Homestead mailing list

["Lynda" <lurine AT softcom.net>]

Well, we're at it again <g>  Of course, that doesn't cover the movement to 
split the state in half OR the movement to sucede from the Union!  And y'all 
just thought we were all blondes and spent all our time waltzing along the 
beaches <<bg>>

Lynda

= = = = =

A move to secede on California-Oregon border
Kevin Fagan, Chronicle Staff Writer

Sunday, October 5, 2008

(10-05) 04:00 PDT Yreka, Siskiyou County -- Some folks around here think
the economic sky is falling and state lawmakers in Sacramento and Salem are
ignoring their constituents in the hinterlands.

Guess the time is ripe to create a whole new state.

That's the thinking up here along the border between California and Oregon,
where 12 sparsely populated, thickly forested counties in both states want
to break away and generate the 51st star on the nation's flag - the state of
Jefferson.

You can see the signs of discontent from Klamath Falls to Dunsmuir, where
green double-X "Jefferson State" flags hang in scores of businesses. You can
hear the talk of revolution at lunch counters and grocery lines, where
people grumble that politicians to the north and south don't care.

You can even hear the dissent on the radio, where 21 area FM stations
broadcast from Oregon into California under the banner of "Jefferson Public
Radio."

"We have nothing in common with you people down south. Nothing," said Randy
Bashaw, manager of the Jefferson State Forest Products lumber mill in the
Trinity County hamlet of Hayfork. "The sooner we're done with all you
people, the better."

Talking about secession has been a quasi-joking conversational saw since
1941, when five counties in the area started things by actually declaring
themselves - briefly - to be the state of Jefferson. But now, with the
economy in trouble and unemployment soaring, the idea of greater
independence is getting its most serious consideration since World War II.

Locals complain that federal and state regulators have hampered the fishing
and timber industries to protect forestlands and endangered species such as
sucker fish and the spotted owl. Jobs are so scarce that the median income
in the area is only two-thirds that of the rest of the state. Most water
from the rainy Shasta region is shipped south, with little economic benefit
to the area. Even the California sales tax draws sneers.

If they ran their own state, the reasoning goes, folks in Siskiyou, Modoc
and the other potential Jefferson counties could whack the red tape from
both federal and state officials and get rid of the sales tax.

Seeking signatures
The Grange Hall of Yreka, a farm-based service organization, is activating
51 of its brethren halls in the area to collect 1 million signatures to have
a statehood advisory measure put on the California ballot. Tony Intiso, a
runoff candidate in the Nov. 4 election for Siskiyou County Board of
Supervisors, has pledged to force the issue and is running campaign ads
calling for regional freedom. The number of registered users of a decade-old
Web site advocating partition has suddenly shot from dozens to more than
900.

"Heck yeah, it's a darn good idea," said Richard Mitchell, manager of the
Cooley & Pollard Hardware Store on Miner Street, the main drag in the
blink-and-you-miss-it town of Yreka. "Those liberal people down south don't
understand us at all, and if there was a vote today to form a new state, it
would pass in a heartbeat.

"I would bet on it."

The window of Mitchell's store, where he tends the register in worn work
boots and a camouflage hunting cap, displays T-shirts and flags sporting the
state "seal" of Jefferson: Two X's denoting the double-crossing the area
supposedly gets from the capitols of California and Oregon.

Movement began in 1941
Mitchell also posts a copy of the original declaration of Jefferson
independence, drafted in 1941 by the angry miners and loggers who pushed for
secession over the appalling condition of roads. That movement - the
coverage of which earned Chronicle reporter Stanton Delaplane a Pulitzer
Prize - lasted just two weeks before the Pearl Harbor attack, when the
movement dissolved in the name of national unity.

But it was never forgotten.

"It started out as a big joke back then, but then some folks got real
serious and before long they had elected a governor and all that," said
Frances Wacker, 95, whose husband, the late George Wacker, was one of the
1941 Jefferson movement leaders.

"I think some folks have become serious again and think they have something
going."

Sixty-seven years ago, Wacker recalled, locals were frustrated because they
were ignored when they complained to lawmakers that they couldn't easily
ship copper and timber south to ports and markets on the axle-cracking
roads. The roads have improved since then - the same trip now takes four
hours, not the eight of 1941 - but the unhappiness has not.

"It's not rocket science to see why it makes sense, and how we could do
it," said Brian Petersen, a landscaper who runs the main online forum
advocating statehood, www.jeffersonstate.com. "The capitols of California
and Oregon ignore us. We want out.

"All we have to do is get an initiative on the ballot and vote to get
things going."

Peterson has run his Web site for 10 years. For most of the time since, the
site had a mailing list of about 100.

In the past year, though, as the Grange began its petition drive and
unemployment throughout the region rose to about 10 percent - almost three
points above the California average - the mailing list grew nearly 10 times
in size.

"If you want any chance of fixing things, sometimes you have to break the
system," said Leo Bergeron, master of Yreka's Greenhorn Grange Hall and past
master of the statewide, agriculturally oriented Grange service club. "Now,
we have to break the system."

For years, he said, locals have proudly claimed Jefferson is a "state of
mind" born of living in an expanse of forestlands and hamlets that is
roughly the size of Wales and has about the same population as San
Francisco. Redding, with a population of 80,000, is the closest thing to a
metropolis. And with 60,000 cattle, Siskiyou County has 15,000  more bovines
than it does people. Along the way, tourist-minded locals have come up with
the flags, an official state cow ("Moo-dona," a huge sculpture alongside
Interstate 5) and an official beer (microbrewed in Etna). The legend of Big
Foot is also big around here.

But Bergeron's not playing around.

"If you do it seriously, some people will think you're a kook," said
Bergeron, who spearheads the Grange effort. "But 9 out of 10 people have an
interest in this - and we need to reach the ones who are really serious."

Working toward '09 measure
Bergeron's first goal is to gather 1,200 signatures in Siskiyou County to
put an advisory secession initiative on the county ballot in 2009. At the
same time, he is urging the 51 Grange Halls in Jefferson territory, and
those on the mailing list of  www.jeffersonstate.com, to gear up for
collecting 1 million signatures to take the advisory measure statewide.

"We'll need the approval of both states and the federal government, but it
can be done," he said. "And even if we don't become a new state, we will
have made a statement and can at least get some more independence in our own
affairs."

Such a statement would be news to most in Sacramento.

"Never heard of Jefferson," said Aaron McLear, spokesman for Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger. "We are going to decline comment."

Gail Fiorini-Jenner, co-author of two books on the state of Jefferson, said
the almost 900,000 people who live in the territory aren't hicks. Just
feisty. And that, she said, is not new: Since the 1850s, there have been
similar attempts to create the states of  Klamath and Shasta.

"Everyone thinks we're dumb rednecks, but we have the far left, the far
right and a lot of the middle up here," she said. "Our only trouble is we
have no political power. It's no wonder people want to change that."

E-mail Kevin Fagan at kfagan AT sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle