October 4, 2006
Red Bluff Daily News
Cattlemen's group pulls support from grazing ordinance
They propose own version which removes penalties
By Rebecca Wolf
RED BLUFF - The Tehama County Cattlemen's Association has pulled its support
from the county proposal of a grazing ordinance and presented their own proposal
which removes all penalties for violations of the ordinance.
Former Tehama County Cattlemen's Association president Wally Roney said the
draft of the ordinance the county proposed last week to the cattlemen does not
address the initial concerns of the cattlemen who first proposed the ordinance.
"The present draft is completely in a different direction than we thought
we were going," Roney said. "... The path we are following has changed
from the original goal. We need to guide this body back to where we work on
the original problems."
If passed, the ordinance, also known as the open range ordinance, would label
almost two-thirds of the unincorporated county as chiefly devoted to grazing.
It would establish the right of cattlemen to graze livestock, and that, the
cattlemen have argued in the past, is necessary to help the county's $17 million
cattle industry afford insurance and continue business in the county.
In his own version of the ordinance, that the association has not yet seen,
Roney removes "penalties, fines and police power" and replaces it
with the "use of sanctions and peer pressure."
The sanctions would include having property where problems arise being pulled
from the grazing ordinance.
The proposal caught some of the supervisors by surprise Tuesday and led supervisor
Charles Willard and Ron Warner to call for the county to drop the whole issue
in a motion that mirrored one Willard made in March of this year. The results
of the Tuesday's motion to end discussion on the ordinance ended the same way
it did in March - with a 2-3 vote and the board continuing to negotiate the
proposal.
The issue will come back to the board on Oct. 17 for further review of Roney's
proposal.
While Supervisor Gregg Avilla voted to continue the discussion, he added that
the new proposal was "very disappointing." "We as a county, at
this point, can't seem to come together," he said.
Roney said the cattlemen were surprised themselves last Wednesday when they
read the version of the ordinance the county planned to vote on in November.
He said changes to the ordinance have been made without input from the all of
the members on the ad hoc committee from the cattlemen's group. He called it
an error in communication and said the fault may lie within their organization.
Most of the changes made to the ordinance since it originally failed in a 3-2
vote in 2005 were to accommodate property owners who had said they felt their
property rights were being taken away and that they had no protection against
negligent cattlemen.
The changes included penalties for violations, from $100 for a first offense,
to $500 for the third or more offense in one year.
The county's version and Roney's version each creates a Livestock Intrusion
Review Panel, however the cattleman's version changes who would serve on that
panel.
The county proposed the panel be made up of the county district attorney, the
planning director, a real estate broker, two landowners or lessees of land within
the grazing ordinance - one devoted to production of livestock and the other
devoted to crops.
The cattleman's draft proposes replacing the district attorney with the agriculture
commissioner and replacing the real estate broker with a member of the public.
The board also got an earful from three property owners whose land would fall
under the ordinance saying they did not know about the proposed ordinance and
were upset that the county had not notified them.
That did not sit well with a couple of the supervisors, including Ross Turner.
"How oblivious are owners in this county," Turner said. "We've
been working on this for 10 years. It's been in the papers."
Supervisor George Russell echoed Turner. "People have to accept responsibility
for knowing what's going on," he said.
March 6, 2005
Red Bluff Daily News
Tehama supervisors say no to open range
By Barbara Beal
RED BLUFF - An attempt by Tehama County cattlemen to establish open range in
parts of the county was shot down last week on a split vote by the Tehama County
Board of Supervisors.
The ordinance proposed creating open range in some areas of the county to establish
the right of cattlemen to graze livestock. It would have required the county
to install and maintain signs warning of cattle crossings.
Cattlemen had argued at two previous meetings that the ordinance was necessary
to help the county's $17 million cattle industry, which is facing ever-rising
insurance costs.
Landowners who lease grazing rights require that the cattlemen are insured
in case of a lawsuit arising from straying cattle.
Former Supervisor Bill Borror, a cattleman who helped frame the ordinance along
with board chair George Russell, spoke for it.
"I've worked with Russell on this. This is as good as its going to get,
as weird as it seems to go back to a law passed in the 19th century to solve
a present-day problem," Borror said.
The ordinance did not change the law in respect to the conflict of a cow with
a car, Borror said. "But it puts drivers on notice that there may be cows
in the road. You would have a much safer situation."
Rosemary Long-Braya, who lives on Petty John Road, spoke against the ordinance.
She said she has had cows on her property for two months. Despite contacting
owners and the authorities, the cows are still there.
"I'm still not able to get them off," Long-Braya said. "What's
it going to be like when it's open range?"
Long-Braya said she did not think property owners should have to pay for fencing
to keep off cattle. "If it's dogs, the owner pays for the damage. It should
be the same for cows."
John EIko of Red Bluff also spoke against the ordinance. He said California
was expected to double in population in the next 50 years, and the safety of
the population should be more important than the cattle industry.
"This is a symptom of a much larger problem of the stress livestock people
feel in this county," said Bill Burrows of Red Bluff, whose family began
ranching in Tehama County in 1848.
Burrows said in 1950, a cattleman could sell a cow and calf pair for $350,
a metal t-post cost 17 cents, a roll of barbed wire $5 and a Chevrolet pickup
$1,700.
Now, a cattleman can sell a cow and calf pair for about $1,000. He pays $4
for a t-post, more than $40 for a roll of barbed wire and "almost any figure
you can name" for a pickup.
"You have a difficult decision to make, keep the county open working space
or turn it into another Los Angeles Basin," Burrows told the board.
"If this doesn't go forward, I would like to propose new options,"
said Wally Roney of the Roney Cattle Co., who was representing the Tehama County
Cattlemen's Association.
If there were a lot of opposition on the west side of the county to open range,
establishing open range only on the east side would be one option, Roney said.
While most of the proposed open range is in grazing, he said another option
would be to reassess the line if open range were in conflict with crop land.
After hearing the public's comments, Supervisor Ross Turner said he would support
the ordinance but thought a stronger effort should be made to enforce against
violations such as those cited by Longraya.
"I want to know why they are not taken care of."
Supervisors Ron Warner, Gregg Avilla and Charles Willard decided against the
ordinance.
Warner said a stray animal could not be seized and held as a lien in open range
and that he could not establish any exceptional insurance costs to cattlemen.
Avilla said there was already a problem with stray cattle and requiring other
landowners to fence was costly. "Without a guarantee of better enforcement,
I'd have a hard time going for this."
"I don't think this is going in the right direction," Willard said.
"I'd love to have us come up with signs, but I have not found anyone yet
who has a cow that could read one."
While cattlemen were asking for the ordinance, the Farm Bureau had not asked
for it, Willard noted.
Having sat on the ad hoc committee with Borror for three years, Russell said
he had heard a lot on the cattlemen's side.
"People are buying land adjacent to ranchers and refusing to share in
building fences," Russell said.
"When the cattle stray, they sue the rancher."
Russell agreed no one should have stray cattle on their property for two months.
The board voted 2-3 against the ordinance but agreed to look at reconstituting
an ad hoc committee to reconsider the cattle vs. development issue.
"Give it some time for the dust to settle," Turner said.
The effect of the ordinance's failure will weaken the cattle industry in its
fight to survive development pressure. Burrows said.
"It just adds to our costs to have to fence our livestock in. As these
small parcels come in, it continues to put the burden of doing the fencing on
us,"
Burrows said. "I don't like either open or closed range. I like the good
neighbor policy where we get together on fencing and share cost and labor between
us."
Cattlemen are not in a position where they can absorb more costs coming between
them and a profit.
"We're a price taker rather than a price maker," Burrows said. "I
get down on my knees to beg for a reasonable price, and if the buyer says he
can't pay that, he doesn't. Big industry sets the price for the consumer.
'The rancher or farmer takes what he can get."