The night before school starts at Stevenson-Carson School District and a majority of School Districts across the state, our Public Lands Commissioner, Dave Upthegrove drops this press release and doubles down on cutting off timber production.

My oldest will be in a 70+ year old school tomorrow that her Great Grandmother attended when it opened! Our entire rural livelihood is and has been under attack for far too long. I have personally reached out to the Commissioner since January, I have written to him, and I have never received a response.

No one in the timber community has been at the table. The entities quoted in this press release are the beneficiaries. They will pump up their press releases about how they “saved” forests and pump their fundraising up to give themselves greater funding for Court Battles and to fight timber reliant Counties like Skamania, Pacific and Wahkiakum who just want their livelihoods restored. If not restored, then funding streams and generators to maintain our sense of community and living.

When Timber policies come out, they may “save” a forest, but they never account for the lives who are affected.

This policy will be a detriment for School Funding, County Funding, and Log Supply to our mills.

We have a housing crisis, a budget crisis and we have the greatest timber in the world produced here in Washington State. Let’s put our differences aside and truly look at the environmental and economic impacts. Let’s have the real County Commissioners quoted who actually rely and depend on timber instead of a heavily populated county.

I promise to continue to work for solutions. I promise to work with anyone in the legislature who will bring a balanced approach and really listen. $300m loss for rural communities as is projected, with a waive of a pen, is not how we support rural communities.