1000 Friends of Portland needs a "fix"

"we ran a terrible campaign" on Measure 37
-- Tom Bowerman, then 1000 Friends board member, Land Watch Lane County 2007 Annual Meeting

www.peaktraffic.org/portland-western-bypass.html 1000 Friends helped stop the Portland Western Bypass in late 1980s / early 1990s
www.peaktraffic.org/oregon.html 1000 Friends part of Governor's Transportation Vision Committee, which recommended $18 billion in expanded highways (2008)
Crandall Arambula, a worse version of the West Eugene Porkway, co-authored by 1000 Friends board president (2002)

from 2007 re: Measures 37 and 49

Measure 49 is a brilliant psychological campaign to ensure that most of Measure 37 gets enacted while splitting the environmental movement. It is a great example of the difference between Republican politicians and Democratic politicians -- the R's don't care about the environment, while the D's pretend to care but craft initiatives that undermine ecological efforts while pretending to help. It is dichotomous thinking -- either you're with the Measure 49 campaign or you support Measure 37, when in reality the world is not split into yes/no fake debates.

Giving away the crucial issue of TRANSFERABILITY throws away the strongest argument from the environmental side. No timber company wants to be a landlord for homes built in their clearcuts -- if transferability was blocked in court then few large M37 claims would happen. Without transferability, a claimant could build an extra house for a relative -- but a claim that sought future subdivision of the land (multiple houses) would not likely happen. This is the key point and it's outrageous that we are supposed to endorse the principle ideas behind Measure 37 under the guise of mitigating it. Some of the worst excesses will be blocked in the unlikely event that M49 is enacted, but far more success would happen for environmentalism if groups like 1000 Friends had backbones and were competent.

If 1000 Friends and other big green groups had bothered to notice the corporate deforestation on so-called "private" lands over the past few decades, perhaps they could have pushed for selective forestry to be made mandatory on corporate timberlands.

If this shift had happened, the forests where much of the M37 claims (by acreage) are proposed would still have value as forests, and the pressure for M37 would have been much less. You reap as you sow.

What deal did 1000 Friends make to promote OSU deForestry Department Dean Salwasser and the Oregon Forest Resources Institute, a timber industry propaganda organization?

www.envisionoregon.org/
guest-columns/forests-for-a-richer-future
A Vision for Oregon’s Forests
by Hal & Janine Salwasser
Hal and Janine Salwasser are residents of Corvallis
Find more data on Oregon's forests at www.oregonforests.org

1000 Friends of Portland -- Activist Malpractice

Measure 49 gives away the strongest tool that could block most M37 claims (transferability)
1000 Friends did not substantially challenge the ballot language of M37 when that period of public challenge happened despite years of notice that it would be required. It is unlikely they can do a better campaign for M49 than their anemic efforts against M37 or against M2 & M7 in 2000.
Their EnvisionOregon campaign promotes oregonforests.org, a timber industry propaganda website, and claims a prominent shill for clearcutting is just an ordinary guy concerned about trees.
1000 Friends claims that our land use laws protect forests, when all they do is protect forests from conversion to other uses even though the biggest threat is industrial deforestation, not subdivision (although subdivision is certainly a threat to some forests)
In 2002, 1000 Friends promoted a worse version of the West Eugene Porkway that was about twice as long (and destructive) as ODOT’s proposal. If their plan had been adopted, the federal legal case WETLANDS vs. FHWA would have been nullified and the highway would be under construction now. 1000 Friends's worse route for the WEP would have gone through the home of their co-plaintiff on their LUBA (Land use Board of Appeals) claim on the local zoning of the WEP issues. The sorry details are archived at crandall.html
1000 Friends's website promoted a plan for the largest Urban Growth Boundary expansion in the history of the UGB program (in Damascus, east of Portland), which includes the new Sunrise freeway.
1000 Friends, like most environmental groups, is myopically ignoring Peak Oil and other limits to endless growth in its advocacy, which makes their analysis strangely disconnected from physical reality. It is easy to understand why highway departments don't want to think about the end of cheap oil -- but harder to understand why groups such as 1000 Friends are as unwilling to include it in their advocacy.