Pacific Northwest: Boy Scout justice dealt out by fading newsprint empire

In Oregon, two foresters for the state’s largest Boy Scout council
help advise how much of its vast camp properties to log, and when to
log them. “I’m a volunteer on the forestry committee, but I’m hired to
do forestry,” said Jim Wick, whose company, Woodland Management Inc.,
manages timber sales for at least five of the Cascade Pacific
Council’s Scout camps. In Washington, several current and former
employees for corporate logging giant Weyerhaeuser Co. serve in key
directors’ board positions for the Pacific Harbors Council. Last year,
the council’s board approved a logging project that paid “several
thousand dollars” to use Weyerhaeuser logging roads as part of a
lucrative clearcut at a Scout camp, the council’s president, a
Weyerhaeuser executive said.

Click link for full text/increase funding for writer/producer of these
words: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/specials/scoutslogging/398308_conflicts02.html

Such cases are among 10 examples of seemingly cozy relationships
between Scouting councils and their volunteers that a Hearst
Newspapers investigation found in its review of Boy Scouts’ logging
and land deals nationwide. In such cases, professional and political
roles blurred with the volunteer roles of individuals tied to Scouting
councils.Sampson told Hearst that during his job interview, he and a
state forestry official recognized the potential conflict that could
emerge and sought to minimize it by agreeing Sampson would not inspect
for three years any logging done by a landowner for which Sampson
previously had worked. The point of the “self-imposed moratorium,”
said Chandler, the state lawyer, “is he shouldn’t be making decisions
with someone from which he’s received income in the private sector.”

But in 2004, before the three years had lapsed, records show that, in
response to a reported violation, Sampson conducted an inspection at a
logging project for the Pacific Skyline Council. Sampson cited the
council and its forestry consultant for a minor violation. Sampson
said he was the only inspector available. “It was right at the time of
budget cuts,” Sampson said. “I was the only inspector in the office
for four counties.”

Click link for full text/increase funding for writer/producer of these
words: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/specials/scoutslogging/398308_conflicts02.html

Records also show that while serving as a state forester, Sampson was
listed on a Pacific Skyline Council board in 2004 and 2005, tax
records show. He said he wasn’t aware that he had been listed as a
board member, and when he learned of it, asked he be removed. Nothing
in state law or in the council’s policies prohibit Sampson’s ties
between his former private sector work and volunteerism for the Scouts
with his work as a state regulator. But the state has in place some
disclosure requirements to ensure public transparency for at least
some of those relationships. Sampson failed to disclose private
financial information required under state conflict of interest
regulations when starting his state job, Hearst found. Both he and
Chandler, the lawyer for the state’s forestry department, said he had
been given the wrong instructions by superiors when filling out his
disclosure form.

Click link for full text/increase funding for writer/producer of these
words: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/specials/scoutslogging/398308_conflicts02.html

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