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Page 8A OFF PAGE ONE East Oregonian Thursday, November 15, 2018 BUNDY: ‘My only goal in speaking is to give people a choice’ Continued from 1A happiness of human life,” the Modesto Bee reported. “My only goal in speak- ing is to give people a choice,” Bundy told the Statesman. He doesn’t feel like he had a choice — not “when you see an army come against your family.” “It pushes you to do something,” Bundy said. And when faced with the choice to stand against the federal government, Bundy said he’d do it again. “When a circumstance comes up, I believe that you’ll know and feel whether it’s time to stand or not. There is proof that saying no and meaning no (works). So if it comes to that, I’ll keep making that stand. Because that’s how I believe things are really changed,” he said. Bundy points to Martin Luther King Jr. and to Rosa Parks, both arrested in the pursuit of civil rights. “That is the way you change government,” Bundy said. Making a movement The Bundys have become the latest face of a movement that traces back to the Sagebrush Rebellion of the 1970s. But Ammon Bundy said he never meant for that to happen. That’s despite calling others to the Malheur Refuge through the Bundy Ranch web- site. And, it’s despite coun- seling other ranchers — like the Hammond family, whose imprisonment was at the center of the Mal- heur standoff — to stand their ground when the fed- eral government comes knocking. “I haven’t wanted to say I’m creating a movement or my family’s creating a movement. It was really just an effort to survive,” Bundy said. But that’s how many others in Idaho see it — supporters and critics alike. Mike Stickler is a Nevada consultant who was convicted of fraud and met Cliven Bundy in prison. Stickler wrote a book on the Bundys’ experience in Bunkerville, where fed- eral agents tried to round up Cliven Bundy’s cattle after he refused to pay fees for grazing them on federal land — to the tune of about $1 million, his lawyer esti- mated last year in an inter- view with the Las Vegas Sun. Market research con- ducted by Stickler’s pub- lisher for “Cliven Bundy: American Patriot” esti- mated those sympathetic with the family number around 500,000 nation- wide. Stickler believes that number is growing. “There’s Bundy fans and there’s Bundy haters,” Stickler said. “Then there’s this vast middle that just doesn’t know much about them.” The Bundys’ “fans” are fanatic. They’re savvy on the details. At an October stop in Marsing on Stick- ler’s book tour, the 30-plus attendees readily jumped into the discussion to talk trials, sentences and stand- offs. Some of them wit- nessed it firsthand. “I went up to (Malheur) to be peaceful, not to get into a gun battle,” said Rob- ert Jones after Stickler’s AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, file In this Jan 8, 2016, file photo, Burns resident Steve Atkins, left, talks with Ammon Bundy, center, one of the sons of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, following a news conference at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns. It’s been nearly three years since Bundy, 43, led a group of protesters to occupy the refuge, first in protest of the government’s treatment of a fellow ranching family, then in protest of federal land ownership. Bundy said his pri- ority now is spending time with his wife and six children. But remnants of the standoffs still bubble up each day. AP Photo/John Locher, File Kelsey Grey/Idaho Statesman via AP In this Dec. 20, 2017 file photo, Ammon Bundy walks out of a federal courthouse in Las Vegas. It’s been near- ly three years since Bundy, 43, led a group of protest- ers to occupy the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. In this Oct. 24, 2018, photo, Ammon Bundy’s son Bow- en, 12, helps his dad scoop apple filling into a home- made pie crust in Boise, Idaho. Bundy calls himself a “sunlight kind of guy.” presentation ended. “Now everything has changed.” Jones said all his mis- conceptions of the pro- testers operating a “crazy militia” went out the win- dow during his visit. The Bundys, he said, under- stood the frustrations he’d always had with govern- ment entities. “I would say that you have a movement among the people in the Northwest who feel disenfranchised,” said Kevin Miller, a friend of Ammon’s and a conser- vative talk show host on Boise’s 580 KIDO. “Their story resonates with the self-reliance (Ida- hoans have). Many people have dealt with the (Bureau of Land Management) and want to stand up like Cliven did,” Miller said. Erik Molvar, director of grazing watchdog West- ern Watersheds Project, said some ranchers are fol- lowing in Cliven Bundy’s footsteps. “It’s not just the Bun- dys. Trespass grazing is becoming increasingly rel- evant across the West, and the federal government is doing precious little to enforce the terms of its agreements with ranchers,” Molvar said. The outcome of the Bundys’ trials, he said, “make others feel that there is a lack of enforce- ment out there, and that’s problematic.” Polarizing principles The Bundy family’s core view of federal land owner- ship has been rejected mul- tiple times in U.S. courts. But it resonates with cer- tain Idahoans already wor- ried about government you can’t expect the rule of law to work for you,” he told the Statesman while Bundy still held the Mal- heur refuge in January 2016. Stickler, however, said he believes those who don’t accept the Bundys’ views on the law can still find common ground. “If you don’t agree with their constitutional stand, that’s fine. But you should be upset about what (law enforcement and prosecu- tors) did to them,” he said, referencing the miscon- duct during the Bunkerville trial. Backcountry Hunters & Anglers doesn’t see it that way. The 20,000-member organization, which held its annual rendezvous in Boise in April, strongly rejects the Bundys’ arguments and helped protest a Montana visit by Cliven Bundy in January. “I grew up on a ranch,” Ryan Busse, the organiza- tion’s national board chair- man, said in a press release about the protest. “When someone stole things or grazed cattle on a place they did not have per- mission, we called them thieves.” “Some people would see (the mistrial) as a proc- lamation that the Bun- dys are right,” Josh Kuntz, regional director for the group’s Idaho chapter, told the Statesman. “But there are legal reasons that it’s declared a mistrial.” The ‘right way’ to do things Ammon Bundy knows the standoffs likely lost his family some supporters; that the method wasn’t a overreach. “I think our government has gotten so far away from its purpose in every aspect of our lives,” said Thelma Davis, a family friend of the Bundys who now lives in Caldwell. Davis attended Stickler’s Marsing book tour date and later spoke to the Statesman via phone. “Everything we start to do (on our land), the gov- ernment tells us we can’t do it. You own the land, but the government controls it,” Davis said. Marlene Moore, of Marsing, also attended Stickler’s talk. In a phone interview, she said she backs the Bundys com- pletely. In an interview that referenced a long-running conspiracy theory involv- ing the U.N., Moore said she worries private land will be seized by the gov- ernment and rural Idaho- ans will be slowly pushed toward urban centers. “The government, the BLM think they own these lands, and they don’t,” Moore said. “If we allow the government to continue in this manner, it’s going to affect all property.” Federal skepticism is a bedrock of Idaho politics, but most don’t follow it to the extent the Bundys do. While in Congress, cur- rent Gov. Butch Otter reg- ularly resisted new Idaho wilderness proposals. But as governor, he’s opposed to transferring Idaho’s fed- eral lands to state owner- ship and has recently sup- ported collaborating with the Forest Service and other agencies on lands issues. “If you are not going to obey the rule of law, then perfect means of getting the message out. But he said he sees both incidents as nec- essary and the outcomes of both trials as victories, con- firmation of the innocence he and his fellow protest- ers claimed all along. Fur- ther, he said, he can’t take his complaints about a cor- rupt government to a court- room and judge he views as equally corrupt. “The Bundys may feel that they did (things) civ- illy. I think that was an escalated conflict. But it’s difficult, and that is a per- spective that is certainly subjective,” Perry said. “I don’t necessarily agree with the way they went about it, but I don’t fault them for their choice.” She said their frustra- tion is something she hears from her own constituents, a feeling that the govern- ment is shirking its respon- sibility to work for its peo- ple. They’re the people who champion the Bun- dys’ decision to “say no,” as Ammon puts it. Even other ranchers have criticized the Bundy family’s methods. In 2016, then-leader of the Idaho Cattle Association Wayne Prescott told KTVB he believed the refuge occu- piers had some good points — but their “takeover of buildings at the wildlife ref- uge is not representative of our ranching community.” “Eighty percent of the people (who support them) share the view that the Bun- dys are heroes. The vocal 20 percent believe they should’ve gone through the process (before the stand- offs),” KIDO’s Miller said. Kuntz said supporters themselves are just a small, vocal minority in the West. But he worries about the makeup of the group. “It’s concerning to see some Idaho legislators sup- port (the Bundys’ stance) when evidence shows peo- ple are happy with the cur- rent (land management) system,” Kuntz said. Still, he thinks the stand- offs have done more good than harm when it comes to public lands policy. “Due to the publicity, it helped the public under- stand what they have. A lot of people may have been taking (public lands) for granted, so this can remind them there are people who would try to strip that away,” Kuntz said. A standoff of ideas Ammon Bundy said Kuntz’s interpretation is just another of the misun- derstandings he’s tried to combat since the Bunker- ville incident. “I’ve had to almost get calloused to people just not understanding, because there hasn’t been a whole lot better way (to explain it),” Bundy said. “Either they won’t listen, or you just can’t get them (that much) information. I think that if intelligent people would look at the situation and put aside their biases for just a little bit, they would see the true danger not only to us and the agri- cultural community, but also to them.” That’s why he thinks education is his way to pro- pel the “non-movement” forward and avoid what he sees as the true danger to the American people: fed- eral overreach. His brother Ryan, another main figure in both standoffs, ran for governor of Nevada where he earned 13,787 votes as an Independent candidate, or about 1.5 percent. In addition to speak- ing engagements, Ammon Bundy has thought about social media as a tool, pointing to the millions of views on the Bundy Ranch Facebook page and pro- testers’ YouTube accounts during the Malheur occu- pation. It’s one means of getting word out directly to skeptics, but Molvar isn’t sure that will help the Bun- dys’ cause. “I don’t think the Bun- dys are misunderstood at all. If anything, I think peo- ple understand the Bundys all too well,” he said. Even with frustrated Westerners on his side and new avenues through which to share his views, Bundy may find himself in another standoff — an intellectual one, where he and his fam- ily refuse to budge on their interpretation of the Con- stitution and many Ameri- cans refuse to consider it as a valid viewpoint. “Just because I believe I have the right to do some- thing doesn’t mean that I do,” Kuntz said. Bundy said he’s confi- dent that people can come to understand him as long as he shines a light on his experiences and lets every- thing be seen. “I’m fine with what peo- ple conclude, but now when their conclusions are made without the proper informa- tion. You can’t force people to love you,” he said. “You can’t force people to even like you.” FINES: On Tuesday, the city council also approved a plan for sidewalk infill Continued from 1A than $1,000 for each day of the offense.” On Tuesday, the council also approved a plan for side- walk infill. Assistant City Manager Mark Morgan said over the summer an intern from Anderson Perry & Associ- ates created an inventory of every sidewalk in the city, creating a map that shows gaps in the city’s sidewalk system. The city has required developers to add sidewalks to developments since the 1970s, so Morgan said gaps around town are in front of undeveloped lots or proper- ties developed prior to the 1970s. The city attempted a pilot program offering to match between 30 and 75 percent of the cost of a sidewalk on properties in the Newport Park neighborhood and got “exactly zero interest,” Mor- gan said. The question now is whether the city wanted to pay for sidewalks in high-traffic areas. “It is going to be diffi- cult to look developers in the eye and say ‘You’re going to have to put in a sidewalk, but we did just pay for one in front of this property,’” he said. On the other hand, Mor- gan said, there were sec- tions in town where a home- owner had little incentive to shell out thousands of dol- lars for a sidewalk but the public would greatly bene- fit from the increase acces- sibility and safety. He used the example of a property on Orchard Avenue near the post office where pedestrians had to choose between walk- ing on the street or on some- one’s grass. Morgan recommended the city begin budgeting $30,000 for projects on main roads with high foot traffic, where filling in “bite-sized pieces” of sidewalk would create long interrupted sidewalks. The first recommended proj- ect would be four small sections of Orchard Ave- nue during the 2019-20 fis- cal year. Morgan also rec- ommended that the city use private contractors so that the street department’s time wouldn’t be tied up. Mayor David Drotzmann asked if corporations located along sidewalk-free areas, such as Elm Avenue and First Place, could be asked to contribute money toward sidewalks. Morgan said the city could always ask if they would be interested in a part- nership with the city. Councilor Roy Barron asked if the city would con- sider a larger project around Sandstone Middle School, where he has heard com- plaints about the lack of side- walks for children walking to school. Smith said the city has applied for some Safe Routes to Schools grants that could help with larger proj- ects like that. The council unanimously approved the recommenda- tion to start budgeting money each year for sidewalk infill. On Tuesday the coun- cil also heard a short update from Umatilla Electric Coop- erative CEO Robert Ech- enrode. He said UEC is the 10th-fastest growing elec- tric cooperative in the nation in terms of kWh sold and its workforce has increased 20 percent since 2010. He said the cooperative’s rates are 38 percent below the national average. “We have a distinct advan- tages in the area, and we hope to be able to continue to leverage that,” he said. ——— Contact Jade McDow- ell at jmcdowell@eastorego- nian.com or 541-564-4536.
