From the Oregon Daily Emerald

“I met Pete Sorenson in the late 1980s. He was a practicing environmental attorney in a third-floor walk-up office bustling with law students. People were becoming disgusted with the grass-seed agricultural practice of burningharvested fields. Sorenson wrote a “field-burning ban” ballot initiative for us, which did not succeed in gathering enough signatures, but the movement proceeded to get a phase-down bill passed in the state legislature. Sorenson then worked with me and another plaintiff to begin the process of suing the first Bush Administration EPA for not promulgating the Clean Air Act regulation for particulate matter (PM10). The EPA wrote the regulation.

Then in the early 1990s, Sorenson gave me emergency free legal advice over the phone. Seneca timber company workers showed up with heavy equipment claiming they had access through our property to their recently purchased adjacent property. They threatened me with “idle equipment” and “labor time lost” costs, which could be thousands of dollars. Sorenson’s excellent advice absolved me of liability from their threats. My county records search revealed that Seneca and all timber companies had been prohibited from using our road access.

My confidence and admiration for Sorenson continued to grow after another Clean Air Act action. Sorenson may not remember, but I then encouraged him to run for public office. He has continued to stand for scientifically sound environmental principles and not deceive citizens as to what they are.

I do not know Andy Stahl as well. I did vote for him when he ran for Crow/Applegate/Lorane school board. Since this is the only elected office he has held, and he lost his bid for re-election, one wonders if this is a rousing endorsement.

My question for Stahl is this: if you aspired to the Board of Commissioners as an environmentalist and progressive democrat, why didn’t you run against Faye Stewart when you lived in our district? Why run against a fellow progressive environmentalist who has a long and outstanding record?”

-Jan Nelson

“Sorenson has a good, long track record on the issues his south Eugene constituents care about — clean water, clean energy, local business, local (and union) jobs, human rights, saving schools, to name a few. His efforts to curb out-of-control logging, mining and other destructive practices have made him some enemies, but that doesn’t stop Sorenson from voting on the side of the little guy.”

Read More at Eugene Weekly

NARAL Pro-Choice Oregon has given a green light to Pete Sorenson for Lane county commissioner — an acknowledgement of Sorenson’s fully pro-choice record during his time in public service. Sorenson and Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy were the only officials in local government to receive an endorsement or green light from the organization.

“As an advocate for women’s health and equality for more than 20 years I am very pleased with this endorsement,” Sorenson said.

According to its website, NARAL Pro-Choice Oregon’s mission is to “develop and sustain a constituency which effectively uses the political process to guarantee every woman the right to make personal decisions regarding the full range of reproductive choices, including preventing unintended pregnancy, bearing healthy children, and choosing legal abortion.”

“Sorenson is needed as never before on the Lane County Board of Commissioners to withstand the firestorm flaming on the right that will lead to the degradation of our land, water and air in Lane County. Together with another strong voice on the board, Rob Handy, they will hold firm against runaway power grabs like the ones blistering from the right that maligned them in recent months, hoping to drive them from office.

I urge citizens in their districts to keep these two fine people on the board as a bulwark against the interests that will undermine the quality of life in our country.”

JIM WEAVER, MEMBER

U.S. House of Representatives

Oregon 4th District, 1975-87

He once did yeoman work with the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund during the struggle to stop old-growth habitat destruction, and fought excessive logging in the Coast Range that caused an unusually high frequency of landslides. That was more than 20 years ago.

Today, to facilitate the industrial logging of 1.5 million acres of federal forest, Andy supports delivering 1.5 million acres of federal public forest to the timber industry disguised as county funding, eliminating all environmental laws on that 1.5 million acres.”

Read the rest at the Eugene Weekly

Then we’ll be threatened with yet more privatized services, which means poor coverage, high costs and more money for the rich 1 percent at our expense — or giving even more tax credits and tax cuts to developers and corporations that don’t need them.”

Read the rest at The Register-Guard

“Rob Handy and Pete Sorenson are two of the best commissioners to serve Lane County. Both have outstanding records of consistently good, thoughtful decisions on behalf of the people they represent. Both are hard-working and willing to take a stand for what is right. They are devoted to serving the best interests of the county as a whole and do not cater to special interests.

Don’t be fooled by a timber industry-sponsored, politically motivated lawsuit that tried to smear our progressive commissioners. The shameful legal harassment of elected officials with a baseless lawsuit was aided by The Register-Guard’s enthusiastic and tireless coverage of the plaintiffs’ claims, including months of coverage when there wasn’t a single fact in the record supporting the claims.

The fact that a large timber company can use its financial clout and the state’s Open Meetings Law to harass our best local elected officials was shocking and undermines local democracy. The Legislature needs to fix that abuse to exonerate our local officials, protect our elected state officials from similar attacks and save local governments millions of dollars in legal defense fees.

Unfortunately, state Sen. Floyd Prozanski dropped the ball, and none of the other local legislators has picked it up. Now, Prozanski has abandoned Sorenson and endorsed a far-less-experienced candidate who believes the county should log its way out of debt.

Handy and Sorenson each have earned another term as Lane County commissioner.

Sincerely,

EBEN FODOR”

Pete Sorenson Re-election Song from Lance Jacobs on Vimeo.