The BulleTin • Friday, January 8, 2021 A3
LOCAL, STATE & REGION
OREGON STATE CAPITOL
State Police warn against armed takeover
The Associated Press
SALEM — The Oregon State Police said it
is aware of “rumors” that armed groups are
considering taking over the state Capitol and
warned that anyone attempting that would
be arrested.
The agency also asked Oregonians in a
brief statement released late Wednesday
to report anyone who may be planning an
armed takeover to authorities.
Hundreds of supporters of President
Donald Trump — many of them armed
— gathered Wednesday at the statehouse
and burned a life-size puppet of Gov. Kate
Brown, a Democrat, in effigy. Police in riot
gear declared an unlawful assembly and
cleared the demonstrators by the late after-
noon.
One person was arrested on suspicion of
harassment and disorderly conduct during
the protest. A second man was arrested on
trespassing charges after the protest when
state troopers found him after nightfall try-
ing to enter the Capitol while armed.
The pro-Trump crowd was rallying
around false allegations of election fraud
on the same day that that an angry mob
stormed the U.S. Capitol in Washington,
D.C. Some of those in attendance were
members of Proud Boys, a far-right wing
group.
Prior to the protests, state office buildings
around the Capitol were closed as authorities
prepared for crowds and potential damage.
Salem has been the site of weekly protests
since the November election and has seen
violent clashes between pro-Trump demon-
strators who falsely believe the election was
stolen from him and opponents.
Dave Killen/The Oregonian via AP
Supporters of President Donald Trump burn in effigy Oregon Gov. Kate Brown during a protest at the Oregon Capitol on Wednesday in Salem as Congress
convened to confirm the Electoral College vote won by President-elect Joe Biden. The Oregon State Police said in a statement late Wednesday that the
agency is aware of “rumors” that armed groups are considering taking over the Capitol and warned that anyone attempting that would be arrested.
Washington, Oregon, 29 tribes
sue over plan to move archives
BY GENE JOHNSON
The Associated Press
SEATTLE — Washington,
Oregon, more than two dozen
Native American and Alaska
Native tribes and cultural
groups from the Northwest are
suing the federal government
to stop the sale of the National
Archives building in Seattle, a
plan that would force the relo-
cation of millions of invaluable
historical records to California
and Missouri.
The government is planning
to sell the vast warehouse un-
der a law aimed at unloading
excess federal property, but
the lawsuit filed in U.S. Dis-
trict Court on Monday says
the building is anything but
“excess.” It contains irreplace-
able documents dating to the
1840s and is used all the time
for research about everything
from tribal history to Japanese
internment during World War
II and fur seal hunts on remote
Alaskan islands.
“This is the DNA of our re-
gion,” Washington Attorney
General Bob Ferguson told an
online news conference Mon-
day. “These are documents that
are not digitized. Moving them
a thousand miles away essen-
tially and effectively eliminates
public access to these critical
documents.”
The National Archives
building is one of a dozen
properties around the coun-
try, collectively valued at $500
million to $750 million, iden-
tified for sale by the Public
Buildings Reform Board. The
Reed Saxon/AP file
A sea otter in Morro Bay, California, in 2010.
Alan Berner/The Seattle Times file
The National Archives on Sand Point, Washington, has about a million
boxes of generally unique, original source documents and public records.
board initially intended to sell
the properties individually, but
has announced that due to the
COVID-19 pandemic’s effect
on the commercial real estate
market, it will offer the build-
ings early this year for an expe-
dited sale as a single portfolio.
The records would be
moved to National Archives
facilities in Kansas City and in
Riverside, California.
The Seattle building has a
reported $2.4 million mainte-
nance backlog and costs more
than $350,000 a year to oper-
ate, but sits on land that would
be prime for residential de-
velopment, with views of the
Cascade Mountains and Lake
Washington.
The sale is opposed by all
eight U.S. senators and many
representatives from Alaska,
Idaho, Oregon and Washing-
ton.
“The records stored in Se-
attle’s Federal Archives are vi-
tal to telling the story of the
Pacific Northwest’s history,”
Washington Sen. Patty Murray,
the third-most-senior Dem-
ocrat in the Senate, said in an
emailed statement Monday. “I
look forward to working with
the incoming Biden-Harris
Administration to explore ev-
ery option available, including
the appropriations process, to
ensure that they remain acces-
sible to local stakeholders.”
The lawsuit says the Seattle
archives is ineligible for sale
under the Federal Assets Sale
and Transfer Act, which ex-
empts buildings used for re-
search in connection with fed-
eral agricultural, recreational
or conservation programs.
Among other things, the law-
suit noted, the archives are
used for research under federal
historical preservation pro-
grams and to litigate land use,
water rights and conservation
issues.
Pacific sea otter reintroduction
gets a nudge from Congress
The Associated Press
PORTLAND — President
Donald Trump on Wednesday
signed this year’s federal bud-
get, which includes a directive
to study sea otter reintroduc-
tion in the Pacific Northwest.
Democratic U.S. Sen. Jeff
Merkley for Oregon added
the paragraph to the federal
budget bill that directs the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service to
study the feasibility and cost
of reestablishing the marine
mammals where they were
once hunted to near-extinc-
tion along the Pacific Coast in
Oregon and Washington, the
Northwest News Network re-
ported.
“I’m very pleased. This is
very timely,” said Bob Bailey,
who leads the Elakha Alliance,
a group that wants to bring
wild sea otters back to Ore-
gon. His organization, named
after the Clatsop-Chinookan
word for sea otter, prompted
congressional action and al-
ready launched its own feasi-
bility study based in Oregon.
He said the directive will
help the government devise a
strategic approach to conserv-
ing and protecting sea otters
on the Pacific Coast.
Sea otters were hunted to
local extinction as part of the
fur trade in the 18th and 19th
centuries, but small popula-
tions survived off the coasts of
central California and western
Alaska, officials said.
The mammals were suc-
cessfully reintroduced to
Washington, Canada and
southeast Alaska about 50
years ago, but the ones rein-
troduced in Oregon have not
repopulated the region. The
Elakha Alliance is now col-
laborating with coastal tribes
and researchers to reexamine
why previous efforts failed in
Oregon.
Some have said sea otters
could boost tourism and bring
ecological benefits. Others, in
the fishing industry, have ar-
gued that their return could
mean less Dungeness crab,
Oregon’s most valuable com-
mercial fishery, and one of the
mammals’ food options.
The signed directive to the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife service
did not include any additional
funding to conduct the federal
feasibility study to produce a
report by next December. The
Elakha Alliance said its own
feasibility study could provide
“significant technical support”
for the federal effort.
“A feasibility study will
gather needed scientific infor-
mation that will help make the
best possible decision for sea
otter recovery,” U.S. Fish and
Wildlife spokesperson Jodie
Delavan said. “It is purely ex-
ploratory and does not imply
a decision on whether to rein-
troduce sea otters.”
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