Last May Oregon State Representative, Arnie Roblan,”… demonstrated just what a mediocre candidate he is by grandstanding on a non-issue and questioning whether FERC was influenced by anti-LNG lobbyists”. Roblan, filed a FOIA request with FERC to determine if a meeting that included local anti-LNG activist, Jody McCaffree and representatives from Columbia River Keeper and Pacific Environment brought inappropriate pressure on the regulatory agency that delayed approval of the proposed Jordan Cove LNG terminal in Coos County.
Roblan implied that Brent Foster, then an attorney with the Oregon Department of Justice at the time of the meeting and who worked with FERC was also present. Jody McCaffree, advised Roblan if he had asked her she could have told him Foster was not present and that the meeting was only about process and had nothing to do with Jordan Cove.
Ironically, Roblan said he learned about the meetings from Portland area lobbyists. Interesting that he would take the word of lobbyists and rather than his own constituents.
Roblan was running for reelection at the time of this request and had previously been evasive about whether he supported the LNG terminal.
Foster resigned in April of 2010 over an unrelated matter and has been the subject of a grand jury investigation.
A Marion County grand jury has declined to indict Brent Foster, a former top aide to Attorney General John Kroger, for his actions related to a criminal pollution case in Hood River.
Foster, once one of Oregon’s top environmental activists, resigned April 20 as Kroger’s special counsel for environmental matters after admitting to Kroger that he took a water sample last year near a Hood River juice plant then falsely denied taking it when asked by Department of Justice Attorneys.
The water sample near Hood River Juice showed extraordinarily high pollution levels. Kroger requested the Marion County investigation.
The grand jury concluded that Foster was untruthful but the “dishonesty did not rise to the level of criminal activity,” the Marion County district attorney’s office said in a news release today. The grand jury considered charges of tampering with a witness and tampering with physical evidence.
Foster, an attorney and former executive director of Columbia Riverkeeper, still faces an Oregon State Bar complaint and related investigation.
Although I am not represented (figuratively or literally) by Verger and Roblan they are some of the reasons I will not work with the local democratic committee. People would step up to replace them but will have to do so on a Repub or Indep ticket because the party carries them no matter how mediocre they are
Interesting. Joe McCarthy reincarnated – destroy a human to serve my purpose? As long as ol’ Arnie wants the job, and as long as a majority of the voters of his district live in the Coos Bay area, and as long as folks remember him as high school principal Arnie, he’s your representative and there are no laws that say he must listen to Jody, me, you, or any other constituent. He has repeatedly made it clear that he will follow the lead of the Multnomah politicians. Apparenmtly he has not heard that if you are not the lead dog, the scenery never changes, and he apparently does not care.