County retains wolf advocate

Kramer, who chairs the wolf committee, brought the issue to the commissioners Wednesday morning after the committee voted 4-2 on March 9 to remove Lutje.

“Unfortunately we have to do this and we have to do it today,” Kramer said. “This is not why I volunteered to head this committee. This committee is for depredation compensation. This is for a loss. This is not a platform for any of us to love the wolf, to hate the wolf.”

Kramer noted Lutje has less than two months remaining on her term and he has talked to other counties and learned disagreements between ranchers and wolf advocates are common.

“I still feel like she has the right to say what she wants to,” Kramer said. “She offended no one by name. She did not call out anybody other than a group of individuals. That’s my personal thoughts on this but I have a committee that voted 4 to 2 so I’m moving the recommendation from the committee this morning for consideration. With a lot of grief I make that motion to you this morning.”

Runyon noted the wolf committee was designed by the state legislature to have different points of view.

“Could you not expect to have problems?” he said “Hello? I wouldn’t expect anything else. The committee cannot add or remove members. That is the job of the commission. I’m not going to vote to remove anybody. I do not favor this motion at all.”

The wolf committee voted to remove Lutje because they said she used the committee’s name in the Chronicle article and compromised their “working complex,” Kramer said.

From reading Lutje’s guest column, Hege said he thought she was representing herself and not the committee.

“To anybody in the ranching business, it was pretty darn offensive, but I didn’t get the sense that she was representing the committee,” Hege said. “She was clearly representing herself. She has every right to do that but at the same time understand the people on the committee would be offended by that. This is a challenging committee. But I didn’t get the point that she was speaking for the committee. It was hard for me to understand how they would draw that conclusion.”

Kramer said Lutje had been a good committee member and contributed to the group getting a $1,750 grant for non-lethal wolf management activities.

Mike Urness, who represents the business community on the committee and made the motion to remove Lutje on March 9, told the commissioners Lutje’s piece in the Chronicle “really handicaps people from being able to participate in this program.”

“I think it’s detrimental to this program to have someone with that kind of opinion and I think you need to look at how everybody else on that committee voted,” he continued. “The committee voted to have her removed after a fair amount of discussion. I think that needs to be taken into consideration.”

Lutje also gave public testimony. Reading from a prepared letter, Lutje said she felt like she, as well as Kramer, were being bullied by folks who took offense to her guest column.

“I didn’t realize that so many folks in Wasco County had developed such delicate sensibilities or had become so politically correct,” Lutje read.

She added that at no time had she impeded the work of the committee.

“To claim that a rancher would not come before the committee seeking compensation because I am a member is absolutely ludicrous,” Lutje said.

Lutje said she was committed to the wolf committee and respectfully asked if she was removed that the entire committee be disbanded and start over.

The county commissioners took action to prevent that from happening.