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Michael Dunne: I'm Michael Dunne. Anyone who's done construction updates on their home knows the permitting process can at times be tedious, but permits exist for important reasons, including safety, environmental concerns and legal requirements. Permits are a necessary evil for everyone, no matter the size of the project or the income level of the owner, or are they? Today on the show, KLCC's Zac Ziegler joins me to talk about his feature story about a property along the McKenzie River owned by a former timber baron that seems to have skirted permitting requirements that would apply to average citizens, and also showcases how county staff expert recommendations were repeatedly ignored by elected officials who received huge campaign donations from the property owner. It's quite the drama, pitting neighbor versus neighbor and involving actors at the highest levels of Lane County government. KLCC's Zac Ziegler. Zac, always great to see you. Thanks so much for coming in.
Zac Ziegler: Yeah, sure thing.
Dunne: You had a large feature piece that I'm sure a lot of people have heard or read online. Let's start with this: Let's start with the very beginning. Tell the audience who Kathleen Jones-McCann is.
Ziegler: Kathleen Jones-McCann is a second-generation timber company owner who owns a property right along the McKenzie River, just a bit downstream from Walterville, and has been, among other things, looking to do some building on that property for a while.
Dunne: Yeah, and then tell folks about that property, and specifically what have been seemingly long-standing issues on the property.
Ziegler: Yeah, so it does sit right down by the river. It's pretty close at hand, and the big issue is there's a side channel that kind of wraps around part of it. That has been causing issues for builders, because it's actually two parcels that sit next to each other. This property has been causing issues for people who've been trying to build there since really the late '70s. That was the earliest documents I saw of someone trying to build and getting permits denied because of its location, or getting requests to do stuff like raising a house up on pylons, things like that.
Dunne: Okay, and is that for environmental sensitivity reasons, or is it flooding issues, or both?
Ziegler: It is a bit of both, actually. Doing something like putting it up on pylons helps in case of a flood, but then there's also worries because of what's called being in the floodway, which requires a setback of a certain amount. It's been a bit of an issue, and there actually ended up, because of these issues, Jones-McCann originally wanting to build on this around the COVID-19 pandemic and having issues getting hold of planners, was what she said to commissioners, and just kind of went ahead with things on the advice of, as she put it, a friend who works in construction.
Dunne: So take us through what she built on the property.
Ziegler: Yeah, so the Eugene Weekly dug a little more into this aspect than I did. What they found was roughly 5,000 square feet of structures that had been built. That includes an accessory dwelling unit and sheds to cover up things like the external propane tank. This is a property that's off the grid for just about everything but electricity. And so that became a bit of the issue: a storage shed, things like that, that totaled a pretty good amount, as well as a nearly 100-foot retaining wall at one point.
Dunne: So under normal circumstances, that kind of construction would require a permit.
Ziegler: Yes.
Dunne: She didn't get one, right?
Ziegler: No. She said she had tried getting one, but it was the pandemic. The office was not open. That was something that during a recent Board of Commissioners meeting, staff said, yeah, there were a couple of days we closed to the public to figure out how we were going to do remote work, but after that, we had a system for people to drop off paperwork. We could talk to them via email or phone. She claimed that she had two visits about two weeks apart, and both times it was closed. Hence the decision to just start building and do the best that she, or whomever did the building, possibly could to basically document the whole process so that you could hand something to an inspector when you go through this retroactive process to say, hey, you can look here, you can see behind the drywall, everything's to code. So that was kind of the crux of the argument: that there was an attempt, at least.
Dunne: Okay, this is an environmentally sensitive property. I think in your reporting you talked about the fact that, because it's so close to the river, there could be issues of damage to the river, and there could be issues involving very sensitive species living in the river. Talk a little bit about that.
Ziegler: Yeah, that was one thing. Early on looking into this, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist who oversees projects in this area, and gives the environmental assessment, initially found two aquatic species: the western pond turtle, which is in the process of being added to the endangered species list, and the Oregon chub, which was actually the first fish to come off the list. Now, in a more recent visit that happened last month, he also found spring chinook in this small waterway, which is a listed species, so there is concern about that aspect of it. But there's also the concern that if this construction is within the 100-year floodplain, and let's say next winter is worse than this winter was on the McKenzie, all of a sudden the water comes dumping down and this stuff gets washed away. Now it's in the water, it's a hazard for people who are boating, and it's possibly causing some environmental damage to the water infrastructure just down the river that feeds a lot of water to the city of Eugene.
Dunne: Yeah, I'm wondering too about the idea of precedent: If she didn't get permits to do this, well, there are a lot of properties in that area, and I think one of the concerns from the county's perspective is that permits are there for a reason. If people bypass the normal process, we could have a lot of construction that could be quite damaging, right?
Ziegler: Yeah, and there was a little back-and-forth among commissioners, kind of the angel and the devil on opposite shoulders: By doing this, are we encouraging more unpermitted construction? Or if we OK it, are we going to get people trying to come into compliance and see, oh, they're willing to listen, they're willing to talk, and we can maybe get things going? That was something that was definitely debated.
Dunne: Okay, let's talk politics. Let's talk about this property, this person, and some of the county commissioners. Take us through that part of the story.
Ziegler: Yeah, that's something that's been brought up multiple times here at KLCC. When Rebecca Hansen-White was doing reporting on campaign finances early in the primary races, she spotted some donations by Kathleen Jones-McCann. It's something the Eugene Weekly and Lookout Eugene-Springfield have also brought up. It's significant amounts of money. David Loveall received around $42,000 from Jones-McCann, and Ryan Seneca received around $48,000 in campaign donations. Actually, the biggest one is someone who's not yet in office: Jake Pelroy has received around $57,000. All of them, it's a significant chunk. It's between 11% and around 19% of their total fundraising. It's quite a bit, but this isn't too unusual for Jones-McCann, who has been a very routine giver to political groups. If