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Measure 49 fight pits timber firms, conservationists
October 17, 2007
By David Steves, Eugene Register Guard
SALEM — Timber interests and an international conservation group are turning out to be the most influential players behind the Measure 49 campaigns.
The Nature Conservancy, an Arlington, Va.-based environmental organization, has kicked $1.2 million into the Yes on 49 campaign’s effort to get voters’ approval for a scaling back of the property-rights law enacted in the 2004 election.
On the other side, timber-related companies and executives have so far contributed $915,500 to the campaign to defeat the legislative referral in the Nov. 6 vote.
Measure 49, which allows longtime landowners to build up to three homes — and in some cases up to 10 — would scale back the earlier property rights of Measure 37, which permits more far-reaching developments, including rural subdivisions, gravel mines and other projects not allowed under the new measure.
That’s why many of the same players that contributed to the Measure 37 campaign are now trying to stop Measure 49 from passing.
Among them are timber companies such as Stimson Lumber ($200,000), Eugene-based Seneca Jones Timber Co. ($163,500), and Rosboro in Springfield ($50,000). Columbia Helicopter, which provides aerial logging services, and its founder, Wes Lematta, combined to give $138,500.
These and other timber companies — many of which stand to gain from Measure 37’s development rights — account for more than half the $1.7 million raised so far by Oregonians in Action, the property-rights group trying to defeat Measure 49.
According to the nonpartisan money-in-politics watchdog group Democracy Reform Oregon, contributors providing about half the “no” campaign’s funding have filed Measure 37 claims valued at more than $475 million.
That’s the case with Stimson Lumber, which has $239.7 million in Measure 37 claims.
But it’s not the case for Eugene-based Seneca Jones Timber Co., said its senior vice president of legal affairs, Dale Riddle. The company’s owner, Aaron Jones, is pursuing Measure 37 claims valued at $6.75 million. But the company itself is not looking to cash in by developing subdivisions on its forestlands, Riddle said.
“Our trees are much more valuable for timber than they are for raising kids,” he said. “We’re just not in the development business. We’re in the biz of tree farming.”
For Seneca Jones, the value of Measure 37 is the legal protection it gives to the company from future restrictions that may come along on its forest practices, such as limits on stream-side tree-falling, Riddle said.
On the other side of the Measure 49 fight, the measure’s advocates have raised $4.1 million.
Besides the Nature Conservancy, the “yes” side has benefited from another million-dollar contributor: Yamhill County vineyard owner Eric Lemelson, whose contributions, combined with those of a trust fund in his mother’s name, total $1.1 million.
That’s prompted the head of the “no” campaign to argue that two deep-pocket donors are going to extraordinary lengths to reverse the big majority that passed Measure 37 in 2004.
“One corporation and one private citizen are trying to overturn 61 percent of the vote,” said Dave Hunnicutt, president of Oregonians in Action.
The Nature Conservancy isn’t a corporation. Rather, it is the world’s largest environmental organization and a nonprofit organization.
Stephen Anderson, the conservancy’s Oregon spokesman, said contributing more than $1 million — most of which is paying for persuasive TV and radio commercials — to the Yes on 49 campaign reflects the international organization’s mission.
“Measure 37 needs to be fixed, and if it isn’t, we can say goodbye to the Oregon we love, an Oregon that protects its farmlands and forests and water and natural areas,” Anderson said. “We think Measure 49 brings back a balance.”
Shelly Strom, spokeswoman for Yes on 49, said the campaign has drawn from a diverse group of financial supporters. They include Columbia Sportswear CEO Tim Boyle ($10,000); Nike founder Phil Knight ($100,000); the electric utility PacifiCorp ($50,000); the public employees union American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees ($50,000); and retired timber executive William Swindells ($25,500).
Locally, the biggest contribution has come from John Jaqua ($49,000), a retired Eugene lawyer whose family worked with The Nature Conservancy to place its Coburg Hills ranch in a conservation easement.
Hunnicutt, head of the “no” effort and president of Oregonians in Action, said he wasn’t fazed by the lopsided fundraising in the other side’s favor. He said the natural resources sector, where much of Measure 49’s opposition resides, “isn’t exactly flush with money right now,” explaining why some of Measure 37’s financial contributors aren’t putting money into the No-on-49 campaign. But he said supporters are doing their part. Many are doing so, Hunnicutt said, by providing strategic locations along major highways for campaign signs to be posted instead of donating cash. “The grass roots is very engaged in this,” Hunnicutt said. “People understand the importance of what 49 will do to property rights in the future.”
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