Sean C. Morgan
Mark Spence, a historian, sees connections among all kinds of issues, national and local.
Klamath Falls, an area where he has been working, is at the epicenter of a variety of local issues that have national significance, whether it’s tribal rights, fish issues, the Lava Beds National Monument, water rights or a former Japanese internment camp, he said. It has one of the first Native American tribes to be dissolved and then reconstituted.
“It’s the future, past and present,” Spence said. It’s just the same in Sweet Home and Linn County, where the Democrat is challenging incumbent Republican Roger Nyquist for county commissioner.
“Anybody who sniffs the air in Sweet Home understands the connections between the economy, environment and politics. People in Portland don’t understand it the same way.”
Those connections, the ones between social, environmental and economic issues are how he approaches history, and it’s what he would keep in mind in office.
Klamath Falls is the epicenter on some key issues, a never-ending contest between public rights and private rights, Spence said. The only solution is a local solution.
“Eventually, people realize we can blame each other and lose badly, or we can work together,” Spence said.
The issues in Klamath Falls aren’t exactly the same as those in Sweet Home and Linn County, Spence said. Linn County has its history with the spotted owl, for example.
“But they’re really a blueprint for how we can deal with things up here,” Spence said. Looking at each interest in the forest controversy, the environmentalists, the home buyer, the Forest Service, the loggers, everybody, they’re all to blame for the physical condition of the forest. It’s the same with salmon.
“Which means only one thing, everybody’s part of the solution,” Spence said. Those who advocate not touching the forest, leave it a dense forest, an unhealthy firebomb. Cut it, and there may not be a forest.
If he could hang his hat on anything four years from now, it would be that he has brought together all of those interested in the forests, from loggers to environmentalists, managers and other political actors to develop a solution that all of them can support.
The Mid-Valley led the world in forest products and adhesives from World War II into the 1950s, Spence said. He would like to rebuild that leadership in technology and wood products with Oregon State University.
“I have connections with all of these interests, and if there’s anything unique about me is that I respect all of them,” Spence said.
When trying to get timber harvest opened up again, solutions need to include everyone concerned, he said. One proposal to deal with the loss of timber payments is just opening up the woods, cutting as much timber as anyone wants off of O&C lands. An alternative would split the land.
If it’s all opened up, the environmentalists would have it in court, and no one will get anywhere, Spence said. Whether it’s the right policy, it’s the unworkable policy.
Spence supports the governor’s solution released three or four weeks ago, he said. The plan focuses on O&C lands, increasing “harvest levels from where they are now, the whole west slope, not just Linn County.”
The plan would spur local economies and provide long-term production in forests, Spence said. “There is a way to log and put people to work for hundreds of years. I’m interested in what pretty much everybody’s interested in – healthy forests and timber jobs.”
The Clinton Forest Plan was supposed to do this in 1993 and 1994, but that effort has failed. Part of the cause of that failure “is the old timber wars,” Spence said.
Timber payments from Congress in lieu of taxes on timber harvest is the crux of many local budget issues, Spence said. There has been no action to compensate for the inevitable decline of the payments, and he’s tired of nothing being done to deal with the issue.
Spence said he didn’t want to run for the office.
“I really wanted someone else to run for this particular position,” Spence said. “For far too long, this position has been characterized by blame and inaction. More importantly, this country especially needs someone who can and will work full time.”
Spence said he dropped a dream contract because he couldn’t fulfill it if he wins, he said. He would be too busy working, and he would have to quit all of his jobs.
His opponent, he said, owns 11 businesses.
Nyquist said he doesn’t own that many businesses, although looking at Secretary of State filings will show multiple business names.
His bowling center in Albany contains three businesses inside, including the bowling center, a sports bar and a coffeehouse, each of wh ich has a qualified manager for day-today operations, Nyquist said. He hasn’t been involved in day-to-day operations since 1994.
“I do work full time, and furthermore, this is my passion,” Nyquist said. “I care deeply for the citizens of Linn County.”
Spence said he is interested in solutions more than anything. His father was a salmon fisherman. In the 1970s, he stopped fishing for political, environmental and economic reasons.
People used to ask him if he liked fishing, Spence said. He always told them, “No, I’m into catching.”
Like that, Spence said he is not into political posturing. He’d be running as a Republican if Nyquist were a Democrat. He just wants problems solved.
Until enemies are made into allies, problems won’t be solved, he said. Klamath Falls is an example. It still has issues, but the trajectory is better with the water issue, for example. The tribes, ranchers, farmers and environmentalists have developed a plan that the governors and Congress are signing off.
“That’s how you solve forest issues here,” he said. “I really believe people higher up will respond positively to that. I want to see people working in the woods. Any candidate is going to say jobs is our number-one focus. I don’t disagree. Who would? But I’m interested in a plan.”
Spence noted that Oregon is taxed less than California and Washington, and there is no reason that Linn County couldn’t tap into tax refugees from those states.
Spence grew up in Northern California in a small logging town with agricultural and surfing components, he said. “I basically grew up with loggers, farmers and hippies.”
Spence earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles, in U.S. history in 1996. He taught at Knox College in Illinois. Now, he works at OSU and the University of Oregon part time as well as contracting for specific projects.
He came to the Mid-Valley in 1999, then returned to Illinois for several years. He has lived in Albany for a couple of years.
Spence has two thoughts about Sweet Home in particular, he said. First is that Sweet Home has been Linn County’s sacrifice for 20 years regarding property values and tax levies. No one has ever stepped up to correct the systemic problem with property revenues and property values.
Second, the county’s position on the former Western States Land Reliance Trust property, about 380 acres that the county foreclosed for nonpayment of property taxes, must be singularly about developing Sweet Home’s plan for the property, Spence said. The county should be there to assist in any way it can.
Sweet Home is the big loser with that property not being developed, Spence said. “We’re not going develop this for you. We’re not going to develop the plan. We’ll help you. I think it would be offensive to develop a plan and say, ‘Look what we gave you.’”
Part of the property is currently proposed as a county park and the new site for the Oregon Jamboree.
For more information about Spence, visit his website at markspence2012.com.