Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: A letter that tells all

Sunday, March 19, 2000 | 9:43 a.m.

Mike O'Callaghan is the Las Vegas Sun executive editor.

Gee whiz, some of the officials running Elko County have been telling the world that Gloria Flora had overblown the seriousness of the situation in their area. She was the forest supervisor who quit to get the attention of her superiors about the problems her Forest Service employees were facing in Elko County. Now it appears that Flora's antennas had picked up every vicious nuance the anti-government forces were peddling.

Remember Elko County District Attorney Gary Woodbury? He's one of the main tools local conspiracy nuts used to attack conservation agency employees of both the federal and state governments. Thrown in with them as evildoers were environmentalists and environmental clubs.

In 1995 an Elko businessman wanted a grand jury to investigate the "conspiracy" between environmentalists and government natural resource agencies. One paragraph read: "It is becoming increasingly obvious that these relationships go far beyond the accepted, they in fact may well represent a conspiracy, a conspiracy involving those within the environmental movement and those employees within the various resource management bureaucracies. This conspiracy has, and continues to economically impact the ranching and mining community of Elko County, the business community of Elko County and, collectively, all of its taxpaying citizens."

Before the letter writer finished, he recommended that a grand jury be called to "destroy the conspiracy and hold the conspirators totally accountable for the damages they have wrought."

He got his grand jury and Woodbury went out to drag a U.S. Forest Service employee before it. District Judge Thomas Stringfield canceled that foolish move, but they went ahead and dragged in some state conservation employees. It took almost three years for this mess to be straightened out by the Nevada Supreme Court when it slapped Elko District Judge J. Michael Memeo alongside his head for helping an abusive grand jury beat up on state employees.

At the same time, Woodbury was flexing his jaw muscles and refusing to prosecute any drunken drivers intercepted at police checkpoints. He said the checkpoints are repugnant to him. This resulted in Las Vegan Sandy Heverly of Stop DUI unloading on him. She finished her letter to Woodbury, writing, "At the close of each day, I count my blessings -- as of this writing, I am thankful my family and I do not reside in your jurisdiction, as I am sure we would have found the experience to be 'repugnant.' "

Last week another stupid Woodbury action became public when a letter he wrote Dec. 30, 1998, was revealed. The public release of the letter was called appalling by one of the county commissioners who had kept the contents of the letter quiet for more than a year. What is really appalling are the contents of the letter. For example:

"Finally, the commissioners as well as the speakers should encourage community non-cooperation with the Forest Service both within and without government. By this I mean encouraging businesses to deny basic services that the Forest Service depends on. I am fully aware that this means sacrifice on the part of businesses and others and that the chances of successfully closing off all alternative avenues is small."

And then there was Woodbury's suggestion that radio ads attacking the Forest Service end saying, "This message is brought to you by the Elko County Commission who encourages you to let the Forest Service know what you think about this by not cooperating with them. Don't sell goods or services to them until they come to their senses."

Now that the real and nasty poison in the minds of several Elko County leaders has been exposed they want to dump it all back on Woodbury. He's not the man who called for an abusive grand jury. No, Gary Woodbury is just the guy who came dancing out on the stage when Elko County leaders sang "here come the clowns."

It's obvious that Gloria Flora knew the Gary Woodburys of Elko County better than did her critics.