Residents, forestry staff have close eye on Davis Ridge

It’s been more than a year since Denise Moore received notice that surveying work was set to begin on the state forestlands adjacent to her Brownsmead property — visits, she eventually learned, would lay the groundwork for a 168-acre clearcut timber sale in her neighborhood.

In the spring of 2024, Moore and other nearby residents sounded the alarms after discovering that the site near their homes, called Davis Ridge, had been proposed for harvest on the Oregon Department of Forestry’s Astoria District annual operations plan. Now, concerns have resurfaced over the latest development in a history of communication challenges with district forestry staff.

The 2025 annual operations plan was approved in July 2024, and property owners adjacent to Davis Ridge were subsequently sent letters from district forester Dan Goody outlining a sale timeline and committing to meet with landowners who had expressed the desire to do so. Residents were under the impression that they’d be hearing from district staff as the sale progressed — but that never happened, they say. 

After requesting an update in April, neighbors learned that the site had already been sold to Stimson Lumber. 

“We assumed that we would be hearing and then heard nothing until after the sale … and that was probably the most shocking news,” said Terry Henry, a Brownsmead resident whose property abuts the sale area.

Henry was one of a handful of residents to testify at a state Board of Forestry meeting in April about the new developments at Davis Ridge. That testimony prompted concerns among board members and discussion of a potential investigation. The board doesn’t have jurisdiction over timber sales, but it does play a role in listening to public comment and relaying concerns to the agency.

Each year, the state relies on timber sales to generate revenue for the continued management of its forests and for local taxing districts, fire departments and school districts. Although the Department of Forestry has made changes in response to landowner concerns at Davis Ridge, staffing challenges can still limit local districts’ capacity for outreach. 

“Our district staff really try to do their best job,” said State Forests Division Chief Michael Wilson. “We are challenged with capacity for having enough time, quite frankly, to engage with folks all the time. We would love to have more contact than we do.”

In early May, Interim State Forester Kate Skinner released a three-page report with findings from a request for information regarding the Davis Ridge sale timeline and communication between residents and forestry staff. Although the report cleared up some key details, Board Chair Jim Kelly said he still has concerns.

“I continue to be concerned about communication breakdowns,” Kelly said. “I think the agency can do better. I know, like all public agencies are, they’re constrained by staffing, but I do feel that they can do better than they have.”

History 

This isn’t the first time residents near Davis Ridge have experienced gaps in communication. In the spring of 2024, Moore said she didn’t learn about the timber sale until a week before the public comment period on the annual operations plan was set to close — and when she did, it was through the grapevine, not from official agency correspondence. 

After learning about the sale, Moore and other neighbors made requests to meet with staff from the Astoria district office and Anna Kaufman, the coordinator for the North Coast Communities for Watershed Protection Astoria chapter. Goody initially denied those requests because of a practice not to meet with third parties. On June 27, 2024, then-Board of Forestry member Bob Van Dyk visited the site at the request of neighbors, and district staff joined for a walkthrough to discuss sale boundaries and potential adjustments. That visit drew backlash from Kelly and Clatsop County commissioners. 

On July 1, 2024, the annual operations plan was approved, and on July 2, 2024, Goody sent letters to adjacent property owners. According to Skinner’s report, the letters concluded with a note that staff would be happy to meet with landowners to discuss operation considerations on-site with a one-on-one visit or communicate via phone or email. Residents were instructed to contact District Operations Coordinator Brad Catton for initial outreach.

Goody told The Astorian he thought it was clear that residents should reach out if they wanted a walkthrough or additional information. He said the office never received any such requests after the letters were sent out.

But residents argue it was more than implied that they would want an update prior to the sale — especially in light of the hundreds of public comments submitted to the state, testimony given at Clatsop County Board of Commissioners meetings and letters to the editor published in The Astorian in opposition to the sale.

“How could you think nobody’s concerned when we all had letters to the editor, we all had been at the county commission?” said Rebecca Nielsen, a Brownsmead resident who lives across the street from Davis Ridge. “We’ve done nothing but write letters and try to get someone to listen to us.”

Moore added that she did reach out to then-State Forester Cal Mukumoto in July 2024 requesting a walkthrough prior to the sale, but never got a response.

Residents have also expressed concerns over what they perceive as a rushed sale, based on emails they had received through a public records request. In one email, Goody referenced plans to auction the Davis Ridge timber sale in March 2025, with the goal of selling prior to the 2026 annual operations plan public comment period to “save a bunch of grief during public comment.”

However, according to Goody’s letter to landowners, Davis Ridge was planned to be sold in January or February, meaning a sale in March was technically slightly behind schedule.

Goody clarified that his goal in completing the sale that month wasn’t to dodge landowner concerns, but to avoid confusion during the 2026 annual operations plan comment period. Davis Ridge had already been approved in the previous year’s plan.

“We have a sale planning process for the AOP, which is the public comment process, versus the sale prep side, which is just the mechanics of putting tags up, cruising the timber sale and submitting the contract,” Goody said. “So we were just trying to stick to those timelines and keep those processes clear and separate.”

Next steps

Following an initial meeting in April, district staff members reconvened with landowners to discuss boundaries and answer additional questions.

Concerns remain — Nielsen, Henry and Moore, for example, are all still uncertain about impacts of clearcutting and potential on-the-ground pesticide application on the watershed — but district staff members have also promised a number of changes in response to adjacent property owners’ feedback. 

Based on staff’s June 27, 2024 walkthrough, Goody said the Department of Forestry selected leave-trees in the areas bordering adjacent property lines so residents would have a visual buffer. They also marked specific large cedar trees that would not be cut down and changed the haul route to a path that doesn’t go directly through the neighborhood. New timing restrictions, he said, will limit operations to 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Department of Forestry has also implemented a new practice of sending letters to any property owners adjacent to a timber sale proposed on annual operations plans before the plans are published. 

On a May visit, Henry said district staff members also agreed to create a buffer around one of two streams that he has water rights to. He said he does feel better about communication now — but he’s still reluctant to believe the agency will follow through on its word without written confirmation.

Moore feels similarly. She acknowledged that communication has improved, and landowners have more consistently been receiving email updates on road work for the sale. However, she said she’ll be closely monitoring the situation and communicating directly with Stimson Lumber in the months to come. Davis Ridge is moving forward despite hundreds of comments and online petition signatures against it — and to her, that makes public comment feel like a formality.

“My feeling is they really didn’t care,” Moore said. “There was just a lot of pushback, but they were going to do what they were going to do. I feel like there isn’t enough oversight. I don’t believe that there’s enough protection of these older forests.”

Goody said the first step for the sale is completing road work so logs can be hauled offsite. From there, the logging is tentatively planned to begin in the summer of 2026. 

At this point, Wilson said the Department of Forestry is continuing to evaluate success with neighboring landowners near Davis Ridge and make adjustments as possible. He added that he hopes Davis Ridge can become a positive example of landowner outreach.

“We’re trying to really be good neighbors, and as much as we tried to be clear and direct in our language, there’s always one more thing we could do for communication or outreach,” Goody said. “They’ve expressed to me they’re upset about this, and that’s not where we want to be, but we also have a clear mission and objectives that we have to fulfill, and there’s room for improvement, and we’ll just continue to strive to improve.”

Moore will believe those improvements as she sees them. 

“This is not what good neighbors do,” she said.