SALEM — Intense opposition by Oregon’s farmers, ranchers and forestland owners has apparently convinced lawmakers to back away from altering key property tax provisions affecting agriculture and forestry.

Machinery used for agriculture and forestry is exempt from property tax assessments while property dedicated to producing crops, livestock and timber is less heavily taxed than other real estate.

Under the original language of House Bill 2859, the property tax exemption for equipment and the farm use assessment for land would expire in 2024 unless renewed by lawmakers.

The proposal evoked alarm in Oregon’s natural resource community, which turned out in full force at a March 1 hearing to argue that creating a “sunset” for these provisions would financially destabilize farming, ranching and forestry.

By the end of the hearing, the overwhelmingly negative testimony against HB 2859 seemed to have the desired effect on members of the House Revenue Committee.

“I’m pretty convinced putting a sunset on these things that are very long-term assets doesn’t make any sense,” said Rep. Phil Barnhart, D-Eugene, the committee’s chair.

At the beginning of the hearing, Barnhart said the bill was drafted in response to an audit from Oregon’s Secretary of State’s Office, which called for periodic review of existing property tax exemptions and tax credits.

In light of the objections to HB 2859, though, Barnhart said he thought the sunset provisions related to natural resources should be eliminated from the bill.

The suggestion drew no objections from other committee members, so Barnhart said they would only consider the remaining provisions of HB 2859 related to economic development and other issues.

“I think you should consider all of what I just said means that you win,” Barnhart told the audience, to enthusiastic applause.

Farmers, ranchers and forestland owners at the hearing emphasized that natural resource industries were already highly uncertain due to the weather and volatile markets.

Landowners said they shouldn’t also have to contend with the possibility their property taxes may rise dramatically every six years, which is the period of sunset review established under HB 2859.

“In the orchard business, we need to plan long term,” said Bruce Chapin, a hazelnut producer near Keizer, Ore.

Marsha Carr, a forestland owner near Monroe, Ore., said her annual property taxes would rise from about $1,000 to more than $25,000 under HB 2859.

Carr said her family harvests timber in small patches of five to seven acres, which preserves habitat for wildlife and songbirds.

“That would have to change to pay the taxes,” she said. “We would have to cut larger areas.”

Farmers rely on specialized equipment but they often operate it for only a month or less per year, unlike other industries where machinery creates revenues year-round, said Roger Beyer, a lobbyist for the Western Equipment Dealers Association and several crop organizations.

If property taxes were imposed on farm machinery, it would destroy demand for machinery, he said. “It would simply dry up and go away.”

Landowners also testified that property would unfairly be taxed at the maximum assessed value if the farm use assessment was allowed to expire.

Oregon’s land use system would still prevent landowners in farm zones from building homes or other high-value structures on their property, even if it was taxed as if such construction was possible, opponents said.

Mark Simmons, a rancher from Elgin, Ore., said the farm use assessment is part of a “grand bargain” between land use restrictions and property taxes.

While it’s currently tough to raise cattle on Simmons’ property, it could be a “gold mine” for development, he said.

“It’s mostly rocks and cheatgrass,” he said. “Some of those rocky hills with cheat grass have a view.”

SALEM — Oregon Ag Fest is soliciting applications for its fifth annual Agricultural Education Award.

The purpose of the award is to reward student organizations, nonprofit groups or classrooms that promote and educate Oregonians about agriculture and extend the Oregon Ag Fest mission beyond its annual, two-day, interactive event.

Applications are due March 15 and can be downloaded from the Oregon Ag Fest website: http://oragfest.com/dev/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/AgEducationAwardForm_2017.pdf.

Cash prizes totaling up to $2,000 may be awarded to as many as three winners annually. Awards will be presented on stage during Oregon Ag Fest on April 30. Award prizes will depend on quality of applications submitted.

“As Oregon Ag Fest celebrates 30 years of growing awareness for the importance of agriculture in our communities, we are proud to continue to support the agricultural education outreach efforts of nonprofit and student organizations this year,” said Tami Kerr, Oregon Ag Fest Chair, in a press release. “Oregon Ag Fest is dedicated to educating the public about the importance of agriculture, and we see this award as a way to encourage and support student groups that have programs and activities aimed to accomplish the same thing.”

Oregon Ag Fest attracts over 19,000 people who experience the world of Oregon agriculture in a fun-filled, festive environment. For more information go to www.oragfest.com.

Farmers can boost agritourism revenues by banding together to create high-profile events that attract far-flung visitors to their region, according to a tourism expert.

Agritourism is a growing source of income for U.S. growers but the industry isn’t as mature as in Italy, France and other European countries, said Lisa Chase, a natural resources specialist who studies agritourism at the University of Vermont.

While U.S. farmers have made significant progress in direct sales to consumers through farmers’ markets and similar venues, they’re lagging behind in “immersive” experiences, such as offering on-farm lodgings, she said.

“There are tremendous opportunities we’re just starting to touch on,” said Chase.

To entice tourists, growers can partner with other agritourism operations to develop a “bigger package” of multiple events and destinations, she said.

“Maybe that’s going to make people come all the way to Oregon,” Chase said during a recent “agritourism summit” organized by Oregon State University.

Emphasizing the unique agricultural traits of a region can also forestall acrimony from surrounding farmers, who may otherwise feel irritated by events that are disconnected from production agriculture, she said.

“That can cause some friction in the agricultural community,” Chase said.

Bauman Farms near Gervais, Ore., is well-acquainted with the need to create a destination for tourists.

The operation is “on the way to nowhere” and must lure visitors on its own merits, rather than rely on passersby, said Brian Bauman, its general manager.

“It’s about creating that festive atmosphere,” he said.

The farm has pumpkins for Halloween and pies for Thanksgiving, but it’s also found reasons for people to visit after the holidays. For example, speeches by local experts, including authors, gardeners and cooks, are paired with a traditional “high tea” in the farm house.

“It’s turned into this really great experience they’re almost fighting to get into,” Bauman said, noting that painting classes at the farm are also proving popular.

Agritourism brings in the most revenues for farmers along the West Coast and New England, while growers in areas like southern Texas benefit from allowing hunters onto their land, said Chase, citing USDA statistics.

Farmers tend to focus on agritourism related to crops and livestock, but many also own woodlots that can serve as sources of entertainment, she said. “Those are often overlooked opportunities.”

Across the U.S., sales from agritourism and direct marketing doubled between 2002 and 2012, from about $1 billion to $2 billion, according to the agency’s Census of Agriculture.

The trend is reflected in Oregon, where agritourism and direct marketing revenues grew from $24 million in 2002 to $55 million in 2012.

Despite the overall upward trajectory, these revenues were actually higher in Oregon in 2007, when they hit $63 million.

“I really think it’s a reflection of the global recession,” said Mary Stewart, an applied economics and agritourism faculty member with OSU’s extension service.

Direct marketing and agritourism revenues likely dipped between 2007 and 2012 in Oregon due to the decline in leisure spending by consumers as well as wariness among farmers to invest in such ventures, she said.

“I feel very positive we will see a rebound when the next census comes out,” Stewart said.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Ammon Bundy, who was recently acquitted in the armed occupation of a national wildlife refuge in Oregon, testified Tuesday that he felt “driven” to protest federal control of Western lands after learning that two Oregon ranchers were imprisoned for setting fires on public rangeland.

Bundy was brought to the federal courtroom in Portland from Las Vegas, where he is in custody awaiting trial on charges he led armed gunmen to block a federal cattle roundup near his father’s Nevada ranch in 2014.

A defense attorney for Bundy’s fellow occupier Jason Patrick of Bonaire, Georgia, walked Bundy through the series of events that led him and others to seize the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge on Jan. 2, 2016. Bundy, his brother Ryan and five others were acquitted in the Oregon case last fall.

Duane Ehmer of Irrigon, Oregon; Darryl Thorn of Marysville, Washington; and Jake Ryan of Plains, Montana, are on trial.

In response to questions from defense attorney Andrew Kohlmetz, Bundy said that the seeds for the refuge takeover were planted in October 2015, when he first heard about Dwight and Steven Hammond, two ranchers from rural Oregon who were about to report to prison for a five-year sentence after being convicted of setting fires on public rangeland.

He was lying in bed when he read an article about their case and “when I read that article, it was like I was pushed out of that bed and I needed to learn more,” he said. “I felt driven and I don’t know how to quite explain it. ...I felt a drive, an urge, to find out all I can and to get myself familiar with what was going on.”

He spent all night reading about the case online, wrote a blog post and wrote a letter that was eventually sent to 28,000 people by email, he testified.

Shackled and wearing a blue prison outfit, Bundy testified that he identified with the Oregon ranchers because he felt his own family had been targeted in a similar fashion by federal Bureau of Land Management agents who were trying to seize his father’s cattle in a decades-long dispute over grazing rules and unpaid fees.

In April 2014, Bundy backers pointed weapons at BLM agents and contract cowboys who were rounding up cattle near the Bundy ranch outside Bunkerville, Nevada, according to federal prosecutors. Bundy, his brother Ryan and his father, Cliven, are all scheduled for trial later this year on charges including conspiracy, firearms offenses and assault of a federal officer in the Nevada standoff.

“My conclusion was what was happening to them was very similar to what had happened to my family,” Bundy said of the Hammonds.

He decided to drive to Burns, Oregon from his home in Idaho because he wanted to learn “why families like ours and the Hammonds ... are in the situation we’re in where we’re losing our heritage,” he said.

Bundy met with the Hammonds and also with the Harney County sheriff in the hopes he would “bring light and stand for the Hammonds” by pushing back against federal authorities and convening a county-run investigation, he said.

Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward testified during Bundy’s trial last year that he met with Bundy four times but ultimately disagreed that it was his role to intervene on behalf of the Hammonds. He felt Bundy was making ultimatums and warned him that the community wouldn’t tolerate the kind of actions Bundy’s family had taken at the Nevada ranch, he has said.

The Bundys were arrested in a Jan. 26 traffic stop away from the refuge that ended with police fatally shooting Robert “LaVoy” Finicum, an occupation spokesman. Most occupiers left the refuge after Finicum’s death, but a few holdouts remained until Feb. 11, 2016.

The acquittal of the Bundy brothers and the five others in what had seemed to be an open-and-shut case was a stunning blow for federal prosecutors last October.

Like the defendants in the first trial, the primary charge facing the men is conspiracy to impede Interior Department employees from doing their jobs at the refuge through the use of force, threats or intimidation.

This time, prosecutors hired an outside consultant to help them with jury selection and hedged their bets by adding misdemeanors such as trespassing to the mix of charges against the four men. The misdemeanor charges will be heard in a non-jury trial after the felony trial ends.

A calf found dead on private land in Southern Oregon’s Jackson County was killed by a wolf, according to the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The three-day-old calf was found by a ranch employee Feb. 25. ODFW investigated that day and found wolf tracks in the snow around the carcass. The entrails and internal organs had been eaten. Bite marks on the carcass were wider and deeper than coyote bites, according to an ODFW report.

Data from a GPS radio collar showed a wolf designated OR-25 was at the kill site at 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. on Feb. 25. OR-25 is a male that dispersed from the Imnaha Pack in northeast Oregon in March 2015 and traveled through the Columbia Basin, southern Blue Mountains and the northern and central Cascades.

The attack happened in the Red Blanket Creek area.

Tuesdays

CB Library hosts a birthday party for Dr. Seuss

Oregon’s grass seed farmers will harvest slightly fewer acres this year due to a combination of freezing weather, heavy rain and damage from the usual suspects: slugs, voles, cut worms, geese and mice, according to a survey by USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.

In some cases, fields were so wet last fall that farmers weren’t able to plant, said Roger Beyer, executive director of the Oregon Seed Council. He said grass seed prices have been fairly strong and sales brisk, however.

Regarding pests, Beyer said growers are hopeful Oregon State University’s new slug expert, Rory McDonnell, will “make some dents” in the problem. McDonnell was hired in 2016.

The annual NASS survey said some Washington County growers reported slow regrowth of established fields and that some newly-planted fields froze this winter. On a brighter note, the heavy winter snowpack means there will be adequate moisture this spring.

The NASS survey indicated annual ryegrass acreage available for harvest this summer will increase by one percent to 119,000 acres. Perennial ryegrass acreage, however, dropped from 87,000 acres harvested last year to 75,000 acres available this summer.

Plantings of turf type tall fescue also dropped, from 101,000 acres harvested last summer to 93,000 available for harvest in 2017. Plantings of forage type tall fescue and K-31 tall fescue increased by about 1,000 acres each, according to the survey.

Grass seed, used worldwide for parks, lawns, sports fields and pastures, is perennially among Oregon’s most valuable crops. NASS listed it fifth in 2015, with a value of nearly $384 million.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Community activists and union leaders say federal immigration officers stopped two vans carrying workers headed to a forest to pick an ornamental shrub, detained 19 of them and then took 10 of them away.

Pedro Sosa, who works with the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group, said 10 of the Latino workers were taken away after the traffic stop on a highway just outside the town of Woodburn in the predawn hours Friday. He said most of the workers are Guatemalan and at least one is Mexican.

Sosa said Tuesday four or five of the workers remain in detention, and may have been taken to a detention center in Tacoma, Washington.

Rose Richeson, spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement for the Pacific Northwest, said she is gathering information on the matter.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Openly defying President Donald Trump’s plans to step up deportations of immigrants in the U.S. illegally, several hundred of them and their supporters staged a rally Monday right next to a building of the federal immigration agency.

“We are undocumented, and we are unafraid,” protesters chanted at the rally, held in bone-chilling rain near downtown Portland. Uniformed guards at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement building kept an eye from behind windows on the peaceful protest, but they did not intervene. Some motorists driving by tooted their horns and gave thumbs-up in a show of support.

Speakers at the rally gave their names to the crowd and the media. Some said that while they are worried that this could bring them to the attention of ICE agents, they felt they had to speak out to dispel the climate of fear that has gripped the immigrant community in Oregon, where a few towns have a majority Latino population, and in much of the rest of the nation.

“I am very afraid,” Juan Avalos said in an interview. “But that’s the point today, coming out of the shadows. We will no longer be afraid, and this is the main point of the event.”

Now 21, Avalos had come to America from Salamanca, a town in Guanajuato state in central Mexico, when he was only 12. He is a student at a community college and works at an auto body shop.

“We are students. We are brothers. We are people who are just trying to be someone in life,” he said.

Trump says deportations are needed to keep America safe, and that the priority is to get criminals out. But some of those with no criminal history, or minor infractions, are also being detained.

During the rally, one of the protesters was on the phone, being told there had been people detained in the last few days in Woodburn, a predominantly Latino town south of Portland.

On Feb.9, a Woodburn man, a father of two who has lived in the U.S. for 30 years, was detained by ICE agents and sent to a detention center in Tacoma, Washington. ICE did not immediately confirm any additional detentions in Woodburn.

Luna Flores, who spoke at the rally, has lived in Portland for 16 years, and she is the mother of a U.S. citizen. She worries that she will be separated from her daughter if she is deported.

“We try to send a message to the ICE, to the government, to the whole administration, we are not criminals,” she said. “They are separating our families.”

Hannah Zaiv, a retired mental health counselor from Portland, held a sign saying “Let Them Stay” as she listed to the speakers.

“This is a country made for everyone,” she said. “The world should be made for everyone. Like John Lennon sang in ‘Imagine’: ‘Imagine there’s no countries.’ “

ICE said in a statement that it “fully respects the rights of all people to voice their opinion without interference,” local TV channel KATU reported.

The station also carried on its website a statement from an unidentified spokesperson for the Oregon Republican Party saying “Illegal immigrants flaunting their illegality is the same as promoting anarchy.”

The first picture I'm sharing this week was taken before the Bandon Fire, and in the foreground you can see the Golden Rule store, which later relocated to Second Street and is now the Continuum Center building. East of that…

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 1

Saturdays

Saturday, Feb. 25

Ranchers who suffer livestock losses from predators stand to lose state support under both budget scenarios currently proposed for the Oregon Department of Agriculture.

Funding aimed at predator control and compensation for livestock depredation would be cut under recommendations from Gov. Kate Brown as well as the co-chairs of the Joint Ways and Means Committee, Sen. Richard Devlin, D-Tualatin, and Rep. Nancy Nathanson, D-Eugene.

The proposed cuts drew objections from the livestock industry during a Feb. 22 hearing on ODA’s budget before a panel of Joint Ways and Means Committee members focused on natural resources.

As the wolf population has grown in Oregon, livestock losses have been a continuing source of frustration for ranchers, said Mike Durgan of the Baker County Wolf Compensation Advisory Committee.

Even when wolves don’t kill cattle, they cause health problems that are considered indirect losses and aren’t compensated with state dollars, Durgan said.

Until wildlife officials find a better way to manage the predators, the livestock industry should receive state assistance, he said. “I want to make it clear I’m not advocating killing wolves today.”

Oregon counties have steadfastly contributed money to their partnership with ODA and USDA’s Wildlife Services division to pay for predator control, even as they’ve fallen short of funds for public safety and other vital services, said Craig Pope, a Polk County commissioner.

“We will have no one else to call if we let this partnership fail,” Pope said. “Counties cannot make up the difference of this funding hole.”

The Oregon Hunters Association and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation testified in favor or restoring the state’s full contribution to the predator control program, which they say is necessary to maintain a balance between predators and deer and elk.

Under Gov. Kate Brown’s recommended 2017-2019 budget, the ODA would eliminate $460,000 in state funding for the USDA’s Wildlife Services division, which kills problematic predators.

An ODA program that compensates ranchers for wolf depredation would be funded at $211,000 under the governor’s proposal, compared to $233,000 in the 2015-2017 biennium.

The co-chairs of the Joint Ways and Means Committee, meanwhile, have proposed a “budget framework” for the upcoming biennium that would decrease funding for the wolf compensation program “and/or reduce funding for predator control.”

While the co-chairs’ budget framework doesn’t specify the exact reductions for ODA programs, it does propose cutting state funding for all natural resource agencies to $405 million, down from $413.6 million during the previous biennium.

Rep. Lew Frederick, D-Portland, said he’s concerned about livestock losses and supports continued assistance from the state but raised concerns about possible hunting of wolves.

While wolves aren’t currently hunted in Oregon, controlled hunts could be allowed during a later phase of wolf recovery under the state’s management plan for the species.

Frederick cautioned against the display of “trophy” wolves killed by hunters, which he said would erode public support for the predator control and wolf compensation programs.

“That’s a political situation that will shut down a great deal,” he said.

Aside from predator control, other ODA programs are on the chopping block under the proposals from Brown and the co-chairs of the Joint Ways & Means Committee.

A coalition of natural resource industry groups — including the Oregon Farm Bureau, Oregon Association of Nurseries, Oregon Cattlemen’s Association and others — urged lawmakers not to curtail those programs.

For example, the co-chairs’ budget framework recommends decreasing the number of positions in ODA’s agricultural water quality program and shifting food safety and pesticide programs from the general fund to program fees.

Industry representatives fear such shifts will effectively increase fees on farmers, ranchers and others.

Under Brown’s budget proposal, about $250,000 in general fund dollars would be cut from ODA’s inspection program for “confined animal feeding operations,” shifting the burden onto fee payers.

A biocontrol program for controlling invasive weeds would also be eliminated, saving $250,000.

Don Farrar, Gilliam County’s weed officer, argued against the proposal because biological control with predatory insects can effectively suppress large infestations of weeds.

“This program has been one of the best in the nation and it would be sad to lose that,” he said.

POWERS — Powers’ volunteer firefighter compensation could be leaving the city exposed to problems with the Internal Revenue Service.

SWEET HOME, Ore. (AP) — A memorial service for a man who died in a logging accident has been scheduled for Sunday afternoon at the Sweet Home High School auditorium.

The Albany Democrat-Herald reports Colt Campbell was struck by a tree last week while working with his family’s timber cutting business on Weyerhaeuser property west of Eugene.

The 29-year-old timber faller was married and had a 5-year-old son.

PORTLAND — Federal employees spoke Thursday about their inability to work during the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation last year.

At U.S. district court in Portland, jurors also viewed a video that showed occupiers talking about killing those workers if they had to flee the Harney County facility.

“I wasn’t able to perform my duties at the refuge,” Linda Beck, a former fish biologist at the refuge, told the court. “It wasn’t safe for me to go to work.” This is the second time Beck and other federal employees testified. She spoke previously in last year’s trial of more prominent occupation leaders. Those men and one woman were acquitted on all charges.

Bureau of Land Management Special Agent Jason Curry talked Thursday about two “Closed Permanently” signs that had been fastened to the BLM office in Hines, near Burns in Eastern Oregon.

“We had to remove the signs before you could open the door,” Curry said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Geoff Barrow later asked if the sign would “physically impede” work by BLM employees.

“Yes, it would,” Curry said.

“I have no further questions,” Barrow responded.

Thursday’s questions were the latest attempts by federal prosecutors to show jurors that the four occupiers on trial were part of a conspiracy whose intent was to prevent federal employees from doing their jobs.

Sixteen employees worked at the refuge at the time of the occupation. Since then, five have taken positions elsewhere. The remaining employees are back, working at the refuge, but the headquarters buildings remain closed to the public. Officials expect they will reopen later this year.

As at the first trial, Barrow showed Beck photos of her office during and after the occupation. He asked Beck questions like whether her office was open to the public and if it looked the same as she had left it before the 41-day long occupation began.

Beck said there was a sign on the fence outside her office that said “closed to the public.”

“Is that your gun?” Barrow asked, showing the jury a photo of occupation leaders Ryan Bundy, cradling a long gun, with Ammon Bundy sitting at Beck’s desk.

Beck responded that it wasn’t.

“I’m not allowed to have firearms in my office,” she said.

As in her testimony during the first trial, Beck said she wasn’t able to conduct carp removal from Malheur Lake and the Blitzen River during January 2016.

During cross-examination, Jake Ryan’s attorney, Jesse Merrithew, asked Beck if any of the men on trial had objected in emails or phone calls to the carp-removal program.

“I have no idea,” Beck responded.

To prove their case, prosecutors have to show the occupiers’ state of mind at the time of the occupation was to keep federal employees from going to work.

Jess Wennick, who runs the grazing program at the refuge, said he was told by his boss to not go to work because of the occupation.

“He said it was not safe to return to work at that time,” Wennick testified.

“If your office had not been taken over and occupied, would you have returned to work?” Barrow asked.

“Yes,” Wennick said.

Borrowing a line from his previous testimony, Wennick referred to the office next to his as a “technological sweatshop” after the occupation because it smelled and computer parts were strewn about the room. Wennick testified it appeared the occupiers brought a scanner to the refuge and used it to copy government files.

During Wennick’s cross-examination, Merrithew again drove at the question of the occupiers’ intent. He asked whether the men on trial had voiced opposition to bird surveys taken at the refuge.

“Not to my knowledge,” Wennick said.

“You don’t know who precisely was in those offices,” Merrithew said.

“No,” Wennick responded.

Federal prosecutors repeatedly stressed through their witnesses that across Harney County, federal employees were impeded by the occupiers.

Matthew Yeager, an FBI agent who analyzed Facebook accounts for some of the occupiers, testified about a series of private messages and public posts. Some were new; others were included as part of last fall’s trial.

“I’m getting conflicting message on the 2nd,” read one private message from Gavin Seim to Ammon Bundy on Dec. 30, 2016, seemingly referring to a planned protest in Burns on Jan. 2. “On one hand it’s being called a rally and protest. On the other it’s a call to action. People are confused.”

“I would never show up to a rally without my arms,” Bundy wrote back.

On Dec. 31, 2016, a man named Brandon Thomas wrote a private message to Bundy:

“I think you aught (sic) make it more clear that people should not take as a green light to stand against the FEDs, like was done at your family’s ranch,” Thomas wrote. “Just my two cents.”

“It’s much more than a protest,” Bundy wrote back.

Facebook messages also showed defendant Darryl Thorn discussing his involvement with the refuge.

“I was part of the federal building occupation,” Thorn wrote in a private message Jan. 3.

A photo posted to Facebook shows Thorn sitting in what Agent Yeager said was the fire tower at the refuge.

“Good good sitting here at the refuge standing guard,” Thorn wrote in another message.

During cross-examination, Marc Freidman, Thorn’s attorney, asked Yeager if Thorn was at the refuge when the photos were uploaded. Yeager said he couldn’t tell, but added that Thorn “was very boastful about his participation in the occupation.”

The day ended with an 11-minute video depicting a meeting in the fire bunkhouse at the refuge on Jan. 26, 2016, after the leaders were arrested and Arizona rancher LaVoy Finicum was shot and killed by Oregon State Police during a traffic stop.

The video depicts defendant Jason Patrick appearing to lead a meeting about whether the remaining occupiers should leave the refuge or stay. Thorn and Ryan are also present.

“We are the David in the David and Goliath story,” Patrick says. He tells the small group assembled in the bunkhouse kitchen that he has already put out a message to the media saying the remaining occupiers want a peaceful resolution.

“If we change tactics, the narrative changes to domestic terrorism,” Patrick says.

Off-camera, an unidentified person can be heard saying, “We already have our martyr,” presumably a reference to Finicum. Another unidentified person suggests the group should “execute” federal employees and their families.

Thorn, who is sitting on a bar stool smoking a cigarette, with a long gun resting against his leg, says the remaining occupiers should stay.

“All I see is a buck of salty motherf------,” Thorn says. “We came here for one reason and that’s to fight.”

At one point in the video, Ryan, who doesn’t appear to speak, is seen standing next to Thorn.

Blaine Cooper, another occupation leader, suggests leaving the refuge in one of the firetrucks and heading for Idaho, where the occupiers can regroup. Cooper says they could put five armed people on the truck and “if they try and follow us, lay lead down.”

Patrick and Thorn can be heard disagreeing with the plan.

“I came to defend the Constitution, not flight,” Patrick says at one point.

But during his redirect, Barrow pointed out that in the end, Patrick, Thorn and Ryan all voted to stay, rather than leave the refuge.

BANDON -- Harbor Lights Middle School and Bandon High School students learned about high growth careers that provide good wages at the GEAR-UP Vocational Career Fair held at the HLMS gym on Feb. 7.

BANDON -- Harbor Lights Middle School and Bandon High School students learned about high growth careers that provide good wages at the GEAR-UP Vocational Career Fair held at the HLMS gym on Feb. 7.