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Commissioners’ mining overlay vote is a good first step

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category icon Columns, Opinion

I had the honor of seeing our county government and citizens in action lately when I was invited to give the Invocation at the County Commissioners meeting last month on June 3. I had picked the date at random and arrived to find a packed hearing and the kind of testimony that makes your hands shake and your voice crack. Almost everyone in the room was there because they felt their families, their homes, and their quality of life was at stake. The tension was palpable.

The issue was the proposed mining overlay that would impact hundreds of families in Clark County, no small number of which live right here as part of our wider Camas community on Livingston Mountain, areas I would soon see denoted as “12, 13, & 14” on the overlay map. Thanks to Google Earth, the squares under discussion, even in the hearing room, visually showed themselves in the truth of what they were: jewels of lush, forested and green wilderness that makes Clark County a treasure to those who are fortunate enough to live or vacation here.

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