PLOW LOSES A FOUNDER AND A FRIEND

Harold McClary, a PLOW founder and a man of intelligence, wit, and dedication died in September after several months of ill health. Harold helped organize PLOW and was a member of the original board of directors. He continued in that position until he resigned due to ill health.

We remember with great fondness the evenings Harold and the other board members sat around our dining room table and made the decision first to form PLOW and then all the other decisions that the board has needed to make over the past ten plus years.

Many people ask why our dues are so low—well, Harold McClary is one of the reasons. When the discussion of memberships and dues came up, Harold said that PLOW needed to be affordable so that anyone who believed in private property rights could join. He was right. Nearly 3000 people have joined PLOW over the last ten plus years and one of the major reasons is that it is affordable.

Harold’s sense of humor was something very special. He had a story or a special humorous angle for every occasion. Along with his humor, he will be remembered for his intelligence, his strong belief in private property rights, and his dedication to PLOW.

We were blessed to have him as a friend and all of us in PLOW will sorely miss him. PLOW extends its sincere and heartfelt sympathy to his wife and family.

PLOW was organized just over ten years ago. During this time many members have passed away. During the next ten years this will undoubtedly happen many more times. Our membership consists primarily of farmers but includes loggers, hunters, fishers, snowmobilers, excavators, small businesses, builders, horseback riders, doctors, chiropractors, ministers, state patrol officers, DNR personnel, and just plain citizens who believe in the constitution including private property rights.

The troubling thing about our membership is that the majority is older citizens. We need to talk to our children and grandchildren about the constitution and private property rights. We need to counter the media, political, and green

propaganda that says the government can do a better job of taking care of the land than people who own the land and put their blood, sweat, and tears into it.

I think of my little sixth grade friend Chase Cooper and his desire

to help in the Mt. Hope Pond project. He is learning at an early age that citizens have to be alert in order to keep the DNR and other land grabbers in check. All of us need to make sure that our children and grandchildren are given the whole

truth not just what the media or other special interest groups want us to know and consequently believe.

Jennifer Olson of Barneveld is the winner of the first PLOW Scholarship. Jennifer, a student at MATC, will receive a check for $300 at the annual meeting in March.

The 2000 PLOW Scholarship letters have been sent to high schools in our five county area. Applicants need to write an essay on the value of private property rights. Two $300 scholarships are available to graduating seniors who plan to continue in school. If you have children, grandchildren, or friends who are eligible to apply, please encourage them to do so. The deadline is March 1, 2000.

Your PLOW officers and directors have been very busy over the last few months. In addition to attending the LWRB meetings, we assisted Baraboo area landowners in organizing a successful opt out campaign against a NPS effort to designate the Baraboo Hills area a National Natural Landmark.

On October 28, President Art Kulosa appeared live on the Rev. Ralph Ovadal’s television show In Focus, which airs in the Milwaukee area on WVCY. Art had the tape run on Richland Center’s Local Access Channel on Nov. 3 & 4.

On December 2 a professor from the University of China interviewed Gene Luebker. The professor is on a three-month leave to study American culture. China does have privately owned businesses but the land is

contracted from the government for a specific period of time for a specific price. The "owners" can then use the land in any manner they wish. Here we buy land for perpetuity, pay the taxes, and are then told what we can do and at what time!

Shirley Luebker attended the "illegal" trout pond meeting at the Mt. Ida School. Several PLOW members were in attendance and listened to the "unofficial" remarks about what the DNR is proposing as a solution for the problem. An official and legal meeting will be held in January. Watch your local newspapers for the exact time and date. This situation is far from over and all of us need to keep the pressure on the DNR to provide a reasonable and fair solution. Representative Brandemuehl was at the meeting and expressed his concerns over the lack of action on this matter.

That same evening Gene Luebker, Ruth Bender, Art Kulosa and other PLOW members were attending a meeting in Baraboo co-sponsored by PLOW where Chuck Cushman of the Land Rights Network was making a presentation.

Shirley Luebker as Lake States director for the AFA has completed the preliminary planning for the Alliance For America annual directors’ meeting that will be held in Madison in late September of 2000.

Director Karl Hausner did three 15 minute radio interviews on Ralph Ovadal’s Christian radio program "Heart of the Matter." Karl spoke about his experiences during and after WW11 in Europe and his concerns about property rights.

Baraboo Hills area residents have continued to work on this not so innocent designation process. With the help of PLOW and contributions from concerned citizens, Chuck Cushman of the Land Rights Network in Battleground, Washington came to Baraboo and conducted some meetings with individuals and the public.

One of the results of this grassroots effort against the National Natural Landmark designation was that 450 of 800 landowners opted out of the program. According to the National Parks rules on NNLs, if 50 percent of the landowners opt out, the designation will be dropped. We certainly hope that this is true; however, after looking at the track record of the Park Service and other government groups, everyone will need to stay alert in case they decide try another tactic. Another result of this effort was the formation of a new grassroots organization in the Baraboo Hills area.

According to the Dec. 3 Wisconsin State Journal the efforts of local residents has resulted in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service putting the Aldo Leopold National Wildlife Refuge on hold.

These actions do not mean that the battle for the Hills has been won or that the NNL designation has been defeated. These agencies tend to use various tactics to achieve their goals, which means that concerned landowners and citizens need to continue their diligent monitoring of these agencies and their activities.

The answer is a resounding yes. Do they want to pay for it or do they just want to control it? The answers to those questions are sometimes yes to paying for it and always yes to controlling it.

PLOW had a booth at the Sauk County fair this year that was located very close to the DNR booth. PLOW president Art Kulosa asked the employee at the DNR booth when the DNR would have enough land and his answer was "Never." This person had probably never spoken a truer word in his life.

As of June l999 the state already owns over 1,543,917 acres of Wisconsin land. The state legislature passed and the governor signed a stewardship bill that will allow the state to spend another $460 million purchasing land and easements over ten years.

The federal government owns 2, 143,000 acres in Wisconsin; the counties, 2, 597,000 acres; the municipalities; 768, 000 acres; school districts, 93,970 acres for a grand total of 7,145,627 acres. This represents 20.6% of all the land in Wisconsin.

We have all heard of personal greed and corporate greed. Now we can add governmental and environmental greed to the list. Guess who pays the bills for the last two greeds?

PUBLIC LANDS—NO TRESSPASSING

Pres. Clinton recently declared 40 million acres of Forest Service land as defacto wilderness meaning that it will be fenced off to the public. The total landmass is bigger than that of many states including Iowa and Illinois.

Republicans and Democrats alike are appalled at this side stepping of Congress and the Congressional approval as required by the 1978 National Forest Management Act. Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) Chairman of the Forest and Public Lands Subcommittee calls it an attempt by the administration and the preservationists to take us back to feudal Europe where land was locked up to all but an elite few.

Many recreationalists think this is great until they realize that they are the public that is denied access to these lands. Already snowmobilers are denied access to Mt. McKinley in Alaska; Yellowstone is threatened with closure. As we reported in past newsletters more and more roads on federal lands in Western states are being closed. In the Midwest these things are happening--the Boundary Waters of Minnesota are closed; there is an attempt to stop logging in the state forests of northern Wisconsin; the FWS wants to stop trapping of the Mississippi refuges; the Lower Wisconsin Riverway Board is getting involved with personal water craft (PCW) and possibly other boat limitations. This "locking up" of the land and water will continue slowly and surely until all public land—our land--is padlocked for everyone but the elitist few who can walk quietly through the land or paddle silently through the water.

The November 26, 1999 Wisconsin State Journal carried this five-column head line "Churches Begin Green Campaign." The article reports that churches and synagogues are being asked to campaign against global warming by making the environment a subject of their services.

The group plans to distribute materials to churches so they can "promote environmental stewardship" of "God’s good earth." According to the article, this includes such things as transportation systems that lead to "healthy, sustainable communities" (i.e. mass transport rather than up grading existing highways), reduction of consumption by the middle-class (i.e. dumbing down the economy so we live in conditions similar to those in third world countries).

The basis for this green campaign is the global warming scare perpetuated by the media and the various environmental groups. The scientific

evidence of global warming is being questioned more and more by reputable scientists across the U.S. and the world.

In the March newsletter, readers were alerted to activities by the Sierra Club and other groups to introduce their agenda into the churches and now we can see that this is what is happening. Be watchful for phrases, words, and articles that put man in a subservient position. Man--not trees, sheep, or rats--was created in God’s image and given dominion over the land and the sea. Many of the green organizations have been taken over by persons who want to put man at the bottom of God’s creation. But remember God put man at the top.

That was my reaction when DNR fish manager Gene VanDyke said that cows are the best things around for creating good trout fishing. For years we have had a situation where the DNR would buy up land containing trout streams or would buy stream easements from farmers. It seemed that the first thing that happened was the stream was fenced so cattle could only drink or walk through the water in a few places.

The Kinnikinic in St. Croix and Pierce counties of west central Wisconsin was one of the best trout streams in the state and the nation until the DNR moved in and fenced it. Now its banks are an almost inpermitable jungle of tag elder and other "junk" trees, it is silted in so badly that crayfish and sucker minnows can’t even survive. This also happened with other good trout streams in the state. Now the DNR has come to realize that cows are necessary to keep down the brush and provide conditions that keep silt from building up in the streams. In fact the DNR is opening up these streams to cattle in an attempt to undo their management fiasco. Oh yes, VanDyke reported cow droppings have no significant effect on water quality!

The Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has looted funds generated from the excise taxes on sporting arms, ammunition, and fishing tackle. The several hundred million dollars often called the Pittman-Robertson and Dingell-Johnson funds are to go to state fish and wildlife departments for conservation programs. The FWS is to get 8 percent for administrative costs and 92 percent is go to the states. Under Sec. Babbit and the Clinton administration this money has been grossly mismanaged. Congressman Don Young said in a hearing on the issue "that this hearing is about stealing conservation dollars to float the FWS. This hearing is about slush funds… and wasted conservation dollars."

Texas Wildlife Assoc. spokesperson David Langford probably said it best when he said there is and attitude of "environmental elitism" at the federal level.

Langford told the committee the message sent by the FWS is "we and only we, federals know what true conservation is. Hunters and fishermen are merely obstacles standing in the way of real habitat work."

In a related issue the FWS, and Sec. Babbitt proposed using $30 million from the sale of Duck Stamps and duties on imported guns and ammunition to purchase the Palmyra Atoll, an island in the central Pacific 1,000 miles south of Hawaii. After vigorous protests by the National Wilderness Institute House Resource Committee Chr. Don Young and Michigan Congressman John Dingell who opposed this use of money to buy an inaccessible island where there is no hunting and a duck population of only 10, Babbitt dropped the proposal.

As if farmers do not have enough problems, now even the Clinton/Gore administration is discouraging young people from going into agriculture. In the November, 1999, Kane County Farmer, Mike Kenyon in his column "On the Run" says "Recently Vice President Al Gore was credited with a comment that young people should seek another profession, as food production will be shifted to third world nations."