurted out to some of the participants that we have a State Farm homeowner’s policy. Hopefully it isn’t in the process of being cancelled at this very moment.

It was sort of strange to watch all the agents wandering around, pointing here and there at what I had to assume were fire safety strong points and weak points. I didn’t want to make more of a nuisance of myself than I already was with my ripe-for-the-weblog digital camera. Thus I tried to stay out of earshot so the agents could criticize our natural landscaping, which includes an oak tree hanging over a deck, as much as they wanted without hurting the owners’ feelings.

By the end of their visit I was reduced to lurking around inside our house, furtively snapping photos through windows, wondering what was being said at the final workshop conclave next to our carport.

Which took place just a few feet from stacks of firewood and kindling that we keep cozily dry under the carport eaves. This helps explain why, when Jim the workshop organizer rang our doorbell to thank us and say that they were leaving, and I anxiously said, “But first you have to tell us how we did!,” he demurred with a diplomatic, “Well, they thought you were moderately risky.”

Jim singled out the firewood as a problem, along with tall grass that I assured him got mowed in early July. He said that we just had a number of small problems, nothing major, which hopefully doesn’t include the overhanging oak—since we’d be most reluctant to cut it down. On the positive side, Jim said that a tree near a house actually can serve as a heat barrier if a wildfire approaches, just as the tall lilacs on another side of our house could. So vegetation growing near a building has some fire pluses as well as minuses.

State Farm was nice enough to give us a $10 Shell gift card. That will keep our Prius rolling for quite a while. Plus a nifty hardback book with some great photographs, “Firewise Communities: Where we live, how we live.”

The best gift, of course, will be not increasing our homeowner’s premium after we get an official wildfire safety assessment, which I assume is coming. Somehow I envision that moving a wood pile is in my destiny.

Images of the Salem Conference Center

Portlanders, you may snicker about the architectural quality of Salem’s brand new conference center, but the community open house today was well attended by wide-eyed capital city residents—me among them. Downtown Salem has seen quite a few store closings the past few years, so the opening of a combined Phoenix Hotel and Salem Conference Center is a welcome step toward rejuvenation of the city core.

I began my tour by contemplating the front of the center from across the street. Laurel thinks it looks like a piece of particle board supported by tinker toys. I agree. We read in the newspaper that the supports are intended to remind passers-by of fir trees. Even when I squinted, I couldn’t see the resemblance.

Close up they looked even more like tinker toys.

The lobby has a certain generic conference center look. We see the rectangular particle board theme repeated here.

The main ground floor meeting area is the Santiam River Room, I think. I’m not absolutely sure what it’s called because signs weren’t obvious and my tour was self-guided. I was hungry and figured that I’d be able to locate open house snacks faster on my own. Sadly, all I could find was some ice water. Maybe I should taken a guided tour after all, if the tour guided you to snacks. I’m pretty sure the musical group is from the Salem Chamber Orchestra. Three people are listening to them. That’s Salem.

I made my way upstairs to what I surmised is the Willamette River Room. The Salem Senate-aires singers were about to perform. As my eyes absorbed the décor, I kept thinking that Sly and the Family Stone should be on stage. The lights and carpet just seemed so late ‘60s/early ‘70s. I’ve read in the paper that “you’ll either love or hate the main upstairs room.” Yes. It begs for an extreme opinion. Fearful that I’d start having flashbacks stimulated by the glow lights, I exited the room before a firm love/hate decision of my own formed (I lean toward hate).

From the second floor lobby you have a concrete-building-filled view of the Salem riverfront. It's a crime against good urban design to have the butt-ugly Boise Cascade buildings clogging up so much of downtown Salem’s access to the Willamette River. Attempts to convert the area to more aesthetic uses (anything else would be more aesthetic, believe me) have failed so far.

So that’s my cyber-tour of the Salem Conference Center. The place wouldn’t be a big deal if it were in Portland, but it definitely is an important addition to Salem’s impoverished civic landscape.

The big controversy surrounding the opening of the center is whether its dearth of dedicated parking will force attendees to use the free downtown parking spaces, tying up spots that otherwise would go to people patronizing merchants.

Yes, Portlanders, you can park free for as long as you like in downtown Salem. Plus, most of the time you can park in the same block as the business you’re going to. At least there are a few things Salem can feel superior to Portland about.

Measure 37 hits close to our home

For a lot of people, Measure 37 is a legal abstraction. For us, it means 215 nearby acres of farmland may become a subdivision. These rolling hills along Liberty Road about five miles south of the Salem city limits currently are zoned EFU (exclusive farm use).

If the Measure 37 applicants have their way 80 homes will be built and 80 wells will be dug in an area that already is designated as €œgroundwater limited. I call that eventuality AFU (all...up; you can guess the rest of the acronym).

Recently we got a phone call from a neighbor who adjoins this proposed development. He told us that the main spring which feeds the creek that flows into Spring Lake isn'€™t flowing this year. And it didn't flow last year. A long-time resident of our area said that this is the first time in thirty years the spring has gone dry.

The cross-hatched area on this map is the proposed Measure 37 subdivision. The AR (acreage residential) area below is Spring Lake Estates. Our two lots form the triangle (^) in the bottom left corner of the map.

The lots in our part of Spring Lake Estates average about five acres in size. Hydrologists say that five acres is needed to support one well in this SGO-5 (Sensitive Groundwater Overlay-5 acres) area of the south Salem hills.

But some property owners have been allowed to partition their lots into parcels as small as 1.5 or 2 acres. Quite a few of the lots immediately below the crosshatching have come into being through this sort of partitioning. We and other concerned Spring Lake Estates residents have tried to stop Marion County from allowing these small lots.

Mostly, we'€™ve failed. The county has ruled that lots near the boundary of Spring Lake Estates, where AR zoning adjoins EFU zoning, will have enough water because houses can'€™t be built on farmland. Yet now the county is being asked to approve a Measure 37 waiver that would put 80 homes and 80 wells on the same land that, it was assumed, would remain undeveloped and supply much of the water for people on the edge of Spring Lake Estates.

I realize that all of this zoning/land use talk can sound dry and complicated. It comes down, though, to some simple facts. The springs that feed Spring Creek lie along the AR-EFU boundary line. Those springs already have dried up, probably partially because of a lack of rainfall and partially because of the extra houses that have been built nearby on newly partitioned lots.

Without Spring Creek there will be no Spring Lake. This is common property that belongs to all 86 property owners in Spring Lake Estates. Everyone who lives here loves Spring Lake. And if push comes to shove, I think people will fight for Spring Lake (it has senior water rights).

Adding 80 homes in an area where groundwater already is in short supply is crazy. The zoning and planning in our rural south Salem neighborhood was predicated on the small acreage lots being balanced by surrounding farmland. Yet now the Measure 37 applicants, Leroy and Jean Laack and Margaret Rainone, want to be exempted from the land use rules that protect the livability of an area where hundreds of people already have homes.

Here'€™s all it takes to ask for $17,355,000 from Marion County under a Measure 37 claim. A couple of pages, plus some supporting documentation. The applicants figure that the land is worth $18,000,000 without those nasty land use regulations, while now it is valued at only $645,000. Hence, give us a check for the $17+ million or waive the regulations.

What a farce. There's no easy way to tell what the 215 acres is worth as a subdivision. It certainly isn'€™t $18 million. The applicant came up with that figure by multiplying an average sales price of $225,000 per 2-3.5 acre lot by 80 lots. Voila, a value of $18 million. However, the cost of development hasn't been factored in: attorney and surveyor fees, road construction, planning, marketing, and so on.

This ridiculously inaccurate estimate matches the inherent ridiculousness of Measure 37 itself: Voters were told that government should compensate people for a reduction in property values caused by land use regulations, but the backers of Measure 37 never intended that such compensation would occur. Instead, they wanted Measure 37 to be a vehicle for dismantling Oregon'€™s successful land use planning system.

And they also falsely implied that most applicants under Measure 37 would be individuals who wanted to build a single house on land that the government had €œtaken away from them.” Now we'€™re seeing the truth come out: attempts to build 215 acre subdivisions on farmland.

Today Laurel learned from Marion County that there are some problems with the application and that it might not be approved. We can only hope.

Tree planters are lovers

This fall-bright weeping willow is on a small island in the middle of Spring Lake, a short walk through the woods from our house. Every time I walk by the tree I mentally thank Denny Nielsen, who planted the tree and regularly rowed a boat out to water it during the willow’s infancy.

Denny and his wife Laurie were some of the first people to start living in Spring Lake Estates (south of Salem, near the Ankeny Wildlife Refuge) when the development sprang up in the early 1970s. They have moved out, but won’t be forgotten by the neighborhood weeping willow admirers.

Laurel has planted countless (more or less) trees herself, mostly on our land and a few on the common property surrounding the lake. Since some trees take a long time to reach maturity, this is a selfless activity that I much admire.

Laurel will happily plant a slow-growing tree that probably won’t attain an impressive height until both of us are dead and gone. Yet she takes heart in the thought that someone else will look at the tree, maybe in the next century, and be uplifted as much as Laurel is now by the centenarian trees we enjoy.

Thank you, Denny. Thank you, Laurel. Thank you to all the tree planters who are giving gifts to upcoming generations. Here’s an apt quotation:

He that plants trees loves others beside himself. (Thomas Fuller: “Gnomologia,” 1732)

We buy really expensive blackberries

Here’s a look at some of the blackberries that we just agreed to buy for more money than you'd believe, along with impressive quantities of poison oak. We couldn’t pass up an opportunity to purchase the five-acre lot next to us when Mary, the owner, offered to sell it. We had a nice visit with Mary and her sister this afternoon and worked out an amicable deal that was sealed with a handshake.

Crafty real estate wheeler-dealers that we are, naturally we had never walked over quite a bit of the property that we agreed to buy. And we only had a rough idea of where the lot lines are. Details, details.

As soon as Mary and her sister had left, and Laurel and I got over the initial “Oh my god what have we done??!!” tremors, we put on our trusty blackberry-tough boots and long-sleeved poison-oak protecting shirts and set out to survey what hopefully soon will be our five acre addition.

Here’s Laurel standing on what would have been the most likely homesite. Pretty flat and open, and a nice view if the gorgeous stand of fir trees in the background was cut down. Which it will never be so long as we own the property, for we’ll be leaving it natural.

There is much that is emotional about buying real estate. Maybe because it is so, well, real. You can do all the comparative sales analyzing you want, but eventually the decision to make that handshake or not comes down to gut feelings.

I love this part of Spring Creek that is just off our current lot, especially when the creek is running strongly in May and wildflowers are blooming. How do you put a price on something priceless?

You can, however, put a price on something that isn’t priceless. So we’ll be entertaining offers from blackberry and poison oak fanciers. You won’t find any healthier stock in the mid-Willamette Valley than we have right next door. So make plans to come on over and do some transplanting for an exceedingly fair price.

No reasonable offer refused. Who knows? We’re so eager to deal that we might even pay you to take our blackberries and poison oak away.