Representatives of a wide range of local, state and federal government agencies, private organizations and local businesses and residents gathered at the Jim Riggs Community Center Monday, March 10, to send the South Santiam Community Forest project forward to its next chapter.
They signed a declaration of cooperation on the project, which essentially states the goals of the project and the role each intends to play in achieving those goals.
Thomas Manness, dean of the Oregon State University College of Forestry, who served as coconvener for Gov. John Kitzhaber’s Oregon Solutions Team, which brought together all the players who have met for the last 16 months to develop the project, called it a “signing party.”
There was a clear sense of optimism from various leaders who spoke about their experience with the project.
“It’s been very productive and I have high hopes for the future, coming out of this agreement,” Manness said.
The overall goal of the project is to establish a community “working” forest that will produce economically viable forest products as well as provide tourism and recreation opportunities for both visitors and local residents. It also would incorporate federal ownership and protection of Cascadia Cave.
“This is an opportunity, it really is an opportunity,” said County Commissioner Will Tucker, who has attended every meeting of the solutions team.
He said the “common ground” and collaboration between agencies and organizations has “just been heartwarming.”
“When we started to work together, boy, we haven’t found many things we couldn’t address and find ways to move forward.
“As I sit at my desk and read about money I’m not getting, or I read a report about community unemployment numbers and I’m starting to look for blame, I’m in a whole different place when I’m sitting next to (local U.S. Forest Service officials) Cindy Glick or Meg Mitchell, and I’m talkingabout solutions.”
He and other local officials said that the community has never been able to take advantage of its natural assets, at least outside of logging.
“If any other community anywhere in the world had one or two of these things, it’d be exciting,”said Mayor Jim Gourley. “And we have all of them. We just have not been able to play upon that, get that out to other people, to use that to our advantage. I see this project as a big positive for this community.”
Tucker described Cascadia Cave as “a piece that probably should be a world heritage site.
“Probably our state’s finest site is here in Sweet Home and we don’t celebrate it and the tourists don’t flock here. Maybe they could and should.”
The community forest project will come under the leadership of the South Santiam All-Lands Collaborative, which will be led by Sweet Home RARE intern Laura Goodrich, a Portland State University graduate student.
Manness, who emphasized that a lot of energy for the project has come from OSU Forestry faculty, warned that completing the project will likely require focus and effort.
“What we’re talking about here is change. Change requires a lot of things,” he said, listing three: leaderhip, courage and persistence.
He said he was “convinced that we have the leadership to do this” and “really is a matter of showing courage to make that happen” because it is difficult for organizations and people to
make change and believe in it.
Persistence, he said, is necessary because “you can’t ask for change and get out of the way and let it happen, because it won’t. There will be resistance and there’ll be other things. You just have to go back and show that you have the leadership and courage to make it happen.”
City Manager Craig Martin noted that change is already occurring in Sweet Home. He said he’s heard from young people that they plan to work in the forest, as previous generations have, “‘but
we’re just going to do things differently than my father or my grandfather did or my greatgrandfather did.’
“That’s what this particular project is all about,” Martin said. “Getting the vision that the community desires and wants, that connection to the forest. But just doing it in a different way that benefits more people, more opportunities than just a single focus. It’s exciting.”
Former Albany City Manager Steve Bryant, who served as project manager for the solutions team, said it wasn’t until he started interviewing “15 or 16” local officials in preparing to make a decision whether to put together the team, that he realized what he was dealing with. He said the level of cooperation and collaboration already present was clear.
“I’ve been driving through Sweet Home most of my life, on my way to someplace else,” he said. “I didn’t realize what was here. This is a community that really has its act together.
“It is made up of people who are deeply passionate about this community and its future, people who say, ‘We’ve been through some tough times together and we’re coming out of that in a different place than what we were 15 or 20 years ago. But we’re envisioning a future built on a different economy, that has aspirations for attracting people into our community because of what we recognize as a place that has a home-town feel, people who know each other, who want to help each other out, and people want to connect to this wonderful natural environment that this is really the gateway to.’”
“I was really caught up in that enthusiasm,” Bryant said.
Cascadia resident Janet Quinn told how she discovered Sweet Home back in the 1970s after living in Michigan, missing the turn onto Highway 126 “because we were yakking away.” She said she’d been to Europe the year before and had seen “some world-class scenery” there.
As she and a companion drove west on Highway 20, “I was looking around me and I’m going, ‘This is world-class scenery. Where is everybody?’ It got prettier and prettier as we came down and saw this beautiful lake surrounded by beautiful mountains. In Michigan we had beautiful lakes but not very many mountains.
“I said, ‘This is gorgeous. Where is everybody?’”
Quinn said she moved to Linn County in 1976 and to Cascadia in 1996, joining with Gourley and others in an effort to protest the proposed Cascadia Dam. They failed to get the project shelved, she said, then added: “Imagine my awe and wonderment at this wonderful development where you’re not going to flood us out, you’re going to make things better.”
Originally Published in The New Era
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