_{Pistol River in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness. | Photo courtesy of the U.S. Forest Service}

A proposed resolution stating that Curry County aims to “invoke policing powers of the state” to “clear and thin undergrowth and to remove fire-damaged trees” on federal lands is not a takeover, according to its newest member.

Facing 17 north county residents who opposed the resolution on Wednesday, Patrick Hollinger said he and his colleagues hope to be stewards for lands currently managed by the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and other state and federal agencies. The proposed emergency declaration seeks to hold them accountable, though the Board of Commissioners said Wednesday they weren’t yet ready to approve it.

“We are the closest elected officials to the people with special authority under environmental and jurisdictional law to see these matters through to success,” Hollinger said. “We’re working right now on completely overhauling our land-use plan for the county, our comprehensive plan and our Wildland Urban Interface plans. The state and federal agencies, by law, are supposed to be consulting with the county on an annual basis in order for them to move forward with their plans. That’s not happening. That hasn’t happened in forever. We’re going to implement that going forward.”

A workshop has been scheduled for 1 p.m. Wednesday at the Curry County Fairgrounds in Gold Beach to discuss this emergency declaration and another that focuses on wildfire hazard maps Oregon released in the fall.

Focusing on the maps, Commissioner Jay Trost said that while they were developed at Oregon State University, the project was “outsourced to an organization in Montana” that failed to take the region’s unique wind patterns, such as the Chetco Effect, and its marine layer into consideration when assessing wildfire risk.

Trost said that Oregon State Senate Bill 80, which was enacted in 2023 and mandated the creation of the wildfire maps, stated that insurance companies couldn’t use them as the basis for discontinuing coverage. However, many property owners in high risk areas are receiving non-renewal notices from their insurance providers, he said.

“One of the commissioners here who lives in the city limits received a non-renewal because of their wildland fire risk score,” Trost told those who attended Wednesday’s meeting in Brookings, adding that the state recognized that notice as illegal. “I just want you to know that this will impact all of our livability in the entire county.”

Trost had called on his colleagues to declare a state of emergency in September, before the state released the wildfire hazard maps.

He argued that the maps, which were also developed through the Oregon Department of Forestry and the Oregon State Fire Marshal, makes private property owners responsible for managing the wildfire risks on their lands.

Public agencies, he said, “have zero consequences for managing their lands appropriately.”

On Wednesday, Hollinger, who replaced John Herzog on the Board in January, said he and Trost attended an Association of Oregon Counties conference in Eugene in November where he learned that the number of acres burned in Oregon last year broke records. And, he said, the amount of smoke released into the atmosphere in Oregon from the 2024 wildfires “is more than humankind ever did in its existence.”

Hollinger said the proposed emergency declaration “due to degraded conditions, imminent threat from catastrophic fire on federally managed lands” came about after he met with Doyel Shamley, a former Apache County, Arizona politician who is affiliated with a Las Vegas consulting firm, Veritas Research Consulting.

According to Hollinger, Shamley visited Curry County for two days in mid-November. The new commissioner said he put Shamley up at his lodge for free and took him out for meals to keep costs to the county down.

“He gave us a two-day class on Constitutional law,” Hollinger said. “And he created a website for us as well — countystrong.org — where it has all of the jurisdictional documents, videos, etc. that do support what we are looking to do going forward.”

Hollinger mentioned an Apache County emergency declaration stemming from the 2011 Wallow Fire, which burned 600,000 acres and “brought as much threat to them as our Chetco Barr Fire or our Biscuit Fire.”

“They did implement a stewardship program based on that and it’s been very successful,” Hollinger said. “I’m actually going there for four days to put eyes on everything myself and to talk to the people who were involved, to see the injury that was created and to see the restoration of the forests and the watershed and the benefits that came with that.”

Hollinger said he would also get a further education on Constitutional Law from Shamley. The county commissioner asserted that Curry County has the right to oversee 650,000 acres of federal land.

A total of 19 Curry County residents spoke to the Board’s proposed emergency declarations.

André Bay, one of two who supported the resolution, evoked the name of LaVoy Finicum, one of the militants who occupied Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in 2016. Finicum is the only fatality stemming from that occupation.

Bay told commissioners he was at the wildlife refuge in 2016

“I’ll fight the federal government. That’s what you guys are going to do,” he said. “I’ve been there. Eastern Oregon. What do you need? We’ll start dropping timber tomorrow. I’m all for this. If you need roads blocked, we got a D9. What do you need? Bodies? I have access to over 100,000.”

The other 17 who opposed the resolution told commissioners that the county is ill equipped to take on responsible management of the federal lands within its boundaries nor does it have the money.

One speaker also pointed out that the county’s draft resolution misspells Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek’s last name.

“Attention to detail is important when taking risks, or, as one gentleman said earlier, taking on the federal government,” he said. “It seems this is wildly ahead of the legislation and the author cannot even be bothered to check the governor’s surname.”

Bret Cecil, chairman of the Curry County Democrats, opposed the county’s resolution calling it a hyperbolic declaration with political opinion and conjecture appearing as facts. He said he was worried about legal repercussions the county would face if it approved the resolution as well as other “unforeseen circumstances.”

In a Facebook post on Wednesday evening, Cecil said that the Curry County Democrats had issued a call-to-action. He urged people to go to the Feb. 12 workshop, stating that while the Board of Commissioners didn’t vote on the resolutions, they don’t intend to abandon them.

“Commissioner Hollinger stated further, showing his true colors, that BOC plans to move ahead with this issue and that BOC now has the support of the new administration, making clear reference to the Trump administration,” Cecil wrote in his Facebook post.

Cecil’s Facebook comment was in response to a statement Hollinger made asserting that human trafficking and illegal drug grows occur on federal lands as does excessive pollution from illegal campsites.

“We need to start more proactively enforcing our laws,” he said. “Not only that, but there is very much a movement where the new administration, which we are getting support from on this, is looking at right now dissolving the federal lands completely back to the states and the counties. So, we’re going to continue to follow that very closely as well.”

Tabatha Rood, a staff member for the Southern Oregon Forest Restoration Collaborative, said the county has had multiple options to collaborate with state and federal land managers. She accused commissioners of blaming the public servants who continue to staff the U.S. Forest Service despite funding challenges and said they don’t deserve to be thrown under the bus.

“Good neighbor authority, stewardship and co-management agreements are all reasonable options to achieve the goals of this proposal without alienating our federal partners or destroying our landscape and watersheds to solve the latest budget crisis due to mismanagement,” she said. “There are many counties and timber companies working together through these mechanisms to achieve ecologically and economically sustainable land management. I encourage you to investigate these further.”