HOOD RIVER — Towards the end of their Oct. 21 meeting, Hood River County’s Board of Commissioners (BOC) laid one part of a decades-long land dispute between Mount Hood Meadows, local conservation groups and the county to rest.
In 2001, Meadows purchased the Inn at Cooper Spur and the Cooper Spur Ski Area, intending to create a mountain resort with 450 units, a golf course and other amenities. In early 2002, that came closer to reality when the board swapped 614 acres of county-owned forest near Cooper Spur with 786 acres Meadows held.
But the Hood River Valley Residents Committee, now called Thrive, challenged the plan in court to protect Mt. Hood’s north side and the Crystal Springs watershed, which provides water to about 6,000 county residents. Along with Crag Legal Group, Thrive’s efforts led to a settlement where Meadows would exchange its Cooper Spur property for rights to develop in Government Camp. In 2009, Congress passed the Omnibus Public Lands Act mandating the trade to happen, but disputed appraisals, community concerns and litigation have since stymied the Cooper Spur-Government Camp swap.
Separately, Thrive and Cooper Spur orchardist Mike McCarthy contested the process by which county commissioners and Meadows approved the original trade in June 2021. They filed an Amended Petition for Writ of Review to Hood River County’s Circuit Court making four distinct claims, one being that commissioners failed to exchange the land for equal value in the public interest pursuant to Oregon Revised Statute 275.335.
The hearing took place on Aug. 3, 2023, nearly 22 years to the day from the first public meeting on the proposed swap, and Judge John Olson issued his verdict a few months later on Nov. 14, rejecting the petitioners’ other three claims.
“I cannot discern from the record that the requisite underlying valuation reports were ever presented to the BOC for its review,” wrote Olson, clarifying he could only find that a summary of the reports was provided. “I will therefore enter a judgment remanding the case back to the BOC to allow it to review the underlying reports.”
“Adopting Petitioners’ preferred remedy would set off a volcanic eruption of litigation,” Olson later added. “Petitioners’ preferred remedy is simply not necessary to ‘right the wrong’ identified here. It is tantamount to treating a common cold with chemotherapy.”
As a result, the board had to reexamine necessary documents and adequately include them in the public record. This involved prior appraisals from the county assessor and Bill Alexander Forestry (BAF), an independent third party, on the land, timber and regeneration value of each parcel exchanged.
“I’ve been through a fair number of contentious processes, and what I always take as my charge is getting through the records as clear and precise as possible,” said Commissioner Arthur Babitz. “I think it’s important that we leave no ambiguities about precisely what we were supposed to do and what we did.”
According to the assessor and BAF, the 614 county-owned acres near Cooper Spur had a land value of $201,499, with the timber and regeneration value marked at $1,095,928.63. Likewise, the total sum of Meadows’ 786 acres was $2,334,908.40, a difference of $1,037,480.77 that the county paid to Meadows in 2002, satisfying the legal requirements of equal land exchanges.
“We have the assessor’s report, we have clearly the amount, we have a third-party review [of] the value and evidence of the title tying the two together,” said Commissioner Ed Weathers. “I believe that we have ample evidence that equal value was met in this transaction.”
Since Commissioner Jennifer Euwer recused herself from discussions due to a conflict of interest, commissioners asked legal counsel to prepare an order consistent with the board’s findings in a 4-0 vote.
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