CONDE VOWS TO CHALLENGE ORDINANCE

William Conde says he will challenge the constitutionality of the Linn
County mass-gathering ordinance in court if the Board of Commissioners
adopts the revised version of the ordinance it is now
considering.

Conde is the owner of Conde's Redwood Lumber in Harrisburg. For more
than a decade, he has held music festivals at the site which have
focused on the effort to legalize marijuana.

"If you pass this thing, you leave me no alternative. I'll be in
federal court before the end of the week," Conde said during a public
hearing on the ordinance Wednesday. "It's unconstitutional."

The board did not vote on the proposal. An additional hearing is
scheduled for 11 a.m. Tuesday, Aug. 31.

Another music festival is scheduled to be held at Conde's Redwood
Lumber in Harrisburg over Labor Day weekend, too soon for Conde to
meet the time lines called for in the revised ordinance.

Linn County Counsel Tom Corr is negotiating with Conde's attorney,
Brian Michaels of Eugene, on a temporary set of guidelines for the
festival, similar to the agreement which governed the World Hemp
Festival at the same location in July.

The commissioners are proposing the new law - they call it the "Public
Peace, Health, Safety and Welfare" ordinance - to replace the current
mass-gathering ordinance. Conde was charged with dozens of violations
of the ordinance and other regulations following a festival in 1998,
but problems with the ordinance resulted in almost of those charges
being dropped.

The new ordinance would regulate events attended by 1,000 people or
more. It includes more stringent requirements on traffic control and
safety plans and holds event organizers responsible for upholding laws
on drug and alcohol use. The revised code would change the fee
structure for events, limiting the fees to the recovery of costs
incurred by the county.

The code also would authorize county officials to perform unscheduled
inspections of festival grounds during events.

The Linn County Sheriff's Office would be authorized to inspect the
event site "for compliance with conditions of the permit concerning
crowd and traffic control personnel, traffic management, emergency
services and communications, and the presence of narcotic or dangerous
drugs and of unpermitted alcohol usage."

If the inspections reveal threats to public health and safety which
are not resolved by the festival organizer, the sheriff would be
authorized to terminate the event.

Conde said this is an open invitation for the sheriff to conduct a
raid at the upcoming festival.

"They're trying to scare people away from attending," Conde
said.