A4
Opinion
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
L ETTERS TO THE E DITOR
Don’t act negatively
out of high emotion
G UEST C OMMENT
Lands managers
Yalue input
A
s employees of
federal land agencies
in Oregon, we are
entrusted by Congress with
the responsibility to help
steward and manage federal
lands for all Americans This
is a tremendous honor and
responsibility we take seriously
And we can¶t do it alone
As public lands belong to
all Americans, managing these
lands is a collectiYe effort It is
a priYilege to work alongside
local communities, partners and
the public to help achieYe the
long-term health, productiYity
and protection of public lands
Here in the Paci¿ c
Northwest, and across the
country, our best work is
accomplished by working
with diYerse partners and
stakeholders — ranchers,
enYironmentalists, sportsmen,
local communities, schools and
priYate industries
Though our agencies haYe
different missions, we share
a common goal of managing
public lands in a cooperatiYe
manner with you, the people
who own them
The future management
of public lands reTuires
cooperation oYer confrontation
In Oregon and across the West,
there are countless examples of
collaboratiYe groups working
together to achieYe positiYe
results
One recent shining example
was the work accomplished
across agencies, states, counties
and ownership lines to create
and implement land-use plans
that aYoided a listing of the
sage-grouse as
endangered
Managing public
lands is sometimes
challenging There
are a Yariety of
Jamie
uses, interests and
Connell
opinions on how
these lands should
be managed, and
¿ nding balance
is not without
challenges
That is why it
Jim
is
crucial
that we
Peña
listen to each other,
¿ nd common ground and work
together to ¿ nd common-sense
solutions IndiYidually and
collectiYely, we are committed
to these principles of listening,
talking and working together to
achieYe the greatest good We
striYe for these things in good
faith eYery day
Public lands belong to all
Americans — they are yours
to enjoy and participate in their
management That¶s one of
the reasons public lands are so
special
We look forward to
continuing our work with local
citi]ens, communities and
partners to manage public lands
so we can ensure the special
places we loYe can meet the
needs of today and remain
aYailable for future generations
to enjoy
Jamie Connell is the acting
State Director, Bureau of
Land Management Oregon/
Washington. Jim Peña is the
Regional Forester for the
U.S. Forest Service¶s Paci¿ c
Northwest Region.
To the Editor:
My husband and I were raised in
Grant County and hope to retire there
one day We haYe liYed in Pany ar-
eas across the US and still ¿ nd Grant
County one of the safest, most peace-
ful areas in the country Many things I
haYe read haYe made my blood boil to
the point it would be easy to say some
nasty things, but that would be playing
into the adYersaries¶ hands
Many people with an ax to grind
haYe written things to scare you into
belieYing Sheriff Glenn Palmer is not
acting in a wise or legal manner Use
your own Nnowledge to elect your of¿ -
cials Be smart, people of Grant Coun-
ty, and use your Yoice by Yoting Re-
spect all that Sheriff Glenn Palmer has
done for you by remaining respectful
NegatiYe rhetoric is so hard to hear, but
free speech is eYeryone¶s right, a right
Sheriff Glenn Palmer respects and
upholds Let your emotion get you in-
YolYed in eYery meeting, Yoting, write
factual letters to the editor and Coun-
ty Court, unite your community and
county, Must don¶t fall into the trap of
acting negatiYely out of high emotion
Grant County needs strong, smart
and stable leadership right now (not
ones that carry picNet signs to an eYent
of opposing Yiews When my mother-
in-law was sick and took a turn for the
worst Sheriff Glenn Palmer was wor-
ried that my father-in-law would driYe
too fast trying to get down the slick
roads of Canyon Creek, so he droYe up
and got him Glenn and his wife spon-
sor a dinner each Christmas for people
who haYe no family near to share that
day with that¶s the kind of person I
challenge you to be right now Each
one of you can keep Grant County,
Oregon, one of the great places to liYe
you haYe the power and the abilities
to do your part It is said the sTueaky
wheel gets the grease, but it is also
said actions speak louder than words
7hose who haYe falsely accused or
write falsehoods for their own purpose
cannot win if you stand uni¿ ed
Charity Boyer
Moses Lake, Washington
Fire accountability?
To the Editor:
Recently, there was a letter to the
editor about further inYestigation
into what could be done to bring
accountability and change to the
awful destruction from the “let it
burn´ ¿ res Could it be true" Such
a huge undertaking to confront the
entrenched bureaucracy, especial-
ly when the buck gets passed until
it becomes inYisible, and no one is
held accountable for awful, ridic-
ulous decisions that impact us all
with the deYastation we haYe to liYe
with for decades
EYery driYe from Prairie City to
John Day brings a feeling of anger
to think of what was lost because of
probably one person¶s call to not at-
tack the ¿ re up Canyon Creek when
it was small I reali]e that rules are
to be followed, but clear at the top,
there needs to be a change in poli-
cy, and the people that put them in
place Anyone can see that what is
in place now is not working Is there
still hope" Can anyone be found
who loYes this land enough to go
back to common sense" .udos to
anyone who takes the time to keep
up the ¿ ght
Mary Brown
Prairie City
Blue Water Navy
held up
USPS 226-340
Blue Mountain
EAGLE
Grant County’s Weekly Newspaper
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John Day, Oregon
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To the Editor:
House Bill 969 and Senate Bill
681, both bills titled The Blue Water
NaYy Vietnam Veterans Agent Or-
ange Act, are held up in the Veterans
Affairs Committee because no dollar
amount has been assigned, the cost to
proYide proper VA bene¿ ts Without a
dollar amount assigned to these bills,
nothing will happen to proYide VA
bene¿ ts to Yeterans who are sick from
Agent Orange exposure
At this writing there are 301 mem-
bers of the House in faYor of passage
and 37 members of the Senate in fa-
Yor This is well oYer the numbers of
Congress needed to send the bills to
the À oor for a Yote This cannot hap-
pen without a dollar amount assigned
The VA is attempting to stop pas-
sage of these bills The VA¶s Mob and
obligation is to help Yeterans in need,
not hinder their obligation as set forth
by law The committees of both leg-
islatiYe houses may haYe to appeal to
the Court of Appeals in DC to stop
the VA from blocking any action in
getting these bills an acceptable dol-
lar amount
Once this can happen, these bills
will go for a Yote America is a free
and soYereign nation As such, we
take on selÀ ess obligations to help
other countries in need This is well
and good; it is a part of what Ameri-
ca is about HoweYer, what about our
Yeterans who ¿ ght the battles to keep
America free" Many come home sick
and broken in need of help When it
comes to special Yeteran groups like
the Blue Water NaYy, Vietnam, the
VA does not recogni]e them A leg-
islatiYe bill must be passed to force
the VA to care for this group of war
Yeterans
John J. Bury, U.S. Navy re-
tired, Vietnam War veteran
Media, Pennsylvania
Stop the witch hunt
on Sheriff Palmer
To the Editor:
It¶s time to stop the witch hunt
on Sheriff Glenn Palmer
He¶s done a great Mob in the past
and the present keeping Grant County
a safe place to liYe Let him do his Mob
My husband and I attended the
meeting on Jan 26 I saw Sheriff
Palmer there He neYer took part in
the meeting He stood oYer by the
wall and kept his eyes on the whole
room, making sure there was safe-
ty between the picketers (including
County Commissioner Chris Labhart,
a county-paid of¿ cial and the people
attending the meeting
I neYer witnessed any heckling
or threats from anyone A gentleman
I know personally that was standing
among the picketers stated the same
thing
We¶Ye always had a feeling of
safety while Sheriff Glenn Palmer has
been in charge
Sheriff Palmer and wife, Rose-
Ann, haYe always went aboYe and
beyond to serYe our county through
community serYice, many of those
using money from their pocket
I hope eYeryone will remember
all the good things Sheriff Palmer has
done for our county this election by
Yoting Please keep his family in your
prayers They do not deserYe such
cowardly accusations
Peggy Clark
Monument
Who are the real
terrorists?
To the Editor:
Now that all the armed protesters
are gone from Harney County, many
of which are in jail, one would think
the siege is oYer SteYe and Dwight
Hammond are in federal prison un-
justly conYicted as terrorists The
BLM will con¿ scate the Hammond
ranch, when the 400,000 ¿ ne is not
paid The 200 plus FBI agents and
other armed agents that had no in-
signias that manned road blocks and
interrogated and harassed American
citi]ens can go home The siege is
oYer Right"
CJ Hadley, editor of Range Mag-
a]ine, Spring 2016 issue, documents
a goYernment conspiracy to depriYe
Western ranchers of their property
rights In Hage Y United States 2010
Judge Robert C Jones found a “literal
intentional conspiracy to depriYe the
Hages not only of their permits, but
also their Yested water rights This
behaYior shocks the conscience of the
court´ The goYernment has yet to pay
the Hages a 14,000,000 ¿ ne
Many Americans, myself in-
cluded, do not agree with the armed
takeoYer, neYertheless our Pledge of
Allegiance ends with “liberty and jus-
tice for all´ If justice and liberty are
denied to the Hammonds, then justice
has been denied to all If justice was
denied to LaYoy Finicum who was
shot multiple times, hands up attempt-
ing to surrender, then Sheriff Palmer¶s
courageous stand for the Constitution
has been Yindicated Sheriff Palmer
has earned the respect and admiration
of Oregonians and Americans
The press has yet to document that
uranium is the real issue with the Ham-
mond ranch A 196 Department of
Geology Mineral Industries study “doc-
uments occurrence of secondary ura-
nium minerali]ation in Harney Co´
In September of 2011 uranium of¿ cials
met with Burns of¿ cials The Orego-
nian Jan 8, 2012, documents “Oregon
Energy LLC hopes to mine 18 million
pounds of Yellowcake uranium” near
Burns The New York Times in April
201 documented, under the Hillary
Clinton State Department, the United
States “gaYe the Russians control of
one-¿ fth of all uranium production ca-
pacity” in America The same article
documents the Clinton Foundation re-
ceiYed oYer 20,000,000 in contribu-
tions from uranium companies Who
are the real terrorists"
The Rev. Stuart Dick
Irrigon
I will no longer travel
to Grant County
To the Editor:
I grew up in Redmond and
PrineYille and haYe always consid-
ered the land east of the Cascades
home I haYe spent a lot of time
and money camping and hunting in
Grant County as haYe my friends
and family; No More Your sheriff
seems to belieYe that the federal
land we enjoy is off limits to pri-
Yate citi]ens like us and should be
the property of mining, logging, and
ranching conglomerates to the ex-
clusion of all others If your sheriff
doesn¶t want us there are we really
safe" We haYe rescheduled our trips
to friendlier turf
Jim Dunnigan
Portland
Today’s differences
similar to Colonial
times
To the Editor:
The loyalists sympathetic to the
British crown before America¶s found-
ing are Yery similar to the federal loy-
alists today So for the sake of being
clear, I will now refer to those in the
camp of big goYernment and control of
our forests by the feds as Tories
Like the Tory of yesteryear, today¶s
loyalist is comfortable in their ser-
Yitude to the federal machine Some
running for sheriff and some in the
County Court feel it isn¶t their job to
interpret the Constitution, but it¶s their
job to blindly follow the edicts laid out
by the king Their oath of of¿ ce says,
support and defend the constitution
It doesn¶t say defend a document you
know nothing about If elected by the
people, you should educate yourself on
the supreme law of the land
History is repeating The difference
today is, we haYe the Constitution as
our defense Battle lines haYe been
clearly drawn
On one side, a group of citi]ens
who belieYe public land and resourc-
es belong to all people They belieYe
oYer-burdensome restrictions placed
on it by the feds would limit some
from enjoying and sharing in what it
has to offer This group belieYes in the
Constitution, and the limits that docu-
ment places on the feds with regards to
ownership of public land This group
sees Yalue in a seasoned sheriff who
understands and (interprets the Con-
stitution for the good of eYeryone
The Tories, “Oregon Wild, The Si-
erra Club, Thousand Friends of Oregon,
some bureaucrats at the top of the USFS
and the majority of the Democrat party,”
belieYe the federal goYernment knows
best on how to manage land, and who
should be allowed to use it They¶re in
faYor of restricting some from using it
in the name of preserYation, eYen if it
burns to ash They place some users
aboYe others They welcome a sheriff
that¶s a lap dog for the feds A sheriff
who would gladly throw his fellow citi-
]ens in irons before he would offend the
ruling class After all, it¶s not his job to
interpret the Constitution
DS Edwards
John Day
A failure of
leadership
To the Editor:
Is it no wonder Grant County has
the issues we do"
We haYe a County Court that is
about as consistent as the weather in
Eastern Oregon GiYe it 1 minutes,
and they will change
They are a group of men that state
they stand up for indiYiduals of the
county, except when they speak their
mind, then they attempt to pass res-
olutions to silence those Yoices, or
picket public meetings to harass con-
cerned citi]ens into silence
They want more timber coming
out of the mountains, but in a rare sign
of continuity, keep allowing the For-
est SerYice to destroy the Yery roads
that allow us to get timber out of the
mountains
They don¶t want outsiders ad-
dressing the concerns of the county,
but allow Oregon Wild, Sustainable
Northwest, Blue Mountains Biolog-
ical DiYersity Project and other out-
side inÀ uencers to peddle their inÀ u-
ence, so long as friends of the court¶s
projects are allowed to slide through
with approYal
The only consistency in the Grant
County Court is the consistency of
making sure their friends know “the
court has their backs,” and that is a
Yery small circle of friends
Who¶s to blame" We all are, I am,
each and eYery one of us that bought
into the big talk and little action of
these three men So this is my chal-
lenge to each of you, think wisely in
your Yotes this fall, because you¶re
going to haYe a choice to make Stick
with the narrow Yiew of the Grant
County Court that champions haYing
the back of a man like Harney County
Judge SteYe Grasty, or break a new
path with men that really support you
as indiYiduals, because the crew we
haYe now is leading us down a path of
no return, with a dim future
John D. George
Bates
See LETTERS, Page A5