Voices from another side

Tahoe Daily Tribune

July 27, 1997
By Jenifer Ragland
Tribune Staff Writer

TAHOE VISTA - Filled with the emotion of their cause, about 150 "uninvited guests" of the Lake Tahoe Presidential Summit gathered Saturday in hopes of sending a strong message to the White House.

"We are unhappy we're not being included in the president's forum," said Rose Comstock, president of California Women in Timber. "We tried for the last three months and were told that we aren't an audience the president wants to see." The organization, which stands for a balance between preservation and land management, came to demonstrate how the logging industry has been killed over the years by government agencies.

"If we don't take out all of this excess fuel, this forest is not going to make it," Comstock said. "You can't preserve and protect everything. You have to allow people who live here and come here to have a voice."

People for the West, a campaign sponsored by the National Coalition for Public Lands and Natural Resources, organized the rally, along with Citizens for a Sound Economy.

People from all walks of life joined together at the North Tahoe Regional Park, for a combination concert and protest rally. Although many of them had different interests, they all expressed the same cynicism for the policies enacted by the current leaders of their country.

"I don't agree with what Clinton has done," said Heather McQuarrie, a resident and owner of a logging company in Quincy, Calif. "If I could tell him one thing, it would be for him to come through with some of his promises."

Assemblyman Thomas "Rico" Oller, who was invited to the forum, thought it was more appropriate to spend the day with people who share his ideology. "What's wrong with this country is that Clinton and Gore have no respect for the Constitution," Oller said. "My message for Clinton and Gore is: It's about freedom, stupid."

He characterized the presidential summit as a "love fest for environmentalism, radicalism and the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency," where the only purpose was to pass the environmental policy baton to Gore, who is the Democratic front-runner in 2000.

Oller, along with many of the rally participants, believe the rights of private property owners supersede the government's desire to protect the environment. Joyce Fiechtner, a Sacramento resident, was hosting a "Suitum bake sale," in honor of property owner Bernadine Suitum, who recently took on the TRPA for the right to build on her environmentally sensitive land in Incline Village. The money raised will go toward the construction of Suitum's dream house.

Fiechtner, wearing red white and blue and sporting a star-spangled scarf around her neck, criticized the media and environmentalists for "spreading lies" to scare people.

"The American people are totally stupid," she said. "We've lost it."

Other rally participants came to voice their opposition to Clinton's visit to Kyoto, where he may sign a Global Warming Treaty. The treaty would require the United States to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000, which many people believe will have a severe effect on the economy.

"The president announced on Thursday that global warming is now scientific fact," said Joel Bucher, environmental policy analyst for CSE, at a press conference Saturday morning. "Unfortunately, it remains to be seen what the Clinton administration will do to pay for reducing emissions."

At the afternoon rally, people protested the idea of imposing a 50-cent gas tax to pay for the higher cost of doing business that would inevitably come from a global warming treaty.

The group is not against environmental protection policy, but contends that until hard proof determines global warming is a reality, they do not want to see the economy suffer.

The movement's slogan, which was posted on buttons and signs around the park area, read "Global warming? Show me the science!"