There were actually two resolutions that day, both introduced by Duane Wells, who was described to me before the meeting as, "A good old boy, with lots of buddies in the timber business." Events showed this to be a good description.

The first resolution was ostensibly aimed at urging better coordination between the numerous agencies that now have some responsibility for reviewing THPs. But, the language of the resolution and especially the Council discussion explicitly assumed that environmental protection concerns raised by the agencies were placing a major burden on timber owners and were a major reason that THPs were not being approved more quickly. There was no recognition that there could be legitimate environmental concerns or that a balanced statement would include a recognition that the public has an interest in the effects of timber harvests on the environment.

Most Council members chimed in with their own anecdotes. A number of speakers, including Greg Jirak, Linda Perkins, Bill Heil, and Bernie McDonald stressed the one-sidedness of the measure and the lack of any real evidence in support of the assertions made in the resolution. Greg Jirak showed me statistics he had collected showing that less than 10% of THPs were rejected for environmental reasons. All timber industry representatives expressed great pleasure with the resolution. The Council made clear their sympathy for, as the resolution stated, "landowner frustration," and they passed it unanimously.

The second resolution was the one concerning Jackson State. Greg Guisti, the staff person, started off by informing the Council that it had received over "100 letters, faxes, phone calls, e-mails." He had made a package of these for the Council members, but it wasn't complete, because he said, "We are still receiving messages even as this meeting is going on." I know that more than 100 faxes were sent; so I suspect the actual number was closer to 150 communications. The Council members only received these when they came into the meeting, so they obviously had had no time to read them before the resolution item was heard.

What was so incredible to me about the Council behavior with respect to both resolutions was the imperviousness of the members to any evidence, concerns, or arguments presented by non-timber interests. In the case of the second resolution, it didn't matter to them that there were factual errors in the resolution, or that that they hadn't read the public's comments, or that the draft management plan was at odds with CDF's own advisory committee, or that the public as well as the timber industry had an interest in the public forest.

At some point, Henry Guntling said that he thought it would be good to defer action to a later time to allow for longer consideration, but Duane Wells said action was needed now, and everyone deferred to him. Indeed, everyone deferred to him on every point, and he made clear his interest was in getting on the record as favoring quick resumption of logging Jackson State. Tom Lucier made the most incredible statement, which I'd like to get verbatim, to the effect, "We've got to do what we can to get harvesting started in Jackson State. It has no value to the County when it's just

sitting there."

I made a detailed presentation of the errors in their resolution, presented an alternative resolution, and started to give evidence to show that the tourist industry was now much more important to Fort Bragg's economy than the timber industry. At this point, Patti Campbell interrupted me and attacked me personally, in a manner reminiscent of McCarthy. She was fairly incoherent, but some of her early comments were, "What are your credentials? Where do you come from? What are your interests? I just had to fill out six pages of personal information." Then, waving a copy of the proceedings of the conference on restoration of coastal redwood forests, sponsored by Dharma Cloud Foundation, that I'd just given to the Council members, she said, "You bring in all these academics." Then, searching through the initial pages, she says, "And, published by this ... Dharma Cloud Foundation." Then she just went off on all the people who were out of work and couldn't feed their families and were coming to her. She took up about fifteen minutes with her outpouring, using up so much time (after 5:00 PM), that I felt that I had to cut my presentation short.

When the discussion got back to the Council, they debated some of the whereases, and actually took a couple from my alternative resolution that said that Jackson State was a very valuable asset whose future was of great importance to the future of Mendocino County and "important for its economy, environment, and wildlife, and for the recreation, nourishment, and education of it citizenry" (instead of only "its economy). But they were unwilling to delay the resolution to consult any of these other interests, nor would they change any of the "therefore be it resolveds", which totally endorsed continued logging of Jackson State. They passed the resolution unanimously.

Soon after I got home, I received a call from Henry Guntling, who had found my number in the phone book and who called to "apologize" for Patti Campbell and to some extent for the behavior of the Council generally. I had noticed him hesitate before voting and brought this up. He said, "Oh yes, certainly." "Why didn't you vote no?" I asked. "Because I felt we needed to present a united front to CDF."