Members of the Williams community that championed an effort to safeguard the beloved nature area of Pipe Fork Creek were dealt yet more disappointment Wednesday, July 10 after the Board of Josephine County Commissioners declined, for the third time in as many months, to sign off on a purchase agreement with The Conservation Fund. The organization’s grant funding to purchase Pipe Fork expired Monday, and new funding will need to be secured if a purchase is to take place in the future.
During the weekly business session, held at Anne G. Basker Auditorium in Grants Pass, neither Board Chair John West nor Commissioner Herman Baertschiger would second Commissioner Dan DeYoung’s motion to sign the purchase agreement. Both commissioners cited the fact that the Bureau of Land Management, which has committed to inheriting the land if The Conservation Fund successfully buys it from the county, has made no guarantees regarding keeping Pipe Fork open to the public and unlogged.
“This is your land,” West said. “88,000 people own this 320 acres. If this goes to the BLM, you own it, but you don’t have as many rights once it goes under BLM ownership as you do when it’s under county ownership. So the deed restrictions have always been a huge thing for me.”
Baertschiger agreed, saying, “There is no documentation that says that this will be not logged and open to the public. Not one single document that guarantees it. So the only way that I could possibly get on board, and I’m going to reiterate this – I said it months ago – is to do a deed restriction.”
He added, “That’s what I think we should do with the Pipe Fork transaction. We need to put a deed restriction in there that this remains open to the public and cannot be shut down. That was the objective of the Williams folks from day one and that’s the only way to accomplish that objective is put the deed restriction in and I’ll tell you what, you put the deed restriction in those contracts, I’m on board and I won’t change my mind as long as that deed restriction is in there.”
Before the property transaction motion failed, several Williams residents urged the board to accept the transaction. Greg Stanco commented, “I sincerely appreciate all of your efforts over time to make this come to where we are today. And I would still like to encourage you to think hard and vote for the purchase of this by The Conservation Fund, as a lot of people’s livelihoods and lives depend on it.”
“It’s an incredible collaboration that has happened over the last few years between multiple organizations and the Williams community as well,” Kelly Klein said. “And I just want to encourage you to all vote for the sale. I think this is a win, win, win all the way around for the Josephine County community, for the Williams community and for the forests.”
Claudia Beausoleil stressed how valuable the Pipe Fork land is to her, saying, “Up in the Pipe Fork is a snowpack to keep our creeks alive with water. If those trees are cut, our water’s disappearing, as you know with climate change… I want to thank you for considering bringing this land together for conservation to preserve our watershed and our livelihoods and the fish in the forest and all the critters in it.”
West downplayed the importance of preserving Pipe Fork in his response: “I hear about how this is going to protect people’s lives,” he remarked. “I haven’t seen anybody dying lately from this not being sold… I hear about the snowpack up on the mountain – this particular property is not keeping the snowpack good or bad. I don’t believe this piece of property’s changing the climate.”
Besides Pipe Fork, another topic of the meeting was sexual harassment allegations against outgoing Commissioner DeYoung, who made a controversial remark asking Finance Director Sandy Novak to “sit on my lap” during a publicly broadcast meeting. DeYoung apologized for the comment and said he was being a “smart aleck.”
Others at the meeting, however, cast his behavior as sexist and unprofessional.
Novak herself was in attendance, and delivered a forceful rebuke of DeYoung’s behavior towards her.
“Mr. DeYoung was very comfortable being very disrespectful in a room full of my peers. No one who saw the video could deny that. This was not an isolated incident. The number one comment I received coming out of there is, ‘That’s just Dan being Dan. The second most common comment I got was from staff who do not have as high of a profile as I do. They asked me, you will address this, right? This is not the culture of our organization, right?”
Novak went on to defend her integrity, saying, “I work incredibly hard to stay neutral in an environment that wants me to pick a side.” She pleaded, “Let me perform my duties without stirring up supportive community and staff to level accusations against me, saying that I’m politically motivated by standing up and saying it’s not okay. I was objectified in front of my peers in a blatant attempt to discredit me because I won’t act as a saboteur or as an operative. My job is to serve each and every one of the elected officials that the citizens of this county put into this office. How do I serve a commissioner who is asking me to sit on his lap? My job is the business of the county, not the business of elections or making an individual look good or look bad. I will let you all look good or look bad all by yourself. This is disgusting and we need to do better. And my name needs to be out of this narrative.”
Mark Seligman, who is the Democratic Party’s nominee for state representative and who has run for county commissioner on multiple occasions, called on DeYoung to resign.
“‘Sit on my lap’ is not an appropriate way to talk to an employee. It just isn’t,” said Seligman. “Not in the workplace, not anywhere… Now you should do the right thing and at least just resign. You probably won’t resign. You’ll probably stonewall this whole thing like you stonewall everything. So I’m just telling you it’s the right thing to do.”
In his rebuttal, DeYoung first expressed discomfort with Novak’s presence in the room, as he is not supposed to be in the same room as her while the complaint against him is being investigated. “I’m trying to get Wendy (Watkins, administrative assistant) to take this note to Wally (Hicks, legal counsel) because I don’t know how to react today. Right now I’m in violation of my parole or whatever it is.”
DeYoung reiterated his remorse over the incident, saying, “It was wrong what I did – absolutely wrong.” He also said he voted in executive session for a list of conditions he would have to meet as reconciliation for his conduct in the aftermath of his interaction with Novak. His hope in doing so was “maybe, just maybe, people going forward are going to know exactly the bar that I did not see. You’re not allowed to joke around in that manner.”
Before the end of his remarks, DeYoung made clear he has no intention to resign before the end of his term. “The only way you can get rid of me is for me to resign, Mr. Seligman, which I’m not going to do. I’m not going to resign, but if you wish to recall me, it’s right down at the end of the hall; it’s called the county clerk… I was hired by the people of Josephine County and I need to be fired by the people of Josephine County if that’s their wish.”