Amy Thuren to Commissioners: Don't destroy our best farm land.

Amy Thuren

"It isn't just 'livability' we are talking about. It's also our ability to attract and retain businesses here. The farm and rural open space is part of what makes this Southern Oregon, not Southern California." 

                 Amy Thuren, candidate for Jackson County Commissioner



Amy Thuren says the Jackson County Commissioners erred when they approved the application to cover some 80 acres of prime farm land with solar panels.

"This isn't protecting farm land. It is covering it up."

Thuren is a candidate for Position 1 on the County Commission, the office currently held by Rick Dyer, who participated in that decision, voting yes. The decision by the Commissioners was reversed by the State Land Use Board of Appeals. "LUBA did Jackson County the favor I wish the Commissioners had thought to do," Thuren said.

Thuren cites this decision as an example of the different judgement she would bring to the Board of Commissioners.

The decision was controversial because the project is very large and it is on excellent farm ground. This wasn't a few panels to power some equipment. It was completely changing the property, from farm land into a field of solar panels.

Thuren disagrees.

Thuren said converting that land into an industrial use sets a bad precedent and sends a terrible message about the county's commitment to protecting the character of Jackson County. She said it has been state and local policy for forty years to protect farm and forest resource land, and to avoid the pressures of sprawl by defining city areas and open space areas. "The interplay of farm land next to homes--that patchwork--is what makes Jackson County special. We have compact cities and then we have big areas of green." 

Thuren shared these thoughts under a painting by well known artist Frank Rinna, a painting titled titled "Our Valley." Thuren pointed out how the painting captured the spirit of the Valley, preserved by the rules that put homes and businesses in cities, while simultaneously allowing agricultural uses in uninterrupted blocks of land. She said the ability of farmers to farm is reduced when industrial uses get inserted into the agricultural land. Sprawl is bad for farms and bad for city 
people, both, she said. That open green space between our cities and surrounding them is important, Thuren said. "I moved here for the quality of life I didn't think I could get elsewhere. If we start taking away pieces of it, the thing that makes this Valley special disappears. And you'll never get it back."

Thuren points out farm protection.

Thuren hastens to say that she "absolutely supports" solar energy. "It gets us off fossils fuels and we need to be thinking out thirty years to be building that infrastructure."  She said the issue was where fields of solar panels make sense. "Not on prime farm land, which destroys something priceless and changes the character of a whole area."

"I'd like to see them on either end of the airport runways. Nice flat ground. No noise complaints."

Thuren said that putting pockets of industrial uses into farm neighborhoods "reverses everything we have tried to do as a community to protect this as a great place to live and work."

Thuren said she is well aware that land use planning has its critics, but says there is real value in considering the long term consequences of decisions.

This decision to cover up prime farm land with a solar array put the county on a "slippery slope," she said.  

Farming takes scale.

Land use planning is working, and the decisions of thirty five years ago protected land that then got planted into vineyards," she said, "and that is now part of the character of the county. "That character is a draw for businesses and tourists." 

She said she knows where she stands. "Protecting farm land protects what keeps this Valley special."