A protracted speech Tuesday at a regular Board of Commissioners meeting by Sheriff Zanni regarding due process and public rights elicited a revealing response from the commissioners that exposed the board’s own hypocrisy on these very matters. Zanni was concerned that the US Forest Service has violated the National Environmental Policy Act, saying the agency had not first obtained public input from “state, local and tribal governments” regarding a move begun in 2006 to comply with the federal Travel Management Rule specific to Motorized Vehicle Use on the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest Supplement. Zanni’s contention that the public have been excluded from the process may not be correct since it appears the USFS was at least as diligent about filing required public notices as Coos County, but his argument in favor of proper due process is spot on and identifies the objections many people have to efforts to transfer management of the CBWR lands to the Coquille Tribe without public input.

Zanni asserts and all three commissioners concur that the USFS has already made up its mind to restrict vehicle use on roads without proper input from the county and the only choice the county is given is between road Plan A, B or C. This is precisely the same thing the commission is trying to pull off with the Coos Bay Wagon Road lands wherein management is will simply be transferred from the BLM to the tribe and the only choices the public may have is timber Plan A, B, or C. Now that the tides are turned against the commissioners, they cry foul and Main, who is practically a serial violator of public process hypocritically uses his pulpit to champion public input.