The Wahkiakum County Eagle - Established as The Skamokawa Eagle in 1891

To The Eagle:

Over 12 years ago, a much younger Dan Cothren elected to run as a county commissioner against the incumbent commissioner Ron Ozment.

Commissioner Ozment's background was in agriculture while then candidate Cothren had spent most of his working life in the timber industry. While it is never easy to step into a political position, then elected Commissioner Cothren took the lead on the board of commissioners as the heir apparent to the timber issues of the county. Commissioner Trott's area of concentration was the fishing industry and Commissioner Gregg focused on the community services. Commissioner Cothren has spent the past 12 years concentrating on our timber issues which included being presently elected as the chairperson for all of the Washington State counties which have been affected by both the spotted owl and the marbled murrelet and the corresponding set asides of our forested lands for their protection.

I specifically recalled being asked by Commissioner Cothren to jointly present with him a presentation in Olympia on the financial impact of the marbled murrelet's listing as an endangered species and the corresponding removal of harvestable timberlands with its negative impact on the finances of Wahkiakum County. I was serving as an elected commissioner of the Wahkiakum PUD at the time. I was very pleased to read this morning in the Daily News that Wahkiakum County will receive $505,000 that the Natural Resource Board has granted to our county. This grant is a direct result of a program created in 2009 to help small timber based rural counties who have been negatively affected through the use of timber lands being removed from the county's harvestable base timber acreage. These monies are a direct result of the work of Commissioner Cothren and others who have worked for so many years to get our county recognized as having been financially harmed by these acreage set asides. We have been fortunate in this county to have been represented by two statesmen senators. Senator Sid Snyder retired, who was indeed a great loss to our community and who committed years in service to our southwest Washington area, and his replacement, Senator Mark Doumit. Unfortunately Senator Doumit left politics and went into private industry several years ago.

The good side of this story is that Commissioner Cothren has truly become a statesman who admirably represents our county and I strongly encourage the voters of Wahkiakum County to support Commissioner Cothren in this fall's primary election for county commissioner.

Larry Reese

Puget Island