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NEWS
BRIEFS : Kulongoldschmidtski
| Who's on the Team? | Hynix
For Sale? | Corrections/Clarifications
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News:
Wolf at the Door Canis lupus is returningūto Oregon. Will it
survive?
News:
Pure Heart Spiritual leader Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche passes away.
Happening
People: Nena Lovinger
KULONGOLDSCHMIDTSKI
When Oregon voters elected Ted Kulongoski
governor, they might not have counted on handing considerable power
over state government to a corporate lobbyist and consultant. But
that's what happened.
Neil Goldschmidt, who's done lobbyist work for local
timber baron Aaron Jones and for Hynix, has emerged as a major player
in the Kulongoski administration. Goldschmidt, a former Oregon governor,
Portland mayor and head of the U.S. Department of Transportation,
is one of the highest paid lobbyists in Oregon.
Kulongoski has made economic development his top priority
and has enlisted Goldschmidt to craft plans to promote business, according
to reports in The Oregonian. Goldschmidt has called
for refocusing economic development efforts from infrastructure in
rural areas to incentives to retain and recruit corporations in urban
areas. Goldschmidt also floated a trial proposal that the state borrow
money to buy federal timberlands and then cut them to raise money.
Goldschmidt's statements provide the "best clues"
to Kulongoski's future economic policies, The Oregonian
reported.
Kulongoski's official transition team is chaired by
Goldschmidt's consulting/lobbying business partner Tom Imeson. Imeson
served as a corporate executive with PacificCorp and as Goldschmidt's
chief aide when he was governor. Kulongoski's transition team is dominated
by corporate interests. Seventeen of its 23 members are business executives,
The Oregonian reported.
Goldschmidt played an active role in Kulongoski's
campaign, holding "closed-door" meetings with business interests around
the state to get policy ideas for Kulongoski. Goldschmidt was one
of Kulongoski's largest political contributors, giving a total of
$18,500 to the campaign through his lobbying business and in individual
donations. Goldschmidt may have also helped swing big contributions
from his corporate friends and clients to Kulongoski.
Goldschmidt lobbied for Hynix (formerly Hyundai) efforts
to secure permits for wetlands destruction and for huge tax breaks.
The lobbying paid off with wetlands fill permits for the west Eugene
chip plant and more than $170 million in tax breaks. Goldschmidt also
lobbied for state laws to weaken or eliminate Eugene's Toxics Right
to Know ordinance.
Goldschmidt and Jones have lobbied for a federal
timber swap policy. He has also lobbied for deregulation of the airline
industry and for Portland developers. Working as a corporate hired
gun has allowed the ex-governor to jet around in private airplanes
and buy a $1 million home and a vineyard, Willamette Week reported
in a 1998 story.
WW reported that Goldschmidt often doesn't
reveal who's paying him as a lobbyist. That may leave Oregonians wondering
who may be sharing the governor's office.
— Alan Pittman
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SLANT
PeaceHealth CEO Alan Yordy comes off as a
wacky conspiracy theorist in his allegations (in the
R-G Dec. 3) that DLCD land use analyst Mark Radabaugh has
a "bias" against the RiverBend project, and has some secret
pact with city councilors and local activists. If Radabaugh
does have a bias, it's simply in favor of responsible, lawful
land use planning. It's his job. This project is a land use
nightmare and it's better for all concerned to confront these
huge issues now rather than later.
Northwest environmental and fishing groups
have filed for an injunction in federal court to stop the
pesticide uses most likely to harm salmon. The temporary injunction
would restrict some pesticide uses not only in agriculture and
forestry, but also in household applications. Industry groups
are predictably wailing and warning of economic doom and gloom
if pesticide use is restricted in any way, even to comply with
existing federal and state laws. Endangered coho and other species
are the focus of this action, but in the larger picture, we
humans are also endangered by toxic pesticides. The salmon,
like canaries in coal mines, warn us of hidden dangers in our
environment. We're way overdue in switching to the available
alternatives to pesticides.
Will legislation be introduced in the 2003
Oregon Legislature to deal with the health care crisis in
Oregon? We hear a non-partisan group called Oregonians for Health
Security (OHS) may be pushing such legislation next year. OHS
was not involved in Health Care for All-Oregon's Measure
23 that failed at the polls. The Clackamas-based group is concerned
with not only the large number of uninsured Oregonians, but
also the high cost of prescription drugs. The first order of
business might be convincing lawmakers that Measure 23's failure
does not mean Oregonians don't care about fixing the
problems. Stay tuned.
SLANT includes short opinion pieces and rumor-chasing
notes compiled by the EW staff. Heard any good rumors lately?
Contact Ted Taylor at 484-0519, editor@eugeneweekly.com
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WHO'S
ON THE TEAM?
Governor-elect Ted Kulongoski announced
his transition steering committee Nov. 25 with a focus on the economy
and creating living wage jobs. The list of 23 includes few with environmental
expertise, but 17 with business and industry backgrounds, most from
the Portland metro area. Only four of the 23 are women, and no one
is from the Eugene-Springfield area or Ashland.
Kulongoski says he will rely on this group to advise
him on the creation of his administration and will use them on a regular
basis throughout his term in office.
Tom Imeson will chair the team. He is a Portland
consultant in partnership with former Gov. Neil Goldschmdt (see story
above).
Pamela Hulse Andrews is the CEO of Cascade
Publications in Bend, which publishes the Cascade Business News,
Cascade Arts and Entertainment and the Cascade Discovery.
Peter Bragdon is the senior counsel and director
of intellectual property at Columbia Sportswear Company in Portland.
Thomas Bruner is executive director of the
Cascade AIDS Project in Portland and a non-profit leader with 17 years
experience in health and human services.
Marty Brantley is the retired president of
KPTV Oregon's 12 in Portland and serves on the Portland Branch of
the 12th Federal Reserve District, the board of the Nature Conservancy
and the Oregon Coast Aquarium.
Duncan Campbell is founder and chair of The
Campbell Group, a timberland investment advisory firm in Portland,
and founder of Friends of the Children, Youth Resources, The Children's
Course and the Institute for Children.
Karla Chambers is VP/co-owner of Stahlbush
Island Farms in Corvallis, a 2,000-acre intensive farming operation
and vertically integrated food processing company using sustainable
farming practices.
Debi Coleman is co-managing partner of SmartForest
Ventures, in Portland, which invests in new technology companies in
the Northwest. She was chair/CEO of Merix Corporation and an executive
at Apple Computer and Tektronix.
Sho Dozono is president/CEO of Azumano Travel/American
Express in Portland, a member of the of the Portland Public Schools
Foundation, and past commissioner of the Port of Portland.
Gerry Frank is president of Gerry's Frankly
Speaking, Inc. in Salem. He was chief of staff to Sen. Hatfield for
20 years and is a former board member of US Bancorp and Standard Insurance.
Scott Gibson is the CEO of Gibson Enterprises
in Portland and chairman of the board of Radisys Corporation. He serves
on the boards of TriQuint Semiconductor, Pixelworks, NW Natural, CenQuest,
Livebridge, Flatrock, and OHSU.
Matt Hennessee is president/CEO of QuikTrak,
Inc, in Lake Oswego and serves on the Portland Development Commission.
He is also the associate pastor at St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church.
Román Hernández is an associate at
Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt in Portland, practicing employment
law and business litigation, with a special interest in Indian Law.
Onno Husing is the executive director of the
Oregon Coastal Zone Management Association, a non-profit organization
representing cities, counties, port and soil and water conservation
districts.
Jack Isselmann is general counsel and assistant
corporate secretary at Electro Scientific Industries, Inc. Before
ESI, he was a senior attorney at Intel Corporation, Stoel Rives LLP
and Tektronix.
Paul Kelly is general counsel for international
law & government affairs to NIKE Inc., in Beaverton, and was the
general counsel to the European subsidiaries and affiliates of NIKE..
Robert Levy owns L&L Farms located near
Echo which has produced a variety of crops local markets and food
processors. He is the current president of American Onion Inc.,
Les Minthorn is treasurer of the Confederated
Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation in Pendleton, and was chairman
of the board of the Tribal Gaming Commission.
Mike Nelson is the owner of Nelson Real Estate,
Inc. in Baker City and a licensed mortgage broker, owner of Nelson
Capital Benefits and Baker City Laundry.
Tim Nesbitt is president of the Oregon AFL-CIO,
and served as executive director to the Oregon State Council, SEIU
and the assistant executive director of the OPEU.
Howard Sohn is chairman of the board of Lone
Rock Timber Company, based in Roseburg and managing timberlands in
southwestern Oregon. He is the current chair of the Oregon Board of
Forestry.
Gordon Sondland is co-chair of The Aspen Companies
and oversees a diverse portfolio of commercial real estate, hotels,
industrial manufacturing and mortgage lending.
Nancy Tait is president/CEO of Bear Creek Corporation
in Medford, and sits on the Oregon Economic & Community Development
Commission and the Oregon International Trade Commission.
HYNIX
FOR SALE?
The Hynix computer chip plant in west Eugene
may end up going on sale.
The Semiconductor Business News reported last
week that Hynix creditors are considering a recommendation by their
financial advisors to sell the Eugene chip plant as part of an effort
to bail out the troubled company.
Hynix has been teetering on the verge of bankruptcy
for the past year under the weight of massive debt and falling chip
prices. Creditors took over the company in June after the Hynix board
rejected a deal to sell its chip plants to U.S. rival Micron.
Hynix was lured to Eugene with more than $170 million
in tax breaks.
— Alan Pittman
CORRECTIONS/CLARIFICATIONS
In last week's package of stories on the
homeless, David Zeiss at White Bird Clinic was incorrectly identified.
He tells us he is coordinator of the CAHOOTS program, and the title
of "clinic director" more accurately fits the job description of Bob
Dritz.
Back to Top
 Wolf
at
the Door
Canis
lupus is returning to Oregon. Will it survive?
BY
ORNA IZAKSON
The federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) is one of
the centerpieces of American environmental law, and despite its flaws
one of the strongest such laws on the books anywhere in the world.
But gray wolves, long extinct in Oregon but starting to return from
reintroduced packs in the northern Rockies, may soon find they have
no federal protection at all.
In just over a year, that could mean that the strongest
protection for wolves in Oregon would be the state's Endangered Species
Act. Although that law puts fewer restrictions on private landowners
than the federal one, it does require the state to recover animals
including wolves.
The Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife (ODFW)
is now conducting a series of townhall meetings around the state —
including one in Eugene on Monday — to gauge public interest
on the issue. Although ODFW's first concern is how – or whether
– to manage wolves in the state, underlying the meetings is
a larger question that has gone largely unarticulated: If or when
the feds delist the wolf, will Oregon maintain a commitment to restore
them here anyway?
For decades now, people watching endangered species
have looked at which may be among the first to be fully recovered,
and removed from the federal list. The success of a reintroduction
program in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho — along with natural recolonization
in northwestern Montana — has brought documented benefits to
the area's economy and ecology. That area is the heart of what the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) says is the best habitat left
for the northern wolves; and since the mammals are doing so well there,
the agency expects to reduce protections for wolves there in early
January and take wolves off the federal list entirely by 2004.
As the top predators fill in their habitat in the
Rockies, some trailblazers have started sniffing around in Oregon.
According to Ed Bangs, the agency's wolf-recovery coordinator in Montana,
those wolves have the full protection of federal law when they cross
over into Oregon (in the Rockies they have a special "experimental"
status that brings lower protection). But when the agency reduces
protection to threatened, or when the animals are taken off the list
entirely, state law will offer the only protection.
"The (Oregon Fish & Wildlife) Commission is under
an obligation to recover the wolf in Oregon," explains Bill Cook,
the assistant attorney general responsible for wildlife law. "But
the law appears to give the commission some discretion in determining
how to do that."
But environmentalists worry that the state may find
ways to follow the federal government and remove protection for wolves
in Oregon without recovering them. For instance, the state ESA added
federally listed species to the local list en masse 1987, including
species that had long been wiped out in the state. If the Legislature
decided that the law should not cover locally extinct species, any
wolves that made it into Oregon would be on their own. Without some
legal protection, the wolves would be vulnerable to any person with
a gun, making biologically sustainable populations here unlikely.
Jim McCarthy, who works on wolf issues in Oregon for
Defenders of Wildlife, says that restoring wolves is important in
myriad ways both ecologically and economically.
The USFWS predicted that the wolves reintroduced in
the Rockies would draw more tourists. At Yellowstone National Park,
those increases were expected to be 5 percent for nonresidents and
10 percent for locals. In Idaho, which doesn't have the draw of one
of the nation's premier national parks, the expected rise was 8 percent
for non-locals and 2 percent for locals. McCarthy points out that
the increase was expected to total $20 million annually in the three-state
region; Bangs, of the FWS, thinks those numbers would not necessarily
translate to Oregon, for which estimates have not been made.
Scientists have universally declared the reintroduction
of wolves in Yellowstone to be an ecological success story. The wolves
brought down the booming coyote population, thinned the sick, old
and weak from deer and elk herds, and are thought to be restoring
vegetative diversity to the forests there.
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LOCAL
MEETINGS
ODFW will
hold three town hall meetings in or near Eugene to get public
input about wolves in Oregon. All meetings begin at 7 pm, with
doors opening 30 minutes earlier.
Eugene:
Monday, Dec. 9, LCC, Forum and Science Buildings, 4000 E.
30th Ave.
Roseburg:
Tuesday, Dec. 10, Umpqua Community College, Whipple Theater
Building, 1140 College Road.
Salem:
Wednesday, Dec. 11, Claggett Creek Middle School, 1810 Alder
St. N.E.
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Some of the more dramatic findings were made by Bill
Ripple, a professor of forest resources at OSU. He and his colleagues
decided to investigate a long-known phenomenon in Yellowstone: the
decline of aspen trees. The researchers found that the decline started
when wolves in the area were wiped out. Historically, Ripple says,
wolves as top predators might have scared aspen-eating elk away from
the trees, or could have kept elk numbers low enough that new aspen
could grow in spite of their grazing.
"When you go to the top of the food chain, the effect
can cascade all the way back down through the elk to the plants,"
he says. "So for example the wolves prey upon the elk and the elk
become scared and they may change their foraging behavior based on
their fear levels."
Ripple says he's not aware of an analogous situation
in Oregon's forests — no long-standing, aspen-like problem wolves
might cure. Further, he declined to speculate on the ecological changes
wolves might bring here.
But McCarthy, of Defenders of Wildlife, says there
will have to be ecologically beneficial changes in Oregon when wolves
return.
"If you have forests that evolved for three million
years with wolves as keystone species and you take them away, it's
going to cause profound effects," he says. "We don't know what they
are because we didn't bother to find out before we wiped out the wolves."
The most outspoken anti-wolf voices are ranchers,
who say the wolves won't discriminate between a woodland elk and their
grazing cattle. But Ed Bangs of the USFWS says the issue is overstated.
"The level of wolf depredation is so low that compared
to other causes of livestock loss," "It doesn't make any difference,"
he says.
There will be some livestock lost to wolves, he adds,
as well as some pets and some elk that human hunters might otherwise
take down. He also predicts that wolves will increase the diversity
of wildlife overall when — not if — they return to Oregon.
But the big change, he says, will be in the human
psychology of the places where wolves return.
"People either know that there are wolves there and
really hate that idea or they know that there are wolves there and
they really love that idea."
Back to Top
Pure
Heart
Spiritual
leader Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche passes away.
BY
LAMA TRINLEY
Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche, a renowned master of
Tibetan Buddhism, passed away at his home in Brazil on Sunday, Nov.
17 at the age of 72. He was a Lane County resident from
1980 to 1989, regularly taught meditation classes in Eugene and established
the first Western Chagdud Gonpa center, Dechhen Ling, in Cottage Grove
in 1983.
Chagdud Rinpoche was born in Tibet in 1930 and trained
from a very early age with some of the greatest masters of his time
in the tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Recognized as the 16th reincarnation
of the founder of Chagdud Gonpa, in Kham, eastern Tibet, he received
instructions in Buddhist ritual, meditation and philosophy from many
great masters. He left Tibet at the time of the communist invasion
in the late 1950s and lived as a refugee in India and Nepal, serving
as a spiritual guide for Tibetans in exile. While there he began to
teach a few Western students and met an American woman, Jane Deadman,
now known as Chagdud Khadro who would become his wife. He was one
of the first Tibetan lamas to travel to the West and had great confidence
in the ability of Western students to integrate the teachings and
practices of Tibetan Buddhism into their lives.
It was in Eugene and Cottage Grove that he first began
to teach publicly and to gather a group of students who would support
his aspiration to make the profound Buddhist teachings — in
particular those of the Vajrayana and Dzogchen — available throughout
the world. At Dechhen Ling in Cottage Grove, regular practices and
teachings of the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism have continued
to the present. There are now more than 30 Chagdud Gonpa centers and
practice groups in North and South America.
When Chagdud Rinpoche first began to teach at the
Tibetan Library on Mill Street in Eugene, he had only a handful of
students. He spoke in broken English, which was interpreted by one
of his Western students, Tsering Everest. Although this initial group
of students was small, they were extremely dedicated and in the years
that followed he taught them the more complex rituals of Vajrayana
Buddhism as well as the extremely simple and profound teachings of
the Great Perfection. Rinpoche was a master of both. He was also a
gifted artist and physician. But what really made the difference for
his students were his profound kindness and his limitless patience
in transmitting the teachings and methods of the dharma (the Buddhist
path) to them.
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What Rinpoche continually
reiterated in his teachings, right up until the night he passed
away, was the importance of having a pure heart.
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After leaving Oregon in 1989, he moved to northern
California where he established his main north American center, Rigdzin
Ling. In the years that followed he traveled extensively throughout
North America, Asia, Europe, and Australia teaching Buddhism and gathering
more students. In 1995, he moved to Brazil and with the help of Chagdud
Khadro, Lama Tsering Everest, and other devoted students, began to
establish Tibetan Buddhism in South America. Rinpoche was happiest
when he was traveling, teaching, and engaging in such merit-producing
activities as building sacred statues and reliquaries (relic containers),
and performing traditional Buddhist ceremonies.
What Rinpoche continually reiterated in his teachings,
right up until the night he passed away, was the importance of having
a pure heart. If you undertake spiritual practice to attain enlightenment
in order to benefit all beings then your motivation is pure and your
practice will flourish. He emphasized that although the Buddha taught
84,000 different spiritual methods, the purpose of all of them is
to develop pure heart. The Buddhist term for enlightened mind, bodhichitta,
refers to this pure heart — a potential we all have but can't
always recognize either in our self or others. We engage in spiritual
practice in order to fully reveal this quality. For this reason Rinpoche
also emphasized the importance of dedication of merit, offering the
stores of merit we accumulate through our positive actions toward
the enlightenment of all beings. By giving away these seeds of good
fortune to others we learn to let go of clinging to ourselves, focusing
instead on the well-being of others.
Chagdud Rinpoche was one of the first Tibetan masters
to take Westerners completely into his confidence and train them extensively.
He always stressed that the most important sign of effective spiritual
practice is that one has become kinder and more compassionate toward
others. He taught that we didn't have to shave our heads, put on robes
and change our names to engage the teachings. We need to integrate
the dharma into every moment of our lives. Having recognized the spiritual
qualities of a number of his students, he bestowed the title of lama
on nearly 20 Westerners, about half of whom are women. Through his
generosity with the teachings that he offered freely to anyone who
requested them, he enhanced the lives of many people in both the East
and West.
Rinpoche repeatedly emphasized the Buddhist teachings
on impermanence — that anything that comes together will eventually
fall apart, that whatever was born was bound to die.
Memorial services will be held in Nepal, California,
Brazil, and at Dechhen Ling in Cottage Grove. Please call 942-8619
for further information.
Back to Top
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Nena
Lovinger
"I'm committed to this state and this community," says
land-use activist Nena Lovinger, volunteer secretary for LandWatch
Lane County. LandWatch coalesced in the mid-'90s to counter proposed
relaxation of land use codes that would have allowed development on
Lane County's forest resource lands. "We succeeded in that effort,"
she notes. Born in Eugene, Lovinger was schooled in Dallas and Corvallis
before she returned to earn degrees in interior design and art history
from the UO. During a 22-year marriage, she raised two kids, traveled
and lived in Europe, Asia and Africa. "It's significant for me to
be back here now," she says. "The state of Oregon has it all —
such a rich environment." Formerly president of the South University
Neighbors Association, Lovinger now lives on 40 acres along Little
Fall Creek, where she divides her time between farming and land use
advocacy. "Nena is passionate, well-versed, and well-spoken," says
Lauri Segel of 1000 Friends of Oregon. "She's a great asset to our
community." Landwatch's current concerns include the siting of cell-phone
towers, reforming the county's Land Management Division, and PeaceHealth's
new hospital site. Stay current at www.landwatch.net
— Paul Neevel
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