REGION
Friday, January 29, 2016
East Oregonian
Page 3A
Showdown further polarizes federal land debate
Experts say incident
likely to reinforce
opinions on both sides
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
and ERIC MORTENSON
EO Media Group
The showdown between federal
agents and armed militants in
Southeast Oregon will likely further
polarize the public over the manage-
ment of federal lands, experts say.
For some, the recent killing of
an armed protester and arrests of
several others will buttress the view
they were extremist militants with
unrealistic goals.
For others, the government’s
actions and its siege of remaining
protesters occupying the Malheur
National Wildlife Refuge will
con¿rm fears of persecution by
federal agencies.
Whether the standoff will
ultimately lead to changes in the
federal government’s oversight of
the West’s vast public lands is also
subject to varying interpretations.
Char Miller, an environmental
analysis professor at Pomona
College, said that Ammon Bundy
and the other armed protesters
miscalculated the public’s reaction
to the occupation.
The national attention may have
boosted the protester’s egos, but it
also created a backlash against using
the threat of violence to inÀuence
federal land policy, Miller said.
“What they’ve done is really hurt
those with legitimate beefs with the
federal government about how the
land should be managed,” he said.
In the public’s mind, the
protesters’ hostile tactics have been
conÀated with the goal of increasing
local control over federal property,
which weakens their case in the
political arena, he said.
“If they wanted an uprising in
Congress, they just made it that
much harder,” Miller said.
The protesters’ actions won’t
bolster attempts to transfer federal
land to the states, which already
had legitimacy among conservative
lawmakers in multiple state legis-
latures before the refuge takeover,
said Martin Nie, a natural resource
policy professor at the University of
Montana.
“They’re less of a spectacle and
should be taken more seriously,” Nie
said.
The philosophy of Bundy and his
followers, meanwhile, is entangled
with far-right interpretations of the
U.S. Constitution and the power of
county sheriffs but does not offer
any serious proposals for changing
federal land policy, he said.
“I don’t think this spectacle has
helped that cause at all,” he said.
Among people who were uneasy
about excessive federal authority,
though, recent events will likely
reinforce the notion that the govern-
ment is out-of-control, said Mark
Pollot, an attorney who is ¿ghting
federal agencies in court on behalf
of deceased Nevada rancher Wayne
Hage.
Left-wing protests, such as
“Occupy Wall Street,” invaded
private property and were more
disruptive than the refuge standoff
but did not elicit a similarly strong-
armed reaction from the federal
government, he said.
Pollot said that distrust of the
government will particularly rise
if there are indications that federal
PENDLETON
Committee takes a look at school
sidewalks and public transit
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
Tasked with updating the
Pendleton
Transportation
System Plan, a team of city
staff and consultants have
moved past identifying Pend-
leton’s transportation issues
at-large and onto creating a
list of speci¿c options the city
could use.
The team’s next step will
be to whittle down dozens of
pedestrian, bike and public
transit options into something
the city could feasibly address.
The plan’s advisory
committee met Tuesday to
discuss those options.
One of the goals of the
update is to provide more safe
routes for children to walk to
school, especially given that
sidewalks are lacking around
many Pendleton schools.
For instance, the section
of Southwest 31st Street
between Hailey Avenue and
Marshall Avenue is a common
travel route for Sherwood
Heights Elementary School,
despite not having a sidewalk.
The consultants suggested
either building sidewalks on
both sides of 31st or installing
a raised barrier on the south
side of the street to give kids
a safe place to walk without
breaking the bank.
The consultants also
suggested improving travel
routes around Pendleton High
School, West Hills Interme-
diate School and Sunridge
Middle School by either
adding sidewalks, improving
existing infrastructure or
formalizing the informal
“goat paths” students have
already been using to get to
and from school.
Public transit was also
a topic of discussion at the
meeting.
A public transit survey
conducted by the city revealed
that residents are supportive
of increasing mass transit
opportunities,
especially
intercity transportation and a
Pendleton circulator line.
While the consultants
didn’t recommend the city
expand intercity options
beyond what the tribally-run
Kayak Public Transit is
already doing, they did see
the possibility of offering
¿xed or Àex route services.
Stephanie Wright, a
senior associate with transit
consultant Nelson/Nygaard,
said Pendleton’s current
on-demand Let’Er Bus
transit was already well
run — the service operated
on a $226,549 budget, with
the city covering about 10
percent while state grants and
fare paid for the rest.
On the other hand, demand
was outstripping supply as
the city frequently runs out of
the vouchers used to ride on
Let’Er Bus.
One suggestion was to
create a ¿xed route that ran
north and south while Kayak
continued to run buses that
go east and west, ground it
already covers well.
Such a move would
require a larger operating
budget, something that City
Finance Director Linda
Carter said the city wouldn’t
be able to afford.
“It’s not on the city coun-
cil’s radar right now,” she
said.
Wright said the ¿xed route
service didn’t need to be as
comprehensive as the consul-
tants’ suggestion and the city
could instead opt for a hybrid
approach of on-demand and
¿xed route.
J.D. Tovey, the Confed-
erated Tribes of the Umatilla
Indian Reservation planning
director, said Kayak’s Mission
Metro line already spends a
lot of time in Pendleton and
draws funding from the same
pot of money as Pendleton
does. He said the city and the
tribes could leverage their
funding together to poten-
tially expand services.
As it stands now, the list
of proposals is several pages
long and covers millions of
dollars worth of projects.
Matt Hughart, an asso-
ciate planner with Kittelson
& Associates, said the
consulting team would be
back in two weeks to gather
more public input from resi-
dents and students and hold
another advisory committee
meeting to discuss funding
options.
After that, the consultants
will work with city staff over
a three to four week period to
¿nalize the plan.
———
Contact Antonio Sierra at
asierra@eastoregonian.com
or 541-966-0836.
agents overreacted during the
arrests and did not have to shoot
the protesters’ spokesman, LaVoy
Finicum.
If nothing else, the confrontation
will show that Western land policy is
more than a minor issue and deserves
Congressional attention, Pollot said.
“It will add some weight to the
debate,” he said.
On the other hand, there’s the risk
of a shift away from the political and
legal channels that critics such as
Wayne Hage have traditionally used
in the “Sagebrush Rebellion” against
federal land policy, he said.
“I’m concerned there will be
people who will now think that’s
worthless,” Pollot said.
The restrictions placed on
ranchers have gained visibility
in Washington, D.C., Salem and
Portland, but that doesn’t mean they
will be changed, said Bruce Weber,
director of Oregon State University’s
Rural Studies Program.
It’s unclear how the existence of a
perceived “martyr for the cause” will
change the situation, Weber said.
“People who believe the Consti-
tution prohibits federal ownership
and management of those particular
lands won’t change their minds,” he
said.
Concerns about growing federal
restrictions on public lands long
predate the refuge occupation and
will likely continue even if the
current conÀict is resolved.
Bob Skinner, a ¿fth-generation
cattle rancher in the Jordan Valley
area, heads a group opposed to the
proposed Owyhee Canyonlands
wilderness and conservation area,
which would cover 2.5 million acres
in Oreogn’s Malheur County.
The designation would severely
regulate or prohibit grazing and
Sherman County wind farm wins safety award
East Oregonian
WASCO — A Sherman County wind
farm was recognized on Wednesday for
completing its ¿rst year in the Oregon
OSHA Safety and Health Achievement
Recognition Program, or SHARP.
Portland General Electric’s Biglow
Canyon Wind Farm includes nine employees
and 217 wind farms spread across 25,000
acres of wheat ¿elds. The wind farm is
one of about 32 locations that currently
participate in SHARP, an incentive program
for employers to work with their employees
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to ¿nd and correct safety hazards.
“The SHARP program is important
to use because it is driven and owned by
the employees,” said Ken Brock, safety
coordinator for PGE’s generating plants
in Eastern Oregon. “It continues to push
people to look for something better or think
outside the box instead of settling for the
‘we are good enough’ mindset.”
Oregon employers that have been in
business for more than one year are eligible
to apply for SHARP, regardless of size or
type of business. A business “graduates”
from SHARP after ¿ve years in the program.
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other activities on an area that is
bigger than Yellowstone National
Park and covers 40 percent of
Malheur County.
Skinner said his worst fear is that
the arrests of several protesters and
the death of Finicum will “activate”
people who hold similar anti-gov-
ernment views.
Even so, the incident has brought
more visibility to Western concerns
over public land.
“I can’t help but think it’s brought
some awareness to government
over-reach, that might have some
impact,” Skinner said.
Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore.,
compared the standoff in southeast
Oregon to the “Black Lives Matter”
movement, which arose in reaction
to conÀicts between law enforce-
ment and the black community.
“Rural America faces the same
lack of recognition,” Schrader said.
There’s a “palpable sense” that
government policy has focused on
the economic welfare of urban areas
while overlooking rural areas, he
said.
As to the effect of the occupation
on the federal land debate, Schrader
said the impact is uncertain.
While people sympathize with
the hardships faced in the rural West,
the occupation has also shown they
have no appetite for lawlessness, he
said.
Schrader said he and other
members of Oregon’s Congressional
delegation are pushing to reform
overly restrictive rules on grazing
and logging while protecting the
environment on federal property.
“The scales have tipped so far
to the left that you can barely do
anything there, it’s so cost-prohibi-
tive,” he said. “We’ve got to change
the federal policy.”
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