Commissioner Farr lashes out after public comment on Jones-McCann vote

John Q: Commissioner Pat Farr lashes out after he’s criticized in a public comment. Tuesday, Oct. 13 at the Lane County Board of Commissioners meeting, here’s Debra McGee:

Debra McGee: My name is Debra McGee and I’ve lived in Lane County since 1980. Commissioner Buch represents me. I am returning this morning to again express my outrage about your reckless decision to override staff and waive part of Lane Code 16.244 for a property owned by Kathleen Jones-McCann.

During your July 7 meeting, staff had told you that her property had several unpermitted structures and violated building codes. At that meeting, Jones-McCann’s attorney petitioned you to waive those rules.

With little public notice or discussion, ignoring objections from your staff, three of you voted to waive rules that protected our beloved McKenzie River watershed and our drinking water, in spite of clear information provided by your staff, for one person.

Why, as you said yourself, Commissioner Farr, I quote, ‘The motion was made last minute, wasn’t noticed, and it wasn’t thoroughly discussed, vetted, nor did the maker of the motion—which happened to be me—discuss with our land use department or counsel regarding the waiver.’

What were you thinking? Could it again be money and politics? Well, let’s take a look.

You’re not up for reelection this year, Commissioner Farr, but you received donations from a company that Jones-McCann formerly ran, Seneca Jones, in 2016 and 2019, which makes me wonder if this influenced you making that July motion in a rush.

Commissioner Loveall, before the primary (which you lost), you received over $42,000 from Jones McCann and you, Commissioner Ceniga, received over $49,000. That’s a lot of money. It looks like paying for favors.

And while we’re on the subject of pay-to-play donations and the timing of this decision, when Commissioner Buch seeks reelection, her opponent, Jake Pelroy, received the most in donations during this season from Jones-McCann with over $57,000.

What kind of governance is this? It’s pay-to-play governance. That’s what it is, where wealthy people with influence who’ve been making campaign contributions to politicians in order to bend and break the laws that the rest of us have to follow.

Since learning that FEMA would drop Lane County from disaster relief, in your last meeting, you voted to modify your exception to the rules for Jones-McCann, and maintain the federal rules, but modify the floodplain regulations to remove the prohibition on floodway development, allowing Jones-McCann’s unpermitted buildings.

Lane County deserves fair and honest governance.

Thank you, Commissioners Buch and Trieger, for voting against this modification. You understand that the board should not have overturned the county staff’s denial of Jones-McCann’s request for building permits in the first place because no one is above the law, which is there for our protection, no matter how much money they donate to a politician’s campaign. (Thank you.)

John Q: Later in the meeting during commissioner business, Commissioner Pat Farr:

Commissioner Pat Farr (Oct. 13, 2026): Regarding research, as always, I would that people would research more thoroughly in order to find more facts and truth than they want to find. People often see only what they want to see, and they stop looking once their predetermined opinion is satisfied.

Without further research that might balance the view they want to state, they state an unqualified view. We see that continually.

In public comment, we hear unresearched and unqualified opinions that we’re not able to respond to. And if people research further, they’ll find the absolute truth as opposed to finding a slanted version of the truth that is often presented at that microphone right there.

John Q: Here’s what he said July 7, 2026:

Commissioner Pat Farr (July 7, 2026): As I’ve stated, I’m inclined to agree with the opposing the application and write findings consistent with the presentation that’s been made by the applicant…

We’re stepping back in and fixing errors that have been made, whatever the cause may be. This is a single case, but it’s representative of a number of cases where people are trying to rectify, and going back to make it correct—correcting, whether it be missteps, whatever you may want to call it along the way, that’s something that happens from time to time…

We do have a mismatch in this case, which has been interpreted two different ways, one by the applicant and one by ultimately by the hearings official with the evidence that they’ve used.

And my point is that in this situation, I would like to move forward with upholding the application and adopting the findings that have been presented to us.

And I’d like to look staff right in the eye and say ‘Good work,’ and on a regular basis you do good, good work interpreting what is really quite convoluted in many, many cases, this being one of them where we have two sets of evidence that have different conclusions.

And we’re asking you to consider the other set of evidence and move forward with the next step in the process to determine which set of evidence is going to be the ultimate law that is applied.

And so, I believe we’re moving in the right direction with this, and I also believe that you’ve done super work to get us to this point. So thank you.

John Q: Commissioner Farr is asked: What were you thinking when you voted for a motion that wasn’t noticed or vetted? He didn’t quite answer the question, but instead lashed out in a response that characterized public comment as ‘unqualified,’ ‘unresearched,’ and ‘slanted.’