CANDIDATE JERRY RUST IN HIS EUGENE OFFICE. CSO: So monies for that first election came from what sources? Rust: A lot of tree-planting money ... it was mostly small money, $10 and $20 bills, although in the end we outspent each of our opponents. There was a lot of excitement, a feeling of “Let’s do something different,” an alternative to Republican and Democrat tired-old-politics. CSQ: You’ve been commissioner now for five years. Lane County has the state's second-largest metro population, so you have had a chance to cope with a lot of those problems. What kinds of things have you faced? Rust: I think that first we have to recognize that fiscal management is a front-burner issue. You’ve got to have a balanced budget, you’ve got to have a long-range fiscal plan, you’ve got to be moving towards reduction of expenditures wherever possible. Forex- ample, we’ve reduced our gasoline consumption by 25 percent in the last two years. We’ve cut back without hurting essential county services. When we’ve cut positions, we have had active programs for trying to bring these people into other openings. For the most part we’ve been successful. I also want to mention land-use planning. We’ve had a lot of factional- ization on this issue, a lot of controversy, but let me just say that I think about 95 percent of the problems are behind us. We’ve made peace with most land owners, we’ve zoned and planned the county fairly, we’re looking for a final date with LCDC sometime this summer to get our comprehensive plans finally adopted. I think land-use planning is working. However, I think that we need to provide a little more flexibility at the local level, we need to work a little more. by David Milholland RUST NEVER SLEEPS An interview with Gubernatorial candidate Jerry Rust erry Rust, currently serving his second term as Lane County Com- missioner, is running in the hotly contested Democratic primary race for Oregon’s governor. A founder of the Eugene-based tree-planting cooperative, the Hoedads, his five-year tenure as commissioner has been provocative and controversial, as he’s brought new-age politics into the county courthouse. if I could characterize what I’m going to be talking about in this S GOIOQ to OG 0G3CG and solar energy. Solar is the technology of peace, nuclear energy is the technology of war, and we’ve gone down that path long enough. ■ . CSO: Tell us how you got involved with the Hoedads? Rust: I came back from India fairly alienated ... Vietnam survivors weren’t the only ones that were alienated at that time, and my growth and experience in India has given me a perspective. I changed my party to Independent, I met my wife Sidney, and shortly after we had our first child, I went to work in the woods planting trees. After one year of that, working for a contractor making $3 an hour, I decided there must be a better way. If you’re going to plant trees, why not own a piece of the action and get the profits too. We formed what has become one of the most successful labor cooperatives in the country, and that’s the Hoedads. We wanted it democratic from the start, we wanted it worker-owned, we wanted the wealth to be shared amongst the people on the basis of participation. It’s become a multl-million-dollar corporation and is still doing extremely well, and has given birth to some seventeen other labor cooperatives. At the end of five years, I took a look at the political situation in Lane County. The Democrats and the Republicans had both nominated two tired-old-politics-as-usual people. I went in as an Independent and got the necessary signatures to get on the ballot, split the vote. I think I won with less than 40 percent of the vote. But the important part was that I was elected, and I stood for re-election, and won re-election. Rust in his Hoedad days. positively with our cities and counties to get these plans adopted. As far as some other achievements ... I established the office of appropriate technology ... we have re-established a farmers’ market ... I have fought long and hard for recycling. There is a lot of resistance to that concept. The old ways die slowly. But I think we have made a lot of people aware that there are alternatives. CSQ: Have you worked on coalition building in Lane County, and how would you do so in a state leadership role? Rust: I’ve made a promise to every group that I’ve gone into, and that is this: Let’s have a state network, and 4 Clinton St. Quarterly Photographs courtesy Jerry Rust
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