Safety net fuels forum questions

The federal timber safety net took center stage Monday afternoon during a forum featuring candidates for Douglas County commissioner.

In response to a question posed by a member of the audience at the forum at the Douglas County Fairgrounds, Commissioner Marilyn Kittelman said the safety net, which has provided the county with stable funding of between $48 million and $52 million annually since the 2001-02 fiscal year, has not been good for the county.

While it allowed roads to be paved and libraries and the county museum to remain open, the payments from the federal government wasn’t “a safety net under our people,” Kittelman said.

“What we have is the highest rate of unemployment, the lowest rate of job creation, the highest rate of child abuse, the highest rate of meth abuse,” Kittelman said.

Rich Raynor, running in a separate race against Commissioner Doug Robertson, said while the safety net “did keep our government afloat and functioning,” it didn’t serve the masses well.

“There was no benefit outside of that for all of the people who worked in the woods, the folks who ran the saw shop, the truck stops and all the places they shopped, too,” Raynor said. “The trickle down of economics disappeared.”

About 250 people attended the luncheon forum, sponsored by the Roseburg Area Chamber of Commerce and the Community Cancer Center. Norm Gershon, the executive director of Umpqua Training and Employment, served as moderator.

Commissioner Doug Robertson, running for re-election against Raynor, John Ayer and Mike Folino, disputed the idea that the safety net hasn’t been a great benefit for the county.

“To say the safety net is bad for the county and bad for its residents is one of the most irresponsible statements anyone could make,” Robertson said.

He said public safety was one of the most important functions of government.

“Where do you think the money comes from to keep that at acceptable levels? The safety net,” he said.

He said childhood immunization shots provided by the county Health Department were funded by the safety net, as well as the Hinkle Creek watershed study on land outside Sutherlin. That study, for which the safety net has provided major funding, is one of the most important studies being used to get the county back into the woods in forest management activities, Robertson said.

Rep. Susan Morgan, who is running against Kittelman and Patrick Starnes, said the county has to continue to work with the federal government to develop a plan to put workers back into the forests so that timber receipts and county revenues increase.

“Without the safety net over the past eight years or so, Douglas County government would have been shut down and the courthouse would have been vacant and all of the services that Douglas County citizens depend on would not have been offered,” Morgan said.

Folino, a self-employed mason from Roseburg, said the county has to look to diversify its economy in order to survive.

“We have to think of something. It’s going to have to be better than cutting wood, because wood isn’t going to do it,” Folino said. “No one is buying it. We’d have to give it away.”

Starnes said the county and the country was being hurt by foreign imports.

“When your housing market is bombing, that’s the last thing you want is Russian and Chinese plywood flooding the market,” Starnes said. “What I would like to see is a tariff on those products that would go straight into the safety net.”

Ayer was not able to attend the forum.



• You can reach reporter John Sowell at 957-4209 or by e-mail at jsowell@newsreview.info.