the town dandy / By Hank Sims

The $85 Question

So there we were, pen poised over ballot, ready to tick the box indicating our approval of the Mendocino Redwoods plan and no others. Then the computer dinged, indicating that we had mail. It was a letter from Jesse Noell, a resident of the Elk River neighborhood. Noell, we knew, lives downstream from Pacific Lumber land in that troubled watershed, and had long been active in the legal battle to stop the flooding of his and his neighbors’ lands. Noell’s letter was titled “Vote NO on bankruptcy plans.”

“Because none of the proposed plans will stop the threats to health, safety and property, the NCJ should vote against all of the plans,” Noell wrote. “If you vote for any of the plans, please assume the financial responsibility for our damaged property in Elk River and establish a fund to cover the lost wages and motel bills of scores of people who are repeatedly trapped by the flood waters.”

This letter, we admit, was sort of a buzzkill. It took all the fun out of the voting process. It seemed to threaten legal action against us. Furthermore, we weren’t entirely certain it was logically flawed. Wasn’t Noell asking us to assume the role of the state regulatory agencies who oversee timber harvesting operations, and who are theoretically tasked with preventing the damage he is talking about? When we gave a call to clarify this point, Noell told us not to hold our breath.

“The government has failed us,” Noell said. He said that even though the water quality agencies have placed watershed-wide limits on logging and sedimentation in Elk River and elsewhere, he fully expected the bulk of Mendocino Redwoods’ harvesting over the next few years to take place in his neighborhood — it held the most marketable trees, he said.

“By voting on these plans, you’re voting on our future,” he said. “Your vote can be much more powerful if you throw it away in order to raise an ethical and moral issue.”

Well, consider the issue raised. But when we returned to our ballot we decided that this was not so different than any other election. We don’t get to vote on the candidate or policies of our dreams. We get a list of boxes — a, b, c or d — and there’s no point coloring outside the lines. As always, we were doomed to live in the world as it exists, rather than the world we might like it to be. So we pulled the lever for Mendocino Redwoods with just a tiny twinge of conscience.

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