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Blue Mountain Eagle
FAITH
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“In Ghana, we were kind of
hunkered down,” James said.
“We were in survival mode.”
The couple said one of the
hardest parts of living in Accra
was the feeling of isolation from
anything familiar.
“We were together, but we
were alone,” James said.
There’s no 911 operator to
help if something goes wrong, he
said.
“We were surviving on faith,”
Kaylee said.
A rewarding part of living in
Ghana was being together 24/7,
Kaylee said. James agreed, and
Contributed photo/Meagan Armstrong Photography
said the three of them developed
an intense bond, and were it not Kaylee and James Wilson posed for a photograph with their
for that experience, they may not newly adopted daughter Emmanuella this summer.
be as close as a family.
While overseas, they also grew
“Americans are interested in coffee house in John Day since
their roasted coffee bean business small talk and not offending each August has helped them readjust,
called Level Grounds Xpresso, other,” Kaylee said.
James said.
which has now gone nationwide.
“— Diplomacy and tact,”
Young Wella played with her
Upon arriving back in the James added.
toys — a doll and a small rocking
states, the culture shock was “in-
He said that even a simple taxi horse were among the assortment
tense,” the couple said.
ride was a confrontational experi- in her toy box — as her parents
Entering an air-conditioned ence in Ghana.
took turns tending to customers
grocery store, with a wide selec-
“You have to speak plain and Oct. 10 at the coffee shop.
tion of food options, was over- brash at times to get what you
“She’s definitely spoiled but
whelming, they said.
need,” Kaylee explained, adding appreciates it, because she knows
Being around crowds of peo- Ghanaians don’t see it as brash.
what it’s like to have nothing,”
ple was also difficult, and they
They had become so accus- Kaylee said, adding that in Gha-
had to relearn how to communi- tomed to a blunt way of com- na, her “toys” included sticks and
cate with people.
municating that it took effort to empty toilet paper rolls and cans.
“Interactions in Ghana versus relearn the “American way” of
Wella also enjoys dressing up
interactions in the U.S. are com- interacting with people, they said. with an apron and pretending to
pletely different,” James said.
Managing The Corner Cup cook.
FOREST
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process is to find as much
common ground as possible
and work toward a balanced
path forward for these nation-
al forests and all concerned,”
Fargo said.
County
objections
The Grant County Court
finalized its objections to the
forest plan during an Aug. 15
special meeting. In addition to
citing its comments from Au-
gust 2014, the court noted that
the “entirety” of a report by the
Grant County Public Forest
Commission was not addressed
and should be implemented.
The forest commission was
established by voter initiative
in 2002 and disbanded fol-
lowing a circuit court ruling in
2016. Malheur National Forest
Supervisor Steve Beverlin cited
that court ruling in an Aug. 16
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email to the county court.
“I believe this judgment in-
validates any work undertaken
by the Public Forest Commis-
sion, including the report that is
referenced in the current Grant
County objections to the Blue
Mountains Forest Plan Revi-
sion,” Beverlin said.
Beverlin noted then that the
objection period would not end
until Aug. 28 should the court
decide to modify its objections.
Grant County Commission-
er Rob Raschio responded in
an email the same day. While
agreeing with Grant County
Circuit Court Judge William D.
Cramer Jr.’s decision about the
broad language used to enact
the forest commission, Raschio
noted that the county court had
incorporated the commission’s
findings in its 2014 comments
on the Forest Plan.
“I find them, as a commis-
sioner, as the comments of an
advisory committee,” Raschio
said.
Raschio cited language
from Cramer’s ruling stating
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541-573-6377
that Grant County voters were
free to establish a forest com-
mission “to provide advisory
information on how the county
court should seek to collaborate
and advocate for uses on state
and federal land.”
Local objections
Sheriff Glenn Palmer also
submitted objections on behalf
of the Grant County Sheriff’s
Office. He opposed decom-
missioning roads and restrict-
ing motorized access through
adoption of a Travel Manage-
ment Plan.
Palmer criticized the “per-
ception that the environment
is the primary concern in man-
agement of the public lands,
and that the social and eco-
nomic well-being of our com-
munities come secondary to
environmental concerns of the
agency.” He said the forest plan
“failed to take a hard look at the
impacts of the 2015 and 2016
fires on Eastern Oregon com-
munities.”
Palmer also said the “Forest
541-576-2160
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“We have healthy lotions, and
she’ll play pretend hair and skin
care,” James said. “She has a real-
ly active imagination.”
Kaylee said Wella understood
the village language of Ewe but
did not start speaking until they
came into her life.
“Now she’s speaking non-
stop,” Kaylee said.
The 4-year-old also enjoys
playing with friends, including
her cousins, and being with grand-
parents Kirk and Kim Ausland of
John Day and Kent and Kathy
Wilson of Portland, she said.
While Wella is James and
Kaylee’s first child, they hope to
see their family grow, down the
road.
“We would like to adopt HIV
children from as many different
countries as possible,” Kaylee
said.
The couple said they’ve felt
called to help children with this
specific “special need.”
They hope to adopt a little one
from India in a couple years.
“We will walk through what-
ever door God opens for us,”
Kaylee said.
James said his advice to any-
one with the heart to adopt a child
is to overcome fear.
“If you can take care of a kid,
do it,” he said.
“If you can’t adopt, then help
someone else who is adopting,”
Kaylee added. “This has been
the hardest thing we’ve gone
through, but also the most fulfill-
ing. We’d do it all again for her.”
Service failed to directly coor-
dinate the plan with counties
that formally requested co-
ordination, but instead chose
to use privately held 501(c)
(3) corporations and coerced
cooperative agency status to
gain lead agency status and to
strong-arm counties into relin-
quishing their right to direct
government-to-government co-
ordination or ‘lose their seat at
the table’ and only serve in an
advisory role.”
Mark Webb, objecting for
Blue Mountains Forest Part-
ners, noted that the FEIS “is
extremely difficult to read; con-
tains contradictory and extrane-
ous content; is not based on the
best available science; and oth-
erwise does not paint a cogent
picture of the need for change
or how the proposed plan(s)
will achieve desired future con-
ditions.”
He added that the Land and
Resource Management Plan
and the FEIS ignored the Blue
Mountains Forest Partners’
work, and suggested the forest
plan will not withstand judicial
review.
“This threatens BMFP’s
ability to increase the pace,
scale and quality of forest res-
toration on the Malheur and
may compromise the ecolog-
ical integrity of the forest and
the socioeconomic stability of
Grant and Harney counties,”
Webb said.
Alec Oliver, objecting for
Grant County Stockgrowers,
said many of the land use re-
strictions that would be put
in place by the proposed plan
would impose significant re-
strictions and loss of forage
for the livestock industry, in-
cluding significant changes to
the number of acres classified
as riparian habitat conserva-
tion areas and riparian man-
agement areas.
Ken and Pat Holliday,
speaking for Holliday Land
and Livestock, Inc., object-
ed that “the table of riparian
area widths is arbitrary” and
“measurement protocols have
PROGRAM
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rancher Jim Dovenburg and others brought the
program back in 2017.
It was too late in the fiscal year to fully fund
the program, and the county budgeted $35,000 for
the program with the stipulation that other funding
would become available.
Dovenburg said $12,000 was raised from
landowners. When combined with $29,000 from
the state and federal governments and $35,000
from the county, funding fell $24,000 short of the
$100,000 estimated cost for a full-time program,
he said.
An option was to operate the program at a
three-quarters level, Dovenburg said, but that
would mean raising about $11,000 next fiscal year
to fill the gap left after federal, state and county
funding was included.
Dovenburg said he was reluctant to request as-
sistance from ranchers again to make up the short-
fall. He said he looked into requesting assistance
from ODFW or hunting organizations, but an op-
tion for the next fiscal year was to roll over funds
left from the previous year.
Grant County Judge Scott Myers noted that
county policy prohibited rolling over leftover
funds to the next fiscal year. Waiving the policy
for one program could create significant budget
problems, he said. Myers recommended Wildlife
Services aggressively spend allocated funding so
nothing is left. Commissioner Rob Raschio said he
wanted to take a closer look at how the $100,000
figure for a full-time program was reached.
The funding gap needs to be filled before the
next fiscal year starts July 1, Smith said.
Myers noted that some animal damage con-
trol actions takes place inside city jurisdictions
and suggested Dovenburg contact the local city
governments to see if they would assist with the
funding.
inconsistencies in their esti-
mates of grazing indicators.”
MT Anderson, represent-
ing High Desert Cattle Co.,
which holds the Fields Peak
and Aldrich grazing allot-
ments, expressed concerns
about the McClellan Moun-
tain Wilderness Area pro-
posed in the plan. He asked for
assurance that his allotments
would be grandfathered in.
Eastern counties
The Eastern Oregon Coun-
ties Association summarized
its objections into eight major
issues, beginning with eco-
nomics. The association noted
that the FEIS focused on the
period 2000-2014, but “local
economies were already dec-
imated by 2000.”
Social and economic
well-being should be mea-
sured in terms of conditions in
1990, when newly issued for-
est plans predicted allowable
sale quantities of 579 million
board-feet, the EOCA said.
The association also objected
to “generic and rigid access
constraints.”
“Forest Service lands are
public lands and the public
should have access to those
lands,” the association said.
“When access is to be limited,
the Forest Service must un-
dertake a site-specific analy-
sis on the project level.”
The EOCA objected to any
designation or recommenda-
tion for new wilderness, new
wild and scenic rivers or new
research natural areas. It also
noted that alternatives pre-
sented in the plan don’t ad-
dress the need to accelerate
the pace and scale of forest
restoration efforts.
While acknowledging it
supports the proposed graz-
ing guideline, the EOCA had
concerns about its implemen-
tation.
“If we do not have some
guidance for implementation,
the effort that went into this
guideline will have just been
academic in nature and not
provide the desired outcome
of maintaining grazing and
achieving the desired condi-
tions over time,” the associa-
tion said.
The EOCA was particular-
ly concerned about propos-
als that wildfire be allowed
to burn “in order to hasten
achievement of desired future
conditions on multiple acres
of unplanned ignitions.” The
association said the proposal
“lacks credibility” and was
risky.
“The Forest Service does
not have the social license
for this type of activity in our
counties,” the EOCA said.
The association also ob-
jected to the lack of coordi-
nation and cooperation. The
EOCA said a “dismissive atti-
tude toward the agency’s obli-
gation to cooperate with local
government appears through-
out the document.” This was
particularly important when it
came to local economies.
“We are the subject mat-
ter experts for social and
economic well-being, yet we
were never contacted by those
who prepared the analysis,”
the EOCA said. “If someone
had called, we would have
gladly helped. Now we have
only the objection process to
read and respond.”
The EOCA also objected
to species diversity guidelines
in the forest plan, especially
for wolves.
“Our objection is based
upon the fact that gray wolves
are not federally listed on
parts or all of the forests of
the Blue Mountains,” the
EOCA said. “No critical hab-
itat has been designated for
gray wolves within the Blue
Mountains.”
The association noted that
under the proposed guide-
lines, ranchers holding graz-
ing permits would absorb “the
entire burden of not only po-
tential killed or injured live-
stock but also having their
entire operations disrupted as
the result of these guidelines.”
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