To the editor:

I see a fallacy in the assertion that local control could gain clout with “Big Look.” On one hand, you seem to be for local control but also seem to endorse Mike Thorne’s idea of leaving state control over farm land, forest land and natural areas.

I hate to say it, but this is what we already have, control from Salem. The group 1000 Friends and the Portland Oregonian will still run the show. If locals want to relax some part of their comprehensive plan, 1000 Friends will go judge shopping and get it thrown out just like they did with Measure 7. Then there is always the Democratic legislature. If the people do revolt they can always refer the question to the voters, meaning Portland and the I-5 corridor, and The Oregonian will furnish the propaganda for 1000 Friends and we will still be under the thumb of those who think Eastern Oregon is their private playground.

No, it’s time to end statewide land-use planning all together and return all land use decisions to the counties. We can still fight over the proper ways to save Oregon, but it will end at county level where it belongs. Then maybe urban Oregon and the rest of the nation will decide that green Oregon made a mistake when it decided we could plan and zone our way out of the disaster that unlimited immigration and the resulting population boom does to the long term effects on the environment.

Join me with trying to kill LCDC. Take charge of your lives and don’t be snookered like you were in 1973.

County commissioners are a unique blend of legislative and executive powers. In my own Baker County, I’m trying to get two of them to show some guts and send our comprehensive plan back to Salem in a box and tell them from now on we are responsible for our own land-use planning. If just one eastside county would do this, the whole LCDC paper tiger would fall like a house of cards as other counties joined in. The feeling of freedom would be hard to get used to, but we could adapt.

Steve Culley

Baker City