Messerle is quoted in the local paper claiming that 50% of Coos County is owned by the federal government and that the government is not good at managing its resources. Almost 67% of Coos County’s 1,038,041 acres is privately owned and of the publicly owned lands, 24% or 248,446 acres are under federal control.

The federal government already owns 50 percent of this county, and quite frankly, their track record as a land manager isn’t very good. If you look at the forest situation, the resources they are managing, it’s too political and too far away from home.

Apparently what Messerle means by a bad track record is that unlike private land management, BLM and USFS managed timberland still has trees standing. Assuming private timber management was so superior they would have planned for the future and wouldn’t now be requiring more federal lands for clear cutting. You can see the O&C checkerboard in this photo. Obviously, Messerle also under estimates the value of recreational lands and natural habitat and over estimates the sustainability of private management.

Messerle is reported to have repeated the meme of lousy federal management at the recent GOP forum last week. Here are some facts. More than 899,000 acres are classified as forest, most of it privately owned and less than 252,000 acres are federal. Of the BLM lands including the Coos Bay Wagon Road the agency has met 150% of its ASQ for the last several years and magically still has trees standing so who is really the better steward of the land?