The Stupid Lawsuit

I don't know if other people think the lawsuit that my county has pursued against our state is stupid but I do.

You can read a little about it here.

The lawsuit is being financed by the timber companies, who want to log more trees on lands owned by the state.  The counties involved, who get state money for timber cut on lands the same counties deeded over to the state, pretty much begged the state to take over, in the 40's, say they've been shorted on timber harvest yields to the tune of billions.  They call it a breach of contract.

The original 1940's contract says something like the state will manage the forests for the greatest good or something for all Oregonians.  It was a bad deal in the beginning.  The counties didn't want to manage the lands they deeded to the state.  They were worthless then, over logged or burned, etc.  The state, in its contract with the counties, never even included a management fee. 

The contention now, by 14 out of 15 of the revenue receiving counties, is that the only value a forest has its for timber production and that is the greatest good to all Oregonians. 

The counties who get money for state forests timber sales to private timber companies are 15 in number.  But the county who gets the largest take, because they have the most state forests, opted out of the lawsuit, citing it as bad behavior, Oregonians suing Oregonians.

Anyhow, the timber companies are stated to have venue shopped, looking for a sympathetic judge and jury and chose our county, that gets a tiny percentage of timber revenue compared to others in the 14.

Here's the stupid part in my mind:   It's a bad deal for taxpayers all around.  If the 14 counties win against the state, its the taxpayers of Oregon who have to pay up.   Everyone.  Counties don't manage money they get any better than state governments.  Our county is said to have the  highest per capita tax rate in Oregon already.  And now our commissioners are taking on a lawsuit that if the county wins, means taxpayers all over Oregon including here lose and have to pay up, while commissioners and timber companies gloat.

If people in the counties got a check every year, a share of timber revenues, like Alaskans get every year, for oil rights leased out by their state to oil companies, maybe I'd be for it.  But no, the counties will get the money, that taxpayers have to pay out and waste it away on stupid nothings.  So all this will do, is create a burden on taxpayers, shifting money, after the poor taxpayer doles out more, from one government entity to another. 

How stupid.

I understand the resentment of rich Portland people that goes on in the state and the feeling that state government caters to Portland and the wealthy there.  They go to the coast, the poor counties, build and buy second houses that they rarely visit, drive up costs for everyone including rent, for the local poor population reduced to selling trinkets or ice cream cones part time, or cleaning hotel rooms, for the wealthy tourists.  Sometimes you start thinking we are slipping back into a feudal type society, where the majority of people bow down to and work, for merely a pittance, for the rich.

Same goes for the forest usages other than cutting the trees.   Clean air and water, trails, hiking, mountain biking salmon fishing---those are Portland rich people activities we think, we of the downtrodden, who often struggle with rent or to keep a car barely running---sock it to em, cut em down, make em stay in Portland, they don't belong out here, they make us miserable. 

Ha!  I'm kidding around quite a bit in case you don't know.

The urban rural divide is often one of people siding with one or the other set of rich people.  Rural rich people want to have their way with public lands, free range their cattle free on public lands, etc. etc. while city rich people want to build big factories and pay low wages or put them in places that shit into rivers or into the air, they're mostly the same.  So its an allegiance thing mainly.  Like choosing to fan follow some football team and going all in on it, getting the gear, stirring yourself up to a frenzy, screaming at the refs, trash talking, tail gating with your like minded buds...drinking beer...what fun!

The state, depending on who is in charge, generally sides with one set of rich people or the other, usually not both, but sometimes with both, along party lines, adding in some factional group, to up their support and the rest of us choose sides.  It's a riot.   Plugging into unease and unrest of the populace depending on their set of problems--can generate enough hate to win elections and even lawsuits. And nothing changes afterwards for the little people who still drink the dirty water downstream of the rich people's factories and plants and operations, and breathe the dirty air and whose homes are swept away by landslides and work for pittances.

We could exact our pound of Portland flesh other ways, I suppose, without leaving ourselves also bloody.  To the common person, in the counties involved, the lawsuit probably seems like taking it to the state for a host of grievances accumulated over the years.  To the Timber Companies, the lawsuit is green green green---as in money.  They think the state, if the counties win, will sell them more of the people's timber.

But I think it would do us in, as a state, to be taxed even more, if the counties win, to pay for another bad contract, like PERS, made decades ago. Or the money to pay out the counties think they are owed would have to be diverted from other funds and again we'd lose out.

If the state is listening, I'm going to say, although I think its forest service land not state land really, Trail Bridge campground, the old growth loop, when I walked it this spring--looked decidedly unhealthy compared to years ago, when I camped there.  I think those trees, might be time, they come down and make room for a younger generation.

It's with some amusement I watch the lawsuit proceed.   I'm happy to be old sometimes.  The little people will get jacked no matter what.  Guess I'm in a complaining mood today.   Ha!  That's life.