Setting the Record Straight in Ashland Oregon: The Fence Speaks Out

 

Toni Buckley Dockter – Founder; Publisher; Editor-in-Chief; Distribution Manager; Intrepid Reporter; IT Guy; Coffee Girl

email: fwepub@aol.com   www.fuchsiawoman.com

MOTTO: When telling the truth is a revolutionary act. 

All editorial     All social commentary    All for the common good

 Issue Number 50   June 2021

********************

Dedicated to D.S.

****************

“When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.” – Thomas Jefferson (Do you think this applied to his household staff?)

“When injustice becomes acceptable in Ashland’s City Hall, resistance becomes duty.” – The Fence

****************

Dear Ashlanders:

You don’t know me. But I have been an upstanding entity in Ashland, Oregon for decades. I live in the Railroad District — on ‘A’ Street between 6th and 8th. My friends call me Chainy. The rest call me Mr. Link.

Recently I have become known as The Fence.

I became more recognizable on June 28, 2020–due to Joanne’s Big Idea and vision of a Say Their Names Memorial. I became less visible on August 21, 2020 due to vandals. I once again became a force for good and enlightenment–due to Cassie’s actions. Gratitude and thanks to those dedicated women.

During the last 4+ months I’ve undergone a fancy makeover–due to the efforts of one obsessed Fence Lady. She made sure I am not your average galvanized steel wire kind-of-guy. She made sure I make a valid point. She made sure I cannot be ignored.

I’ve been given the role as a stalwart display of public art. I take this honor seriously because the message on me is of utmost importance.

 

 

 

It doesn’t matter if an art commissioner guy says I am “NOT public art”–but guerrilla art instead. Besides the hoity-toity, who cares? I prefer the hoi polloi. Power to the People! Right on!

Oops, pardon me, I was manufactured in the sixties. I’m hard-wired that way.

So I don’t care if you call me “Gorilla Art.“ Or “Flotilla Art” (like a small fleet of t-shirts?). The Fence Lady doesn’t care if I am labeled “Bride of Godzilla Art” (which would be one of the nicer things said about her by certain members of Ashland’s City Hall and City Council).

Here is what any art is about:

“Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one.”– Stella Adler

If y’all haven’t been out to the railroad park lately, I’ve been spruced up to the hilt — all 680 feet of me — decorated with t-shirts, signs, banners, paintings, flags, ribbons, ornaments, and thousands upon thousands of flowers. So cool!

 

 

 

 

Woo-eee if I don’t look like the Grand Marshall in a Stop Systemic Racism Parade!

You should hear the compliments I receive from all kinds of people–little kids to octogenarians–from Ashlanders and people from elsewhere.

“You’re spectacular!”

“You’re a revelation!”

“You make me proud!”

“You make me cry.”

“Beautiful memorial!”

“I like the flowers!”

“I appreciate you!”

“Ashland really needs this!”

And most of all:

“Thank you!”

It is not an exaggeration to say people love me. Well, at least 80%–based on the hundreds of comments and conversations I’ve overheard of people talking to the Fence Lady. (As for the other 20%: Yes, there are haters out there. I will not repeat those awful comments.)

I have evolved over time. In addition to being an artistic representation of Say Their Names, I also showcase other parts of Black History–like slavery, lynching, voter suppression, and the civil rights movement.

 

 

I also have become a type of wailing wall…based on overheard conversations of people pouring their hearts out to the Fence Lady over what I mean to them. For instance,  an unhoused woman who parks her car across the street, says she likes to see me because I make her feel like there is someone out there who cares. (More on these types of interactions later…)

I would like you, dear Ashlanders, to view me as a special kind of cemetery–memorializing hundreds of Black lives exterminated just because of the color of their skin. So many Black lives lost. So many flowers to be laid on their headstones.

The Fence Lady uses flowers as a metaphor to convey why Black Lives Matter.

Here are two of her signs:

 

Add up my history; my message; my adornment by many community members; and my support by multitudes of people; and what do you get?

Scintilla Art. Like a bright flash of light, I emanate from the burning ember of Human Decency.

I am a spark:

For  creating a better community and better country.

For assigning dignity and advancing respect.

For symbolizing truth and beauty.

For providing education and fostering understanding.

For expressing compassion and empathy.

For believing in hope and change.

I think I am a positive contribution to Ashland.

That’s why I was shocked when I did not receive 100% support by City Council and zero support at City Hall’s upper management level. Councilman Stephen Jensen, City Attorney David Lohman, Interim City Manager Adam Hanks, and Parks & Rec Director Michael Black were opposed to my presence and community participation to transform me into the stellar art installation that I am.

How do I know this? I saw it with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears.

You’d be surprised what Ashlanders do and say in my presence when they think no one can see them and no one can hear them. But I’ve been watching and I’ve been listening. For a long time.

Like one time I witnessed City employees Rachel Dials and Tina Gray argue over who was more of an inspiration for the O’Jay’s song Backstabbers –based on their usual trash talking and under-oath testimony trying to discredit and disparage the long-serving, highly competent, very bright, overly kind, generous with her time, and extremely well-liked Senior Center manager.

Another time I heard Councilperson Paula Hyatt informing an over-the-hill ex-politician (who won’t go away!) about her plan to leapfrog right over Tonya Graham’s dogged head into the Mayor’s office. Hyatt was so cold and calculating she made me shudder. And I’m made of metal!

If you want to know what’s going on in this town…

If you want to know how Ashlanders feel about living here…

If you want to know what the citizens think of their city government…

Come hang out with me.

One thing you will discover when analyzing all the conversations is that Ashland’s city council is divided into two factions:

1. There’s a productive one Ashland citizens call HFs — for Healthy Folks.

2. There’s also a diseased faction that spreads dis-ease. Citizens call them the FFs — for Filthy Four — politicians who play the down-n-dirty political games so well they make the scum at the bottom of Lithia Park’s duck pond look pristine. They are so up to their eyeballs in dirt they can no longer see straight.

According to the court of public opinion there is no amount of mud that is too big or too grimy for them to sling.

 

 

No amount of lying that causes them a speck of shame. No amount of self-serving/ego-boosting/power grabbing/idiotic or hoodwinking behavior that bothers them in the slightest.

The Filthy Four (FFs) are Stephen Jensen, Tonya Graham, Stefi Seffinger, Paula Hyatt.

Based on hundreds of overheard conversations, only 20% of Ashlanders support dirtbaggery as a form of governance.

The other 80% support the goals of the HFs — as these citizens ache for change in the status quo/financially bogus way of doing things.

It’s not that the FFs don’t know this. But they are fighting tooth and nail — like an old fire-breathing dragon with giant claws and augmented dentures — to preserve a non-progressive, non-accountable, non-inclusive, non-transparent, dictatorial form of government–where citizens are supposed to serve The City and not the other way around.

Consequently, Ashland is on life-support.

In the land of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, therein lies the rub. The majority of Ashland citizens want the Filthy Four and their messy minions in City Hall to fade away like the recurring nightmare they are.

But how?

Crappy/cronyistic/pro-nepotism government is so entrenched in Ashland. It is so secretive. It is so back-stabby.

Plus it has the Ashland Tidings newspaper in its hip pocket. (So deep into the pockets that reporters don’t even have to go through the proper/legal route to obtain copies of staff emails. Reporters receive them directly from the source–many times without even asking for them.)

I think I can help remedy this dismal situation.

I plan to publish the Ashland Papers: three documents that I found blowing in the wind at railroad park that will blow the lid off the unacceptable state of city governance and the media outlet that supports it.

The first document is a hand-written journal (in pink ink). The title: Delicious Dishing: reflections on a reporter’s yummy career, by Pinky Narrow.

Here are examples — in gray ink because pink ink won’t reproduce on a computer screen:

September 15, 2020

Dear Diary,

Today I got my first real job in journalism at The Tidings. You should gaze into my new boss’s baby blue eyes. So dreamy! (heart emoji) I can’t wait to write anything the way he tells me to write it.

***

Dear Diary,

Today I had a choice between writing an upcoming front-page article on a black bear cub that had been euthanized — or an article about the names and stories of hundreds of Black people who had been killed because of racism and who are memorialized on a fence in Ashland.

I went with the bear. My boss said, “Good choice, Miss Pink!” His affectionate nickname for me. (grinning face emoji)

I told him I try to live up to my name. Narrow — as in Narrow-Minded. (winky face emoji)

I swear to God I will be getting a raise soon! (thumbs up emoji) No more minimum wage for this star reporter! (dollar sign emoji)

 

The second document is a letter the Fence Lady sent to the State of Oregon’s Noxious Weed Department. It was regarding her attempt to have the City of Ashland’s responsible parties remove the deadly and illegal blackberry bushes — not just to make sure that the we-the-people-approved Scintilla Art display would not be extinguished —  but mainly for safety reasons to protect pedestrians (including little kids who like to touch the decorations), cyclists, rollerskaters, and skateboarders from being stabbed with stickery canes.

 

 

You don’t think the City of Ashland would remove anything that stabs people, do you?

She presents evidence that certain city hall officials considered it critically more important to rebuff the Fence Lady’s requests than to make sure safe conditions were maintained. She names the co-conspirators. Watch out!

The third document is a humdinger piece of writing, a lengthy essay titled God Help Us in Ashland, Oregon.

Here are examples:

God help us if City Attorney David Lohman retires under a false flag of “a job well done” without the litany of his costly mistakes being known by the entire Ashland citizenry–including losing the “It’s the brick’s fault” lawsuit; the Dodson v. The City lawsuit; the whistleblower lawsuit and appeal; and another likely loss with the upcoming ACLU lawsuit. (Shoulda taken that meeting with them, dontcha think?!)

God help us if Ashlanders never know the real reason Adam Hanks raised utility rates was to pay for a Daytona Platinum Glacier Blue Rolex as David Lohman’s retirement gift. Hanks put in enough padding to ensure he gets one for himself, too–which he thinks he deserves because he convinced the FFs that presenting Lohman with a brand new Cadillac Escalade was too costly to try to sneak past well-informed Ashland voters. “Curses on that damn ACES group,” he muttered.

But in typical Hanks fashion, he failed to realize that the Caddy at $80K was cheaper than the Rolex at $118K.

There goes the refurbishment of Pioneer Hall and the Community Center.

So check back shortly. Time is running out for Ashland, Oregon.

Thanks for reading.

Sincerely yours and yours sincerely,

Chainy, aka The Fence

 ####