http://www.usobserver.com/archive/may-11/gil-letter.html


Josephine County, Oregon,
Sheriff Gil Gilbertson

Grants Pass, OR - Josephine County Sheriff Gil Gilbertson is apparently challenging Federal authority within the borders of the Southern Oregon county. In a letter obtained by the US~Observer, Gilbertson writes to Roy Bergstrom of the United States Forest Service:

"As the CLEO [chief law enforcement officer] of this County, elected by the citizens, saddled with the expectation and responsibility to safeguard their rights I fully intend to uphold the laws against any threat, inappropriate or unlawful actions against them. The citizens of this County are complaining about unfair treatment and harassment by the federal government LEOs.

The issues of illegal road closures, grazing, logging, minerals, taking land under the auspices of “Monument” status, citizen complaints against your LEO [law enforcement officer] agents, high unemployment and other socio-economic issues we all face today; coupled with the uncooperative nature presented by the USFS are causing me great concern about our relationship and future cooperation."

That part of Oregon and the neighboring area in Northern California is in the area known semi-formally as the "State of Jefferson". The California side has had voting referendums more than once to secede from the rest of the state, and they expect Josephine county and a few other parts of Southern Oregon to join them.

One big issue being that although the state capitol of California is Sacramento, the state is functionally run from the LA basin with San Francisco as an annex. Likewise, Oregon is really run from the strip of I-5 between Portland and Eugene, which includes the State Capitol of Salem in between. Those areas are again, far from that border, and up to recently had very little functional presence of the federal government.

More recently, a small but full service federal courthouse was opened in Grant's Pass and they let everyone know they were "running things now" with plenty of BATF related busts, unwanted farm and fishing regulation, and interference in local government.

There was also a series of very suspicious forest fires in the 2001-2002 time period where I personally got a strong indication from a forest service official that the "survivalist and backwoods types" were being purposefully burned out. That phrase being his words, not mine, and the way he pronounced "survivalists", was pure contempt, like the bigger the fire got, the more vermin got wiped out.

My National Guard unit made an emergency call for volunteers to be trained up to fight the fires, several of us volunteered, and then went through the firefighting training, and then when the actual call for deployment went out, people were picked on the basis of "reliability in following orders" which was the catch phrase for "do what you are told without asking too many questions or making a hassle.

As it was, yeah, the unit "deployed" to the "fire area" alright, and did not fight a single fire. They were tasked with "security" for the firefighters and manning roadblocks to keep people from entering areas designated to burn out, IE, to prevent people from saving their own homes or belongings, and to prevent them from having contact with the firefighters in demanding or requesting the firefighters redeploy to save areas of economic importance to the "backwoods people".

A lot of guys quit the unit after what they saw. I think my "platoon" went from over 30 people down to a dozen as troops quit entirely in disgust or transferred out. Even the Plt Sgt who was a dickhead in his own right was saying that "we are through volunteering for that kind of shit, I'll never look another American in the eye and tell them their home has to burn to save some fucking spotted owl somewhere else".

Sheriff Gil Gilbertson is a good guy, he was a deputy that testified about the dirty criminal sheriff so when Sheriff Gil ran for the office people remembered that Gil is willing to stand up and put himself at great risk for what is right, last election Gil got 78% of the vote and a decent county executive backing him up.

It is going to take some brave action to back the tyrannical evil Fed off of the evil they are engaged in.

I'll do some checking around, but Sheriffs in Southern Oregon tend to be popular and incumbent no matter what reality is. I never ran across one who was very straight up. The judges, oh boy, Oregon judges just have to be seen for you to believe it. I heard judge jokes before and figured that sure, they were amusing but not particularly based on reality, that is until I went to court in Oregon. We are talking people who would not be qualified to wipe tables in your average California law office.

Now Oregon lawyers, there is a useful bunch. For something, just not legal practice.