House Bill 3728 is Oregon HD2 Representative Virgle Osborne’s seemingly harmless plan to “study the Winchester Dam.” However, it’s part of a larger agenda to stick Oregon taxpayers with the costs of rebuilding the condemned and uninsurable Winchester Dam on the North Umpqua River, which is owned by the Winchester Water Control District (WWCD), whose members’ homes surround the private water ski lake behind the dam.
Although Osborne vehemently insists “the BILL IS DEAD,” this is a white lie—the bill isn’t dead, it’s just sleeping.
Historically Osborne has opposed the will of the people and embraced moneyed special interest groups like the WWCD.
Tax-and-Spend Democrat Governor Tina Kotek and Osborne both received contributions ($20,000 and $1,000 respectively) from the Oregon Soft Drink PAC, a so-called “political action committee” of beverage manufacturers including the infamous union-busting Bigfoot Beverages. Suffice to say, these questionable contributions raise eyebrows across party lines.
Meanwhile, Teamsters Local 324 union filed 10 unfair labor practices against Bigfoot last September for siphoning employee pensions and union members have been on the picket line for more than six months in one of the longest strikes in Oregon history—yet Osborne sides with their employer.
Not unlike their connection to influence-peddling soda pop lobbyists, Kotek and Osborne are increasingly intertwined with the illegally created WWCD and their private water ski lake behind the Winchester Dam, which is enjoyed by a few dozen speedboat-owning homeowners at the exclusion of the public.
A repeat offender with a laundry list of permit violations, the WWCD has long evaded accountability for its crimes against the environment, fisheries, water quality, downstream neighbors, and the Number One Steelhead Stream on the continent—the North Umpqua River.
But rather than launch an investigation of this rogue water control district and their life-threatening, fish-killing dam, Kotek’s office has allowed the WWCD to maintain their private water ski lake—and now may be helping them shift their considerable financial liabilities onto the taxpayers.
As of this writing, the owners of the Winchester Dam face a $27.5 million lawsuit brought by the Oregon Department of Justice for the record-breaking August 2023 slaughter of 550,000 wild migratory native fish, as well as an ODFW order to build a new $30 million fish ladder.
The governor’s office is well aware of Osborne’s absence of scruples—he’s known around the state capital as the “errand boy” of Ryan Beckley, president of the WWCD, owner of Terra Firma Foundation Systems, and the man personally responsible for the huge 2023 fish kill.
Osborne met with Kotek on March 19, 2025, to pitch his plan to “rebuild the Winchester Dam to generate hydro-electricity [and] also create a roadmap of future dams…” Osborne claimed, “the cost of this replacement, and power station would be a federal project funded by the Trump administration [meaning the taxpayers], and not the landowners.”
But most people realize that, for reasons of physics and economics, Osborne’s HB 3728 is just performative pie-in-the-sky. Osborne knows he can’t do anything that lowers WWCD property values. And the Trump Administration is loath to fund projects in sanctuary states like Oregon.
Winchester Dam is only 17-feet tall—too high for wild fish to jump but too low for high-capacity electricity production, which requires both flow and hydraulic head. But if the height of the dam is raised, it raises the lake level and lakefront homeowners lose acreage, making it an extremely unlikely eventuality.
Oregon Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) calls Winchester Dam the worst manmade obstacle to fish on any Oregon river. The dam produces no hydroelectricity, irrigation, or flood control, and is rated a “high hazard” by the Oregon Water Resources Department, meaning it will kill people when it fails.
Regarding the fate of the Winchester Dam, Osborne has little choice in the matter. The three Douglas County commissioners are committed to rebuilding the dam with taxpayer dollars. And Osborne owes his political career to these commissioners.
The WWCD is not a public utility—it’s a privately weaponized shell operated like a drug cartel.
One wonders if Governor Kotek’s inaction is negligence or complicity. After all, she’s funded by the same donor networks that owns Virgle Osborne, and this many be preventing her office from investigating the WWCD, enabling ongoing harm, regulatory evasion, and economic exploitation of Douglas County residents.
With Kotek’s tacit blessing and a $3,000 contribution from Ryan Beckley’s TerraFirma Foundation Systems, Virgle Osborne will make Oregonians pay to clean up the unprecedented mess created by the owners of what is widely recognized as the most dangerous and illegal dam in Oregon.
On April 7, 2025, this website published an expose of Osborne’s unpopular HB 3728. Some readers commented on recent articles about Osborne, calling him a “scammer,” a “bully,” and a “bad neighbor” known for political “horse trading” and “greasing palms.” Others characterized him as having “no moral compass” and being willing to “accept kickbacks” and “throw voters under a bus” to “benefit himself and his friends.”
Less than 24 hours after the aforementioned article was published, Osborne issued an April 8, 2025, press release declaring:
“I think it’s time to be very clear on the Winchester dam issue… NO tax dollars will be spent on this and the conversation was had which means the BILL IS DEAD… No further discussions by me are scheduled and no further discussions are going to happen on my behalf. The fate of the dam is entirely in the hands of the courts at this point.”
But Osborne’s assertion that “no tax dollars will be spent” is mere lip service. As the reader will soon discover, he’s perfectly willing to literally sell out his neighbors.
HB 3728 isn’t dead—it’s just sleeping until the present overwhelming opposition quiets down. Although Osborne claims, “No further discussions by me are scheduled,” you may be certain Dougals County Commissioner, “No Term Limits” Tim Freeman, continues to lobby the federal government on Osborne’s behalf.
In fact, Osborne owes his entire political career to the Douglas County Board of Commissioners (BOC).
Osborne’s home in Lookingglass, Oregon, is eight miles east of Roseburg, and just half a mile from the old unlined Lookingglass landfill, near the intersection of Colonial Road and Lookingglass Road in Roseburg. For more than half a century, motor oil, paint, chemicals, hazardous waste, antifreeze, fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, and radioactive materials were poured directly into the earth, contaminating the ground water and the soil.
This landfill is presently so polluted, it may well qualify as a future federal Superfund site.
According to Kristine Parker-Dempsey, a neighbor in Lookingglass Valley, “The old dump was closed because of safety issues…[and] nothing has changed. The landscape is not stable, but maybe people should see for themselves… Why don’t you make an appointment with Dave Heffner and see the new landslide on his place, we think it’s the worst one so far. Excluding the one over here on Nandy Road.”
Dave Geddes, Osborne’s neighbor in Lookingglass, criticized the BOC’s “lack of disclosure and transparency concerning the Lookingglass landfill.”
At a December 14, 2019, meeting, Geddes told the BOC, “In 2016, the county acknowledged preliminary planning for an off-highway recreation area…and said, going forward, everybody would be involved. The next public notice was March of 2017, when the Lookingglass landfill adjacent landowners received notice the county had filed a conditional use permit, and the Callahan Advisory Committee voted against recommending it,” but were overruled by the BOC.
The August hearing was postponed to June of 2018 to supposedly allow time to address geologic, noise, fire, and compatibility issues. However, a public records request proves that this never occurred—it was just one more empty promise from the BOC.
On March 19, 2018, in a sweetheart deal, the BOC leased the 125-acre Lookingglass landfill property to Virgle Osborne’s DRB Properties for $100 for a three-year term, stating it was expressly for Search and Rescue training. The property was flagged as unsafe and posted with “no trespassing” signs and handed over to DRB for—a move that sparked outrage in the community. (Scroll to bottom of page to read the lease in its entirety.)
On March 22, 2018, the county withdrew their recreation application and two days later paid Galli Group $10,500 for a slope stability and site review to address potential projects suitable for the site.
But the BOC withheld knowledge of Osborne’s lease from the 300 neighboring Lookingglass property owners until May 30 when commissioner Chris Boice acknowledged that this had, in fact, occurred. Boice claimed no public process is required for a county land lease.
Neighbors photographed Osborne and his associates using the landfill site as a private off-highway vehicle recreation area.
Jaqueline Chaffin, who lives next to the OHV park wrote in May of 2018, “So, on this beautiful evening, I was trying to enjoy my butterfly garden and the birds, and what do I hear, noise, noise from the OHV and extremely loud voices! I look up, and what do I see— an OHP driving right past our property, slow and loud! I was really hoping that if this actually went through and happened, I wouldn’t have to see them, but guess what, it’s not just the sound of the engines, it is the voices and having to see them from my porch. And they were only two or three of them. I can’t wait to see how loud it is when there are more vehicles and people!!”
Neighbors warned of property damage, wildfire, landslides, and backroom politics. Lookinglass Valley resident Bill Tyner, reviewed a 50-page Environmental Protection Agency guide and found that the former landfill site was built without “layering and ground water management… Where are the dozens of methane vent sites? Is there a 30-year management plan on file?”
The BOC claims they “don’t harm the many to benefit the few.”
But Tyner told them, “A lot of people [in Lookingglass] would be harmed. That’s not what a county should be doing. It’s mind-boggling that they even would be considering it.”
And yet, Osborne was unmoved by the unanimous and vociferous objections of more than 70 of his neighbors who packed each BOC meeting with standing-room only crowds, vehemently opposing his plan for an OHV park at the contaminated and geologically unstable former landfill site.
Apparently, Osborne’s only concern is for that which benefits himself and his OHV toadies.
While his neighbors were busy filing public records and writing letters opposing Orborne’s OHV park, he got himself appointed to the planning commission and soon became chairman.
According to Lookingglass resident Dave Geddes, Osborne’s DRB failed to provide public records for DRB’s insurance renewal information due on March 12, 2019. DRB’s incomplete response, wasn’t received until the summer of 2018, by which time the required information was past due.
The documents received from DRB in June 2018 had obvious transcript errors. The August 2018 replacement documents contained misrepresentation, missing and incorrect (but nevertheless mandatory) information in no fewer than eight instances. Other public records disclosed by DRB revealed unpaid taxes and a past due lease payment— which normally would have resulted in an immediate DRB default, and termination of their lease.
Apparently, compliance doesn’t mean much to Virgle Osborne.
In an effort to mitigate DRB’s failure to comply, on August 19, 2018, Commissioner Freeman moved to modify without due diligence the lease with Osborne’s group, by accepting comprehensive personal liability coverage instead of commercial liability coverage, as was required by county statues.
Freeman’s brainstorm resulted in the county having no coverage at all because off-highway vehicles were specifically excluded from the policy. On November 4, 2018, Osborne’s DRB’s lease was terminated “without cause”—instead of “for cause,” as merited by their well-documented defaults.
On November 8, 2019, the Roseburg News-Review, owned by Commissioner Boice’s business partner, Patrick Markham (owner of four radio stations in Douglas County) published an article confirming the termination of DRB’s lease.
Then the BOC inexplicable granted of a gift of the $500,000 property, free and clear, to Virgle Osborne’s Champagne Creek Ranch, Inc., a 2019 registered Oregon non-profit corporation owned by the very same principals as DRB properties.
The BOC cancelled Osborne’s DRB lease for the landfill and simply gave him the same property for absolutely free.
How can cash-poor county like Douglas County afford to give away a half million dollar piece of property—a property that, since 2106, had earned more than $250,000, on two timber sales (one of ten and the other at 28-acres) totaling 500,000 board feet on land that supports acceptable and marketable timber species, and is not “unproductive” as claimed by the BOC?
The property’s lease was terminated without cause to justify the gift a $500,000 timber-resource property, which makes Osborne’s original lease and tax payments questionable.
Like Osborne, the BOC’s members are off-road vehicle enthusiasts. They like off-roading because you don’t need a driver’s license, you can be underage, and you can drink and drive at the same time.
The BOC’s land grant allowed Osborne to create a off-road Disneyland for enthusiasts throughout the Pacific Northwest. The News-Review article stated the lease termination and grant released the county from liability issues they would have had if they still owned the land.
Douglas County’s tax dollars are supposed to be for public safety, infrastructure, and health—not for pursuit of an off-highway vehicle area that is available on occasion to the 85-member team of Search and Rescue volunteers.
The county commissioners erroneously believe the grant of this property eliminated their liability and risk of loss, ignoring the fact that the Lookingglass community still faced the increased risk to both themselves, and the Search and Rescue volunteers who use the toxic former landfill property.
More than 70 adjacent property owners packed BOC meetings, expressing unanimous opposition to Osborne’s OHV park proposal for the Lookingglass transfer station.
Lookingglass neighbor Bill Tyner even sent a letter to the Roseburg News-Review stating: “Every homeowner bordering the closed Lookingglass transfer site wants to deny the conditional use permit allowing an OHV recreation area/compound. The planning advisory committee (PAC) unanimously voted to deny the application, yet it is still out there, waiting for a final planning department decision.”
Tyner explained that “home and land values will drop an estimated 20% should an ATV/Jeep/trail bike playground be approved. Property values according to Zillow run from between $100,000-$400,000 per properties contiguous to the old landfill.
“Other properties within earshot are even higher,” Tyner explained. “It’s possible then that these homeowners could lose between $20,000-$80,000 or more to their home values just to make a playground for some local “off-highway vehicle” clubs.”
According to Tyner, one neighbor’s “loss of was over $100,000 to his land.”
“I would ask the club members,” Tyner continued, “now that you know what [the] homeowners have said, would you withdraw this application for the good of your neighbors? I ask you: would you personally take this kind of loss? If you don’t withdraw this application, are you saying: it’s not my backyard or in my pocketbook, so do I care what happens to my neighbors? What’s your answer?”
Although dozens of neighbors sent letters to the county commissioners opposing the granting of the property to Osborne, many reported being told their letters were never received—an assertion that strains credulity.
Bill Tyner wrote to Osborne about the unanimous opposition to the OHV park, “I read about the fun you guys want to have fun, but read not one iota of consideration for the homeowners whose backyard you want to play in. It’s pretty simple and all of the extraneous arguments cloud the basic issue… I thoroughly expected that once the OHV group heard from the folks who lived along the border [that] the group would choose to withdraw the proposal out of concern and consideration for those affected. Not so, as I read entrenched opinions and little sympathy.”
The BOC wasted resources, money, and time, pursuing their off-vehicle agenda at the expense of the Lookingglass community. The folks in Lookingglass Valley are now stuck with bad neighbor—namely Virgle Osborne—whose appalling track record of failure to pay money owned, misrepresentation of documents and property use and whose property (which he never paid for) violates state and county land use ordinances, operating without a conditional use permit.
The unmitigated wildfire risk on the landfill property’s south slope under the water tank increases safety and health risks as state law does not apply for OHV activity on private property.
“We tried to make it a public area,” Osborne whined, “and the neighbors didn’t want that, so they got what they wanted. It’s not a public area.” “There’s no landslide risk,” Osborne claims. Just a small slough with “no steep terrain that poses no risk.”
But a Lookinglass neighbor named Nitta Minor wrote, “After the Lookingglass transfer site was shut down, my parents inquired about purchasing some of the property next to theirs. They were told, at the time, they couldn’t purchase any because of the landslides and the property not being safe. I think it’s strange that now, it’s all of a sudden safe enough to have OHV campground on the same place that was shut down because of the landslides and not safe enough for someone to extend their property”
The BOC claims they’re elected to serve the citizens, whose health and safety are of the highest importance. But the commissioners’ gift of a half million-dollar property to Osborne has only increased the risk of loss for the neighbors in Lookingglass.
In the event of an unforeseen calamity or landslide, the county commissioners’ collectively and individually bear the responsibility of the flagrant mismanagement of the former landfill site and the risk of loss and harm to life and property.
The county’s pursuit of this no-disclosure, non-transparent off-highway vehicle agenda is indeed suspicious. The property should have remained closed to public access and managed as a county-owned timber resource property, or allowed the county planning process to work as designed, allowing the planning commission make their hearing decision.
“The cold facts remains” Lookingglass neighbor Dave Geddes told the BOC in 2019, “that for a period of eight months, the county and the Lookingglass community was exposed to loss if an insurable loss happened.”
But the Lookingglass landfill deal is just one episode in an ongoing pattern of county commissioner corruption in which Virgle Osborne is the pivotal character. Osborne also championed a controversial rock quarry project near Idleyld Park, east of Glide, Oregon, forcing the plan through in 2021, despite nearly unanimous opposition from residents living near the site.
Neighbors raised concerns about noise, dust, safety, and environmental degradation but, predictably, Osborne was unresponsive and sided with developers—further evidence that when citizens speak, Osborne ignores them and aligns himself with moneyed interests and corporate power.
Neighbors in Idlewild condemned Osborne’s support of the infamous quarry project. One neighbor remembered the public hearing for the neighbors—an opportunity to express their concerns about the proposed rock quarry—“was a joke. When you have a commission selected by the BOC to carry out their agenda, the rights of the people—as well as the river—become meaningless. The outcome was decided before the hearing started.”
According to one county employee (who wishes to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation), commissioner Chris Boice had a grudge against a neighbor who lived in across from the proposed quarry site near Idleyld Park, and Osborne’s zeal to force its installation upon the neighbors was out of vengance for Boice.
In September of 2021, Osborne’s Lookinglass residence was within the boundaries of Oregon House District 1. But Osborne is so widely disliked in his region of the county, he knows he can’t get elected in his own district. So, the BOC arranged for redistricting.
When Osborne ran for Oregon House District 2 Representative in November 2022, his home had been miraculously gerrymandered into HD2.
But Osborne’s neighbors won’t vote for him.
Whether it’s quarry dust, dump methane, or dwindling fish populations and contaminated drinking water at the Winchester Dam, the rot and collusion are systemic.
Osborne’s infamous HB 3728 attempts to force working-class Oregonians to pay for upgrades to the Winchester Dam that will benefit a private entity—a few dozen privileged speedboat owners have hijacked the very public North Umpqua River as their private water ski lake from which the public is excluded, in a water control district operating without proper oversight and created illegally, in direct violation of ORS 553.020.
The Douglas County commissioners groomed Osborne to run for office in district other than the one in which he lives, how to acquire property without actually buying it, and how to order a study to buy time, obfuscate a quid pro quo, and ultimately transfer ownership of a very public river (and the deadbeat dam blocking it) to an individual.
Just as the BOC gave the 125-acre Lookinglass transfer station property to Virgle Osborne to avoid liability, Osborne may well arrange for the WWCD to give the Winchester Dam to Ryan Beckley as a way to rid themselves of the financial liability.
Never underestimate a carpetbagger.
