The progressive group Fuse Washington calls for an investigation into Sutherland’s other big election year problem:
We call it the Katrina Syndrome – when a government agency’s failure to do its job compounds the suffering and destruction generated by a natural disaster. We saw it in New Orleans and now we see it right here in Washington with the massive storm that hit Chehalis last December.
Sunday’s Seattle Times featured a shocking investigative report on how widespread failures at the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), under Lands Commissioner Doug Sutherland, contributed to the landslides, flooding, and destruction during December’s storm. According to the Times, the DNR reduced monitoring and allowed Weyerhaeuser to clear-cut dangerous, unstable slopes with “scant oversight,” despite a history of landslides from previous logging, clear evidence of unstable slopes, and concerns from local officials.
Meanwhile, Commissioner Sutherland maintains that the Agency’s current oversight is “enough.” We also find it disturbing that the Timber Industry accounts for over half of the contributions to his re-election campaign.
We believe that accountability matters, and that the government — including the Department of Natural Resources — has a duty to enforce laws that protect public health and safety. Because Commissioner Sutherland refuses to clean up the DNR’s act, we are calling on the State Auditor to investigate the DNR’s failure to perform its responsibilities.
[You can sign their petition here.]
I don’t think I’ve seen a politician swivel so quickly from grabbing ass to covering ass.
Thankfully, we’ve got a great candidate in Peter Goldmark, who’s more “kick ass” than “grab ass”.
It’s the classic Republican pattern: Let big business do what it wants, and transfer the costs and damage to taxpayers and the little guys. Happens every time. Why anyone ever votes for these bastards is a fucking mystery. Voting Republican is a form of self-hate.
Yeah, Sutherland’s not a Republican.
He’s a “G
ROPer”.RR @ 1: Actually, it allows the Republicans to benefit twice from the same act of negligence. First, they get the benefits from letting big industry do whatever it wants to do. Then when everything goes to hell in a handbasket, they call in other big industries to clean up the mess. The consumers/taxpayers pick up both tabs.
@2: LOL. The GrOPer Party party.
I checked out Goldmark’s Web site, not knowing much about the DNR, I have to admit. Eminent scientist, farmer who partners with conservationists. No history of groping/intimidating female subordinates. Tell me more!
While we had plenty of fun yesterday swapping dirty-old-man jokes, and Goldy can put another feather in his cap for breaking the story, the Times’ emphasis was clearly on the more important issue. The harassment incident was certainly traumatic to the victim, what happened in the upper Chehalis valley impacted a lot of people in a far worse fashion. This was just one of of many incidents where great damage was done because Sutherland and his department “looked the other way” while the law, science and common sense were ignored in favor of allowing business to grab a fast buck.
A lot of the folks in rural areas affected by these slides and floods normally tend to vote Republican, but aren’t likely to vote for this one if they know that his incompetence and negligence cost them property, money and misery. They’ll be that much less inclined to support him if they know he’s a creep to boot.
@4
I checked out Goldmark’s Web site, not knowing much about the DNR, I have to admit. Eminent scientist, farmer who partners with conservationists. No history of groping/intimidating female subordinates. Tell me more!
Yes, isn’t he a breath of fresh air? I became aware of, and supported Peter Goldmark during the ’06 election. He was running for congress(and lost) against Cathy McMorris-Rodgers in WA-05. Even though he was a bit of a long shot, it seemed a good opportunity to turn Washington State a bit more blue.
Really glad to see him running for this position. He would be a great Commisioner of Public Lands. He would represent the interests of the people, and I think would strike a good balance of conservation, and production. Besides, it’s time for Sutherland to retire.
If you drew up a scale for true qualification for this office, and plotted Goldmark, Sutherland and Richard A. C. Greene on it, I’d expect Sutherland would be closer to Greene.
For those of y’all too young (or for that matter, to old and senile) to remember, Greene filed for the office in 1968 as a joke, ran his campaign from Hawaii (his campaign literature had a photo of him floating on an air mattress off Waikiki) and pledged that if elected he would “fearlessly go forth and commission the land”. Despite the absurdity of all this, 80,000 people voted for him (but no dogs, to anyone’s knowledge). His campaign’s most positive result (other than to lend a little mirth to an otherwise depressing political year) was to boost the popularity of the Great Excelsior Jazz Band, who played a number of gigs thinly disguised as “campaign rallies”.
Republicans like to talk a lot about fiscal “responsiblity” and lower taxes – but when elected, republicans consistently choose business interests over the public’s tax money. You’ll never hear an idiot republican like Dory Monson castigating his fellow republicans who waste our tax money – like Bush and Sutherland. The republican mantra of less government and less regulation leads to the poltics of greed and cronyism. The banking scandal, the Enron mess – all due to “deregulation and the free market”. Haven’t these idiots studies history? don’t they know that a republican (Teddy Roosevelt) was the trust buster?
What is moral about giving away billions of dollars of our tax money to greedy and illegal corporate tricks like Enrons manipulation of the energy market, illegal and unethical banking and home loan activities, insider trading, off-shore banks, foreign headquarters for avoiding taxes, hiring illegals or using slave labor, blatant environmental destruction and shoddy products?
The “conservative” claim of opposition to “big government” has become an absolute sham. To the leadership of the right, the more government the better, so long as its principal functions are killing people and funnelling more and more wealth into the hands of small elite “patrician” class.
The curious thing about this is the slavish defense of this trend by large numbers of people who don’t benefit from it in the least, who choose to cling to some Horatio Alger fantasy while their own pockets are being emptied and their own children sent to the slaughter.
Look, I’ve decided not to give this one any political meaning one way or another, but it’s worth posting. You can decide for yourselves which poster on this forum it most resembles.
“World’s Greatist Dad” Busted
One thing this world has no shortage of is irony.
Sutherland’s issues aside, you all are making the mistake of thinking that if you read something in the Times that it is factual and complete. The event that impacted Chehalis would have been unforeseen and unpredictable no matter how much oversight had been provided. Facts that I have uncovered through various sources include:
1. The specific area that caused the most damage had 2-4 times more rain than other areas. Other areas referred to their storm event as a 100-year storm. What does that make the valley that received multiple times that level of rain?
2. In that same valley, forested slopes also experienced slides, but no one is talking about that because it reduces the impact of pointing fingers at government officials and big corporations.
It is easy to sit back and make judgmental statement and sling mud, name call, etc., but I suspect that none of you would have seen this coming either.
Having worked in forestry for over 20 years, I disagree with CoolHead. There is science and modeling that goes into scenarios for prediction of the slides and instability. The problem is that Weyerhaueser was allowed to cut in areas that are water sensitive. And look at who Sutherland’s biggest backers are: Weyerhaueser family members, all of Weyerhaueser’s top management, former top management, and the list goes on…. Plum Creek executives. Seems that the big players in timber (not the scientists) are for D.S. or possibly Doug Sutherland = Dip Shit?
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