News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Central Electric Cooperative (CEC) won a round in an ongoing battle with the Cyrus family of Sisters, and others, over the Jordan Road transmission line.
Deschutes County Hearings Officer Karen Green ruled last week that "CEC has a common-law vested right to complete, operate and maintain the entire Jordan Road line upgrade from the Cline Falls substation to the Black Butte substation."
CEC had claimed that right under property rights Measure 49. The Cyrus family and Trail Crossing Trust contested the right. The Cyruses have long maintained that CEC did not have the right to install tall new steel towers for the Jordan Road line upgrade and they have a case pending in Deschutes County Circuit Court arguing that the poles trespass on their property.
The hearings officer's decision is unrelated to the trespassing case.
"We are satisfied with the 41-page decision by Deschutes County hearings officer Karen Green," said CEC Member Services Director Alan Guggenheim. "Her decision confirmed Central Electric didn't need to obtain building permits from the Deschutes County Building Safety Division for the upgrade project. It confirmed that CEC was entitled to rely on the Measure 37 waivers granted by the Deschutes County Commission. And it confirmed that those waivers didn't require local permits."
Matt Cyrus disagrees with the ruling and told The Nugget that, though no decision has been made, it is likely that it will be appealed and "most likely will go all the way back to the court of appeals."
Cyrus said the chances of reversal are high.
"The last time this hearings officer reached a decision in favor of CEC (regarding expansion of a non-conforming use) it was overturned in the courts," Cyrus said.
Guggenheim greeted the ruling as "good news for the 24,000 consumer-owners of Central Electric - especially the 6,000 members who live in Sisters Country."
He acknowledged that the project has been controversial since it was first proposed in 2001 and accepted some responsibility for that: "Could we have done anything differently the past eight years to obviate some of the controversy? Sure, of course. Our communications with our members haven't been perfect. Nobody's perfect, and anybody in the business of communications should be. But I will say this: everybody I know here at Central Electric does his or her best every single day to keep the lights on and meet our members' energy needs."
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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