Scott Swanson
County Commissioner Will Tucker was a little worried as he prepared for an open house/forum held Monday evening, Aug. 12, at Cascadia State Park.
The purpose of the event, organized by Tucker and other participants in the South Santiam Community Forest Corridor Project Team put together by Gov. John Kitzhaber to create a community forest between Sweet Home and Cascadia, was to connect with residents of the area east of Sweet Home.
The team is made up of representatives from multiple federal, state and local government agencies, private business and community members, and academics, who have been meeting since early this year to create a forested area dedicated to tourism and other economic uses that would benefit Sweet Home and Cascadia.
The state park event, which was intended to give residents a chance to talk one-on-one with members of the Solutions Team, was focused directly on Cascadia. It was purposefully not advertised in the media, though one local newspaper did get wind of it and published an announcement, organizers said. Instead, volunteers Jo Ann McQueary and Cindy Rice walked through Cascadia to personally deliver invitations door-to-door to residents, said Cindy Glick, Sweet Home district ranger.
Despite all that effort, Tucker wasn’t sure whether Cascadians would respond.
“I was concerned that there would be more agency people than residents,” he said.
Turned out, he had nothing to fear. Some 75 people showed up to talk about the lack of a Post Office and reliable mail delivery, about a proposed riverside trail running through Cascadia from Sweet Home to the Willamette National Forest, about a proposed U.S. Forest Service visitors center at Short Bridge, trash and illegal dumping occurring in forested areas, job and economic interest in small industry involving forest resources, questions about whether county zoning allows commercial development in Cascadia, volunteer opportunities, and concerns about fire protection – or lack thereof, since Cascadia has no crew to speak of.
“I was very pleased with the turnout,” Tucker said.
In addition to residents, present were were representatives from Sen. Ron Wyden’s office, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, Oregon Department of Forestry, Oregon State Parks, Cascade Timber Consulting and the Solutions Team.
Tucker said he personally split the bill for a barbecue dinner with the City of Sweet Home to encourage people to come.
Glick said the agenda was “simply to have a forum where people could come to the tables, find out who we were and we could all interact.”
Tucker said another goal was to “dispel rumors and false information.”
One notion that organizers maintained later was far from reality, is the concern that the city of Sweet Home might be interested in annexing Cascadia.
Two of the biggest issues brought up at the event were mail service and residents’ desire for privacy.
Residents at the forum had plenty to say about the state of postal delivery service in Cascadia, which has been a big issue in the area since the November 2011 fire that destroyed the local Post Office.
“The problem is (the Post Office) has a contract person to deliver mail and they don’t go to everybody,” said Bob Hartsock, who lives near the park. “We live four-tenths of a mile off the highway. We don’t get mail and we don’t expect to. The frustrating thing is we don’t get answers or, when we get hold of somebody who does have answers, we get the runaround.”
“Why doesn’t the contract require them to deliver mail to everybody?”
Bobbie Shervey, whose husband Erroll worked 30 years for the U.S. Postal Service, had similar complaints.
“If this was Portland, they’d send somebody out to ride along and evaluate,” she said. “They need to split the route. (The current carrier) doesn’t want to go any further.
“We rely on the mail for medication and things. It’s difficult if you don’t drive 30 miles every day to get your mail. Your bills will be late. I’ve adapted. I pay my bills a month in advance. But instead of us doing a 30-mile road trip, she could add two miles to her route.”
Some residents’ reactions to the forum were colored, as one put it, by the scepticism and distrust of government that has prompted many to move there.
“We definitely heard about trespass,” said U.S. Forest Service recreational planner Jon Meier, who works out of Sweet Home.
Tucker told a reporter later in the week, at a meeting of the community forest team, that he’d talked with a Cascadia resident that day who had caught a man stealing firewood from his property.
“We’re not sure where the trail is going to go,” he said. “But there’s going to be an influx of more people. They’re coming anyway and we can’t stop them.”
He said the challenge will be to find ways to channel visitors into areas where they can enjoy the outdoors and still maintain the privacy and security of residents.
Floyd Neuschwander, who described himself as a “lifelong resident who likes privacy, peace and quiet,” said his biggest concern is a proposed visitors center on land owned by the U.S. Forest Service adjacent to Short Bridge.
He said he’s heard there will be an RV park at the site, which doesn’t enthuse him.
“It seemed to me that this is wholesale economic development of recreational opportunities,” he said of the community forest plan. He said Cascadians “endure hardships constantly” in exchange for the lifestyle they have chosen.
“We don’t ask for help,” he said. “We have mudslides, power outages, icy roads, we provide our own water supply, our own sewer. We don’t need a bunch of involvement from outsiders.”
Some residents said they were unhappy that the forum wasn’t in a group format.
Hartsock said he talked to Juine Chada of Sen. Ron Wyden’s staff about mail delivery problems in Cascadia, but she, like many of the government officials at the event, could only listen.
“It’s not a public forum as much as it is more like a home show – everybody selling their wares.”
Tucker said he undertstood that “people don’t want to do one-on-one” and prefer being able to voice their opinions to a group.
Meier said he thought the event “went well.”
“We made a lot of contacts,” he said, noting that if the visitors center comes to fruition, he has a list of people who are willing to provide history, photos and stories about their lives in Cascadia.
“It was really good for us,” he said.