News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
The latest casualty in a long and grinding conflict over a proposed paved trail from Sisters to Black Butte Ranch fell last week.
Oregon Solutions (OS) Network, which specializes in conflict resolution, stepped away last Thursday from a process it had tried to initiate this spring to restart a community discussion on the concept of a paved trail.
In a letter announcing the decision, Michael Mills, a project manager with Oregon Solutions, stated that, "Given the inability to bring the key parties to the table the OS Network has determined that this situation is not currently ripe for a collaborative discussion and/or negotiation."
The failure of the process to launch demonstrates how fraught the issue has become for people on all sides. It is clear that there was no agreement even as to what participants in the process were supposed to be discussing.
"Given the deeply held positions parties hold on this issue and the challenge in creating a clear, accurate line of communication, Oregon Solutions Network proposed a discussion facilitated by the Oregon Consensus program," Mills wrote. "This proposed single meeting was intended for parties to gather in a neutral forum to build mutual understanding about their concerns and interests and explore what if any next steps might make sense.
"In exploring this approach, Oregon Consensus had been asked by trail opponents to converse with trail supporters to see if they would be willing to meet with opponents with the agreement that all alignment options would be on the table.
"Proponents agreed to meet with all options on the table, not just their preferred south side alignment ending at Black Butte Ranch (BBR). Upon reporting this back to opponents, a new condition was made that opponents would not agree to meet unless the option for a trail that ended at BBR was off the table."
For some, that condition is emblematic of a rejectionist unwillingness to even sit down and talk. But trail opponents take issue with Mills' perception.
"It's not that we were unwilling to come, but we were talking two different languages again; we're reading different playbooks," Susie Werts told The Nugget. Werts was "a lead objector" in the original Forest Service effort to come to a resolution on a proposed trail.
Werts noted that opponents were put on edge from the start by a launch meeting hosted by Deschutes County Commissioner Alan Unger with an invited guest list that did not include any of their representatives.
"The process was never truly neutral from the start and more of an effort should have been made to level the playing field," Werts wrote in a response to Mills.
She notes that, while the collaborative process was supposed to bring options to the table, Sisters Trails Alliance President Chuck Humphreys - who was not to be part of the Oregon Consensus meeting - continued to lobby for the original alignment of the trail, starting in Sisters and ending at Black Butte Ranch, where homeowners had raised concerns about privacy infringements.
"... to lobby for the exact same trail placement, while we were working to define the collaborative process, was undermining and broke the fragile trust we were all working to establish. This is when our conditions for meeting changed," Werts said.
Isolde Hedemark, a BBR resident and ardent opponent of the original trail proposal, told The Nugget, "I had emailed (Sisters District Ranger) Kristie Miller last year and offered my participation in discussions to maybe bring a new, supported project to the Forest Service for consideration, as was the desire of the Forest Service. The opportunity to finally discuss an alternate trail location that did not terminate at Black Butte Ranch sounded promising and exactly what many full-time and part-time BBR residents offered as a compromise solution. Unfortunately, Michael Mills could never offer a statement from the STA that a new, supported project was on the table for discussion.
"When this fact became evident to me, I could no longer volunteer to participate in the process..."
Humphreys told The Nugget that he understood the proposed Oregon Consensus meeting to be an "interest-based" discussion where proponents and opponents could air their interests and concerns and understand each others' position. This would serve as a starting point toward finding a solution to the issue.
He told The Nugget that he did not believe there was any constraint on anyone advocating for what they hoped that solution would be.
"We always fully supported Oregon Solutions' efforts to facilitate a respectful discussion of each side's interests regarding the proposed trail," he said. "We're very sorry that this has been unable to happen so far, and we remain open to such a meeting."
So, as has been the case throughout this now three-year-long conflict, both sides were talking past each other - and Oregon Solutions felt it could not gain traction and pulled out.
Mills would not hazard an estimate of how often the Oregon Solutions process collapses like this.
"I would have to query my colleagues before I could guess at a percentage," he said. "There are times when we are not able to move forward due to the lack of resources for the process and/or the project. With the availability of resources, more often than not, we find a way to proceed further."
He also noted that "should conditions change and key individuals decide to meet to discuss their interests and views without conditions relating to a trail, if asked, we would look again at how we might be able to help."
Regardless of Oregon Solutions involvement, it appears that the issue will remain in play.
In response to a query from The Nugget, Humphreys noted that Sisters Trails Alliance (STA) is not directly involved with the issue going forward. Trail proponents are calling themselves "Friends of the Black Butte Ranch Trail" (which includes people who are also involved with STA).
If proponents go to the Forest Service with a new paved trail proposal, that is the group that will do it.
"The STA will not be the group that goes back to the Forest Service," Humphreys said. "That may sound like splitting hairs, but from an organizational standpoint I think that's accurate."
Humphreys said that with the collapse of the Oregon Solutions process before it really got going, the issue will likely be resolved with a new proposal to the Forest Service.
"At this stage, it seems impossible to resolve certain areas of disagreement," he said.
Humphreys says he would not personally support a trail that does not connect with Black Butte Ranch.
"I would not," he said. "I think it would just take away a lot of the value of the trail. It would eliminate the interconnectivity or the community aspect of the trail."
A new Forest Service "scoping" process for a new proposal would, Humphreys believes, clarify community support (or not) of a trail and one side or another would prevail.
Any timeline for a new proposal is likely to be an extended one, with no clear resolution to the question of whether Sisters and Black Butte Ranch want a paved Sisters-BBR Trail in sight.
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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