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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us December 29, 2005 Cole asks county to block cattle By Robert Plain Ashland Daily Tidings The politics of cattle grazing has again reared its head in Jackson County as neighbors of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument are debating how best to allow ranchers to utilize the countryside while allowing others to protect and restore their land from the effects of cows. People are greeted by a sign at the habitat restoration area , Sky King Cole. Nancy Ames Cole, the owner of the property, wants it legally designated so that cattle cannot graze on it. Orville Hector | Ashland Daily Tidings On Wednesday, the Jackson County Board of Commissioners entered the debate. Nancy Ames Cole, who owns 1,420 acres — known as Sky King Cole — abutting the monument petitioned the commissioners to include some 700 acres of her land in the Siskiyou Summit Livestock District. The other half of her property is already included in the livestock district. Being in the district, her lawyer said, would give her legal recourse if cows do trespass onto her land. Livestock districts are areas where the open range rules does not apply. In other words, cattle are not welcome. Outside of livestock districts, residents are required to protect, or fence, their land off from cows. “I think it’s pretty clear: the law says we have the right to incorporate the rest of our land into the livestock district,” Cole said, noting that it seemed to be a pretty straightforward property rights issue to her. “The law is clear that we have a right to manage our own land as we believe best.” But her rancher neighbors think there are better ways for her to keep cattle off her property without adding more bureaucracy to the mix. Bruce Buckmaster, who runs about 180 head from the land he leases, by Sky King Cole and into the monument, told the county commissioners that the best recourse would be for Cole to maintain a proper fence line. “The way to resolve this it to put up a fence,” he said prior to the commissioners meeting. “I’m opposed to any more government restrictions on anything. This is the age-old thing of wanting the government to take care of your stuff for you.” But Cole said she has invested in a $70,000 fence project that she puts an additional “couple thousand dollars” into every year in maintenance. “We’ve fenced as much as we could,” she said. Besides, she added, “There is a mechanism (livestock districts) in place to make the cattlemen responsible for their own expenses. This is a matter of respecting each other’s private property rights.” She said there is something quite counter-intuitive about requiring neighbors of a business, or in other words a ranch operation, to foot the bill for keeping the cows off of their private property. “Imagine if you had a retail store and someone came in and shoved your items off the shelf and said they needed to use that space for their business,” Cole said, noting that Buckmaster has been a good steward of the land. “It’s not in keeping with the with the modern sense of property rights. We should put the expense of doing business back with the people who are doing the business.” But Bob Miller, president of the Jackson County Cattleman’s Association, told the county commissioners that there was a bigger agenda at play. He said Nancy Cole is trying to “shut down the natural resource industry through government intervention.” He said this is Cole’s latest tactic in trying to increase the size of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument at the expense of ranchers. He told the commissioners that he suspected the move was a “cheap ploy” to adversely affect the ranchers’ chance of getting a fair market value in a buy-out of grazing leases on the monument. “We know that people who don’t like grazing would do anything to get the cattle off the land,” he said. But Cole’s lawyer, Mark Haneberg, countered that the annexation request into the livestock district, “is not a political issue, it’s a legal issue.” He urged the commissioners to “recognize [his client’s] right of private property.” The commissioners, though, wanted more time to consider the legalities of the issue. Commissioner Jack Walker said he didn’t know if a livestock district could be created or added to so close to the national monument that was created in 2000. “Wouldn’t you have to get an opinion from the federal government?” he asked of Haneberg. Haneberg replied, “We’re not talking about federal land. The federal government doesn’t tell Nancy what to do with her land. Private land is private land.” The county commissioners, minus C.W. Smith, who was not at the meeting, decided to postpone making a decision while their legal counsel examines the circumstances. They continued the discussion until their meeting on Jan. 18 at 9:30 a.m. Sky King Cole is adjacent to the Pilot Rock area of the Cascade-Siskyou National Monument off of Highway 99 near the Interstate 5 Siskiyou Pass. Sections of the Pacific Crest Trail run through her land. She said she and her husband Marshall bought the land 15 years ago, after it was largely logged over, in order to restore native vegetation and to protect sensitive riparian areas. Open range laws have been in place in Oregon since about the 1850’s, said a Bureau of Land Management employee who asked not to be identified. The law was implemented to allow cattlemen to bring their stock to market in cattle drives. Later on, livestock districts were created to allow residents a recourse for intruding cows. Property owners vote to incorporate a livestock district or to be added to an existing livestock district. Cole is requesting the county annex the remainder of her land into the Siskiyou Summit Livestock District, which, according to Cole and her lawyer, was created in 1982 to keep cows away from Interstate 5. Staff writer Robert Plain can be reached at 482-3456 x 226 or [email protected]. DailyTidings.com Home Page Archives | Revels | Classifieds | Real Estate Guide | Weather | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2005 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Deep Muscle Stimulator Ceramic Piggy Banks FREE Entertainment Guide Women's & Men's Slippers Accelerate Weightloss Products Backpacks Generic Viagra Vegas Travel Guide Search Engine Optimization Sportsbook Absinthe Supply Student Loans Hotel & Airline Reservations African Safari Hammocks Helzberg Diamonds Online Casinos Community Bonus Casino King of Spirits ink cartridges Mortgage Calculator Security Systems Mailing Lists Click Here Advertisement .:Advertisements:. 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