A8
SUNRISE IRON
DISPLAYING MORE ANTIQUE TRACTORS .
Enterprise, Oregon
www.wallowa.com
Issue No. 15
July 29, 2015
$1
Grazing permittees to FS: Plan needs work
By Kathleen Ellyn
Wallowa County Chieftain
The truth is on the ground.
That was a phrase that was
repeated several times during
the Monday night gathering
of grazing permittees and For-
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The statement referred to
the disconnect ranchers saw
between what was really hap-
pening in the forests on graz-
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ings and tone of the Proposed
Revised Land Management
Plan for the Blue Mountains
National Forests.
The message apparently
got through with Forestry of-
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Kathleen Ellyn/Chieftain
A cow and calf on the Scott McClaran grazing allottment.
number of issues raised in the
discussion and to change the
anti-grazing bias in the lan-
guage of the plan to better re-
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City moves
forward on
hiring chief
By Kathleen Ellyn
Wallowa County Chieftain
The City of Enterprise is moving forward to hire
a new Chief of Police.
That was the decision made at the special meet-
ing Tuesday night in a vote of four to two.
Councilor Jenni Word was out of town, but was
able to participate in the discussion over the phone
before the connection was lost. She was not able to
re-establish connection in time to vote.
The councilors who opposed the move, Dave
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tigate alternative contracts to make sure they were
spending tax money on the best deal.
“I’m not in favor of moving forward without
getting everything on the table,” Elliott said.
“I think we’re putting the cart before the horse,”
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with the county on what they can do for us.”
Other councilors, however, had done some pri-
vate investigation of how the process worked in
other small towns and felt sure there would be no
savings.
“It is my understanding that we will not remote-
ly get the service we want (from the county),” said
Councilor Laura Miller.
Word, participating by phone, said that she had
personally talked to Wallowa County Sheriff Steve
Rogers and “he is not excited about taking on the
contract.”
Mayor Steve Lear advised that the county would
simply look at the money available and make a bid
in line with that. “Whatever our budget is, is what
it will cost,” Lear said.
Furthermore, said Councilor Stacey Karvoski,
by moving to the county as a police force, the city
would lose control of their police force and be un-
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Councilors in favor of moving forward at once
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served good leadership immediately.
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without adequate support,” Word said.
Lear called a city police force “a foundation” of
a good city, “like a good school system,” he said.
See CHIEF, Page A5
grazing plans.
Oregon House Dist. 58
Rep. Greg Barreto, county
commissioners Susan Roberts
and Mike Hayward, members
of the coun-
ty’s Nation-
al Resource
Advisory
Committee
(NRAC), for-
est and range-
land rangers
Montoya
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and
more
than two dozen permittees at-
tended the meeting. The dis-
cussion was open, frank and
well-ordered.
The July 20 meeting was
called to give permittees the
chance to respond to the near-
ly eight pounds of documents
that constitute the Draft Envi-
ronmental Impact Statement
and Proposed Revised Land
Management Plan for the
Blue Mountains National For-
ests. The county commission-
ers and their NRAC advisors
had already submitted a coun-
ty plan and numerous letters
during the comment period on
the plan.
Many permittees read that
compendium closely, and re-
sented the tone of the tome
and the sheer volume of what
they say is bad science and
bad data.
“(As permittees) you’re
overwhelmed with data,”
said third-generation rancher
Mack Birkmaier. “If it wasn’t
for our good county court and
National Resource Advisory
Committee who will, thank
God, pursue these (issues)
with intelligence and science
and defend us, we’d be in a lot
of trouble.”
At issue for the permittees
is what they say is the docu-
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ization of grazing as “bad,”
the apparent reliance on stud-
ies that are decades out of
date, and a focus on all the
wrong issues.
Addressing the double is-
sue of tone and bad science,
rancher and NRAC member
Cynthia Warnock blasted the
documents. “It was like you
were looking at data from 20
years ago,” Warnock said.
See GRAZING, Page A7
‘RABBITS, RIBBONS
& ROSES’
IT’S OUR 2015 FAIR!
Courtesy photo
Members of the 2015 Wallowa County 4-H Court — from left, Georgia Falk, Deidre Schreiber, and Teagan Miller — will be at
the Wallowa County Fair each day of the fair, from beginning to end.
Events start this Saturday
By Rob Ruth
Wallowa County Chieftain
ENTERPRISE — What may be Wal-
lowa County’s oldest community tradi-
tion, the Wallowa County Fair, opens for
its annual week-plus stretch of activities
on Saturday, Aug. 1. This year’s theme
is “Rabbits, Ribbons & Roses.”
Showcasing everything from 4-H
kids’ animal projects to the best of the
home arts from people of all ages, the
fair is a fun and rewarding way to expe-
rience the products of rural folks’ labors.
All activities take place at the Wal-
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petition on the fair calendar is Saturday’s
4-H Dog Show, which starts at 9 a.m.
The fair wraps up eight days later, with
the 4-H/FFA Livestock Sale beginning at
6 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 8.
Sandwiched between the Dog Show
NYT columnist looks
at present, past Joseph
Residents have mixed
feelings about article
By Chieftain Staff
As Wallowa County was
preparing to enjoy the an-
nual Tamkaliks Celebration
and the 70th annual Chief
Joseph Days that would fol-
low a week later, a New
York Times column by Se-
attle-based writer Timothy
Egan was capturing wide-
spread attention.
The column, published
in the Times July 17 and re-
published July 20 by the East
Oregonian (read it online at
tinyurl.com/q3yf3uj), extols
Joseph, Oregon, for being de-
cidedly unlike a large number
of U.S. small towns, which
are “unhappy.” Joseph, Egan
writes, represents “a labora-
tory of hope for small-town
America.”
He makes that observa-
tion, he says, after recently
visiting Joseph and compar-
ing the way it is now to how
the town seemed to him when
he visited 17 years ago.
Cheiftain archives
See COLUMN, Page A7
Liza Jane McAlister of 6
Ranch, Enterprise.
and Livestock Sale are numerous other
highlights, including:
• 4-H Horse Show, starting Sunday at
8 a.m. Grand champion showman class
is at 6 p.m. The Horse Show continues
Monday and Tuesday at those same
times.
• 4-H/FFA Livestock entries weigh-in
Wednesday from 2 to 6 p.m.
See FAIR, Page A5
True-crime writer
Ann Rule dies
By the Associated Press and the
Wallowa County Chieftain
SEATTLE (AP) — True-
crime writer Ann Rule, who
wrote more than 30 books,
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mer co-worker, serial killer
Ted Bundy, has died at age
83.
Rule died at Highline
Medical Center at 10:30 p.m.
Sunday, said Scott Thomp-
son, a spokesman for CHI
Franciscan Health. Rule’s
daughter, Leslie Rule, said on
Facebook that her mother had
many health issues, including
congestive heart failure.
“My mom died peacefully
last night,” Leslie Rule wrote.
“She got to see all of her chil-
dren, grandchildren and great
grandchildren.”
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“The Stranger Beside Me,”
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got to know while sharing the
late shift at a Seattle suicide
hotline. She has said she had
a contract to write about an
unknown serial killer before
her co-worker was charged
with the crimes.
Rule, who went to work
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Department when she was
21, began writing for maga-
zines like “True Detective”
in 1969. A biography on her
author website says she has
published more than 1,400
articles, mostly on criminal
cases.
See RULE, Page A8