Williams residents gathered en masse on Wednesday inside and outside the Anne G. Basker Auditorium in Grants Pass to oppose a Nov. 14 auction sale of nine forested parcels in the Williams area.

Protesters held signs along NW Sixth Street declaring, “No Auction — Save our Forests,” “Stop the Cut!” and “Water is Life!”

Inside, during a business meeting of the Josephine County Board of Commissioners, more than two dozen audience members urged commissioners to halt the sale of the parcels, totaling 1,800 acres around Williams and the Pipe Fork area.

The land auction was not part of the meeting agenda. However, residents — with a 3-minute limit each — gave an hour’s worth of emotional testimony during a citizen comment portion of the agenda. While concern was expressed for all nine parcels, particular concern centered on an Oct. 2 notice by the Josephine County Sheriff’s Office — advertising the Nov. 14 sealed bid auction — that negated a four-year effort by members of the Williams Community Forest Project to negotiate purchase of a 320-acre parcel known as Pipe Fork.

The Conservation Fund, WCWF supporters said, agreed to purchase the portion of Pipe Fork for $2.02 million in order to have the parcel brought into BLM land and preserved. An online petition bearing 3,565 signatures as of Thursday said the sale would allow the parcel to be added to an existing Pipe Fork Port Orford Cedar Research Natural Area. 

Parcels up for grabs include a 600-acre parcel comprising the Pipe Fork piece and an area around Thompson Creek; 160 acres dubbed Little Sugarloaf; 320 acres made up of Munger Creek and Cedar Flat; 320 acres of the Clapboard Gulch area; 160 acres dubbed “Little T;” 80-acre Bear Wallow; and 160-acre “Low Divide.”

Combined, the nine parcels are reportedly valued at more than $10.4 million. Commissioners previously signed a letter of intent to sell Pipe Fork to The Conservation Fund in January 2023, for the Yellow Book Appraisal price of $2,020,000. Commissioners in July said assurance had not been made by BLM that the land would be publicly accessible and would not be logged. In September, county appraisers determined the land held more value and moved forward with plans to hold an auction.

Protesters Wednesday urged commissioners to call-off the land auction, while commissioners reiterated they were mandated to manage county lands for the “best and highest” returns. Chas Rogers, a WCFP board member, told commissioners of a petition urging the sale of Pipe Fork to the community: “Look at this. Forty pages of people who want to keep this property intact.”

“We have $2,320,000 to buy Pipe Fork, and what do you do? You want to put it up for a closed auction?,” Rogers said at the meeting. “Perfect for timber corporations to come in and drop their funds and take the property, cut off all the trees and reduce it down to a bare minimum of dirt.

“Stop this sale and let us purchase this land with the grant from the U.S. Congress that’s been appropriated for keeping this intact. These are beautiful forests,” he said.

Williams resident Cheryl Bruner told commissioners that the protest happening outside the auditorium was “against the ruthless disregard” for citizens who she said were “standing up and broadcasting that you are deaf and blind to your constituents.”

Bruner took issue with commissioners’ discussion of selling the land in Williams in order to purchase land for logging in Coos County. 

“Although the forests in Coos County are valuable, they are not in the backyards of Williams, Selma, Cave Junction and Merlin, where the residents can enjoy them for their livelihoods, recreation and health,” Bruner said, likening the county’s timber management to “Wall Street John Hancock.”

“That perspective that cares nothing for the people in our county … trashing the land, poisoning the air and water and leaving the earth to die,” she said.

Greg Stanco told commissions that sale of forested lands would only benefit their “resource extraction cronies,” while Williams flower farm Stacey Denton voiced concerns for impacts of clear-cutting to water supplies, increased fire risk from brushy regrowth — after clear-cutting — and loss of biodiversity. She urged commissions to prioritize the “big picture of the vitality of our county, not just the short-term financial gain.”

Eva Waters was the lone Williams citizen to speak in support of the pending land auction. She told commissioners she hoped the land would be “purchased and logged as quickly as possible.” Waters said the WCFP organizers did not represent the entirety of Williams residents.

“I’m quite tired of the loud squeaky wheel minority running the show and affecting decisions that impact all of us in Williams,” she said.

“In light of the fact that the Applegate Valley has been deemed the epicenter of 350,000 acres of conifer mortality … I am quite pleased that you have put the Pipe Fork, Thompson Creek properties up for auction,” she said.

Williams resident Benjamin Vanderbrook shook his head at Waters statement. Vanderbrook addressed Commissioner John West, the subject of a recall effort that has garnered more than 7,000 signatures.

“This is a terrible mistake that all your conservative constituents are aware of and will simply not stand for,” he told commissioners.

“By selling our public land, you are taking away our privilege to hunt that land, to use that land for all the things that make Oregon what it is. All the Republican hunters, all the conservative gun-toting residents of Williams and Josephine County who voted for you, are going to turn against you. … You really have to displease both sides of the aisle to get recalled, Mr. West.”

Following citizen input, Commissioner Herman Baertschiger addressed the crowd, noting that the county-owned timber land had to be sold for the “best and highest” return, adding, “The timber receipts from these lands, 100% — just about 100% — will fund our juvenile system.”

“As far as the management of these lands, it wouldn’t matter if we sold them or we retained them, either way, they’re going to be managed, and that may include logging, because that’s why we invested in those lands to begin with, so that we could sell those trees to fund our programs, and grow more trees, and then in the future, harvest those trees to fund our programs,” he said.

Baertschiger told the crowd that anyone was welcome to bid on the land auction, timber companies or otherwise, noting, “Stopping the sale won’t stop the management of these lands.”

West, who told multiple audience members to stop interrupting him while he spoke, took issue with claims that water impacted by the forestlands was part of Williams’ drinking water supply, which he said was not the case. He dismissed comments by a speaker who urged the county to conduct a mineral value evaluation on the lands prior to any sale. Such a process would cost thousands in taxpayer dollars and delay sale to any group, he said.

“What happens if the mineral evaluation comes back and says, ‘Oh, there’s $50 million worth of gold!’ And we say, ‘Sorry, Pipe Fork (supporters), we’ve got a new evaluation, and it’s worth even more money than was said!”

West said commissioners — currently seated and those to be elected next week — are required to manage county lands according to bylaws, “to either log that land or sell that land and buy land elsewhere.”

“If you’re unhappy because we buy land on the coast and log it, then you’re just unhappy with logging. Let’s get that straight out in the open,” West said.

“Logging is a practice, and if it’s OK with the state and you get a permit through Oregon Department of Forestry, it is permitted,” he said. “You’re going to see it continue to happen in this valley, because as private timber companies and private landowners buy … timber land, they’re going to log it under the regulations of the state of Oregon.

“If you don’t like those regulations, you vote and change the people in Salem to stop that!” West said.

The auction sale, which will take place online, is set for 8:30 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 14.

For more info, visit the Williams Community Forest Project online or via Facebook.