With an unemployment rate of 10.3%, nearly $100 million in long term debt, the county has a “vegetation management coordinator”, and he is busy with this kind of vital service:
“Protected area. No activities permitted between posted signs.” Read the new signs along some of the county’s roads.
But what is being protected? And from whom? To the untrained eye, the roadside areas between the signs might look like nothing more than a nondescript mix of grass, weeds, plants and trees.
That’s just fine with Orin Schumacher. The county’s vegetation management coordinator will be relieved if people who happen upon the county’s new signs take no more interest than simply to stay the heck out.
The signs going up in 26 spots countywide are meant to protect members of the community who aren’t doing so well: Kincaid’s lupine, wayside aster and the Willamette Valley daisy, for example. They’re all native plants, and due to development, deforestation and other impacts, they’re all threatened or endangered species in the eyes of the state or the federal government.
“What we’re trying to do is inform the public that we have areas out there that are sensitive, and we don’t want them … building a fence or constructing a driveway through these protected areas,” Schumacher said. “I have made the decision our old cryptic signs worked for us but they don’t work for the public.”
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