Concert Site No Music To Their Ears Plan To Develop Amphitheater Rubs Farmers’ Grain Wrong Way

Today, the field along McNeilly Road is quiet - a rolling landscape of barley stubble, chirping crickets and freshly plowed soil.

But this unnamed field, virtually indistinguishable from the vast expanse of wheat and barley all around, is Ground Zero in a battle between lifelong neighbors.

In June, California music promoter H. Thorp Minister III proposed turning the bowl-shaped draw, five miles west of Colfax, into a natural amphitheater for 10,000 concert fans. The concert area, irrigation pond and parking would cover 175 acres.

“I sense that the four-state area of Eastern Washington, Idaho, Northern Oregon and Western Montana is starved for any type of music entertainment,” Minister wrote to Whitman County.

But after a string of nearby outdoor concert debacles, many residents say they’re not starved at all.

They’re fed up.

Thirty wrote to the county and protested. Neighbors labeled it a “Field of Dreams.” Petitions in cafes around Colfax said it was “a danger to the atmosphere we want our children brought up in.”

County officials, who’d earlier said the project didn’t pose an environmental threat, changed their minds and demanded an environmental impact statement. The county hasn’t required an EIS on any project in at least 20 years, county planner Mark Bordsen said Tuesday.

Saying such an extensive review is expensive and unnecessary, Minister appealed the requirement Tuesday night, at a lengthy and contentious hearing attended by more than 80 people. The county commissioners will rule next Monday on whether an EIS is required.

Watching that decision closely will be Ginny Pittman and her husband, Jack. They are among the amphitheater’s closest neighbors, living about a quarter-mile away, in their home of 35 years. They’re horrified.

“It’s the undesirable people, and the marijuana, and the litter, and the beer bottles,” said Ginny Pittman.

“It’s not that we’re hicks. Most of us on this road are very well educated. But we know what progress is, and this ain’t it,” said Michael McNeilly, whose family homesteaded the area 105 years ago.

“Our back yards are a little bit bigger here,” he said, “but they’re still our back yards, and I don’t want people peeing on them.”

In the middle of the controversy are Bill and Lynn Nelson, longtime farmers who own the field.

The two met Minister last year, when Chevrolet rented their field to film a truck commercial.

“What they taught us is that you can do remarkable things in unlikely places,” said Lynn Nelson, 51.

“We’re not out to walk on anybody,” said Bill Nelson, 53.

He said most neighbors support it. He thinks it’s ludicrous the county wanted an environmental impact statement on the land, which is dry farmland.

“Do you see any water out here?” he said at the site. “Do you see any wildlife habitat?”

Minister, 37, of Venice, Calif., was a production assistant on the Chevy commercial. The topography of the draw makes it perfect for concerts, he feels.

Minister’s plan calls for 20 shows per summer. He’s hoping for revenues of about $10 million per year, on country, jazz and pop shows. He promises no heavy metal or hard rock.

Developing the site will cost about $750,000, Minister said.

“I’m talking to some high net-worth individuals to get the funding together,” he said.

People who’ve worked with Minister say he’s good at handling complicated logistics.

For eight years, Minister’s worked as a free-lance second assistant director and “key production assistant” on music videos, commercials and concert broadcasts for Picture Vision, a Nashville film company.

“While the titles don’t sound that impressive, if I needed anything done in Los Angeles, a lot of times I’d rely on Thorp to do everything for me,” said Tom Forrest, production head.

“Thorp’s forte is that he’s a great people person and he’s very tenacious,” said John Alden, of Santa Monica, Calif., who hired Minister to help develop marketing plans for his health products company.

Minister estimated the amphitheater would dump $300,000 a year into Whitman County coffers, plus untold thousands into motels, restaurants and gas stations.

The Colfax City Council, Whitman County Business Development Association and Port of Whitman like the idea.

“We need a little bit of growth,” said Glenn Myers of Colfax, who sells small airplanes. “They need to build a tax base, instead of just bleeding the one they’ve got.”

Colfax years ago had three grocery stores, he said; now it has one. It had three car dealers; now there are none. Tire shops, building supply stores and department stores have closed.

“This looks like pretty clean money to me,” said Myers. “It beats a prison.”

Project critics fear noise, traffic, litter and crime. They fear drunken driving and cigarette butts in the tinder-dry wheat fields. They’re skeptical any concert can draw 10,000 people to Colfax.

Alice Appel held up a recent newspaper clipping about the Gorge Amphitheater in George, Wash. The headline read, “Bonfire Ignites a Riot.”

“That’s what we’re afraid of,” she said quietly.

It doesn’t help that the man behind the idea is a Californian. Many see him as a carpetbagger, coming in to exploit the area for a quick buck.

“I don’t want some promoter from California coming up here and getting his hooks in Whitman County,” growled Fred McNeilly, 89, a county commissioner from 1959 to 1979.

But the root of their opposition, many critics admit, goes beyond traffic or litter.

It’s that the amphitheater would bring drastic change to an area that has changed little since the turn of the century.

“It’s kind of like having a diamond heirloom,” said Michael McNeilly. “You don’t show it to everyone. We know this area is priceless.”

Outdoor concerts have a bad reputation on the Palouse. In 1980, Washington State University’s Phi Delta Theta began hosting an annual back-to-school concert and party known as “Waterbust.” Eventually, the fraternity abandoned it as too wild, and by the final Waterbust in 1989, the event had become a massive drunk on the banks of the Snake River. Eight thousand partiers came, lobbing beer cans at cursing band members. Police were outmanned.

In 1993, then-Spokane County Commissioner Skip Chilberg allowed a 12,000-person “Greenstock” concert on 85 acres he owned near Kendrick, Idaho. Rain hit hard, stranding hundreds of cars in foot-deep muck. Officials declared the event - dubbed “Mudstock” - a disaster. Chilberg was fined $31,000 for allowing the concert on land made off-limits to prevent erosion.

The Nelsons say they’re frustrated by the opposition from people they’ve known for decades. Neighbors say they can’t believe the Nelsons would even consider the project.

“To me, they’re wonderful, nice people,” said Jeane McNeilly. “But I think they’re going to ruin the neighborhood.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Photos (1 Color); Map of proposed Whitman County amphitheater