Armed Oregon occupiers to reveal departure plans

Bundy and his supporters are protesting the federal government’s meddling with public grazing lands, which they say should be returned to local residents.

At a community meeting Monday, Harney County residents asked the group to leave, although some said they shared the activists’ frustration with the federal government. “I’m going to uphold my oath to the Constitution and sleep great at night knowing that I did everything in my power to ensure what our founding fathers did for us will not be lost”.

The leader of an armed group occupying a national wildlife refuge said Thursday a meeting with local residents will happen but it’s not clear when and where because the group is struggling to find a place for the gathering.

Officials in Burns, about 30 miles from the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, said the meeting can’t be held at the fairgrounds or any other county facility.

Bundy said his group is not accessing computers used by refuge employees, but do have access to government files and are looking through them, as well as using government vehicles on the site and posting a new sign over the wildlife refuge’s sign, proclaiming it the “Harney County Resource Center”. The safety committee, which had previously asked the armed men to leave town, has now offered to take on the cause of the occupiers after they depart.

County Judge Steve Grasty says he intends to bill Ammon Bundy for $60k to $75k in daily county costs due to occupation.

According to the Oregonian, Bruce Doucette said members of the group have given him “significant” evidence of crimes committed by government officials. Many in the local citizenry are openly skeptical of the militants’ gesture toward opening up federal lands, and the local-not federal-authorities want to bill Mr. Bundy $70,000 a day to cover the county’s security costs during the occupation.

Three Idaho legislators who joined in the delegation released a statement that included an account of a cool reception they received from county officials.

What he did talk about at the press conference is the OR ranchers serving a federal prison sentence for setting fires on federal land, Dwight and Steven Hammond.

The Hammonds’ case set off the occupation of the Burns-area refuge on January 2.