In our neck of the woods we have wind, rain coming down pretty well, more wind and more clouds coming in – like so many others we are wondering when Spring will arrive.

Had a good, ‘late’ Easter dinner with some of the kids yesterday.  We always cook for left overs and just let them divide up the leftovers for each family.  We will all be eating left overs for the next couple of days.

It was good seeing everyone – difficult getting more than two together at one time with so many variations in schedules, days off, etc.

We share the menu so everyone brings something, much easier for Carla and me; and we all enjoy the feast.

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FYI:  This is a long dissertation, but, I felt I had to say something.

For those that have read my book, you have basically read this most of this before.

I just finished watching the six part series, “Wild, Wild West” which is about the Rajneesh era in the County of Wasco, Oregon.

It is a good propaganda piece for the Rajneesh Religion, but errors in ways that I can only begin to discuss.

Sheila purchased the Big Muddy Ranch in Southeast Wasco County on behalf of the Rajneesh and his religion.

Her stated purpose to the people in Wasco County and eventually to the rest of Oregon, was that they wanted to have a place for him to reside, be with him and for them to practice state of the art agriculture techniques.

I am pretty sure that is also what she told the Realtor that showed her the 100 square miles, 64,000-acre ranch.

If she had told the Realtor that she wanted to build a community capable of dealing with 10,000 people or 100,000 people, depending on the day, she would have been told that this is zoned for agriculture only, and structures supporting that many people would not be allowed.

In addition to housing was the need for the things that would be needed to support such a population, starting with available water.  (Yes, I know they dammed up the creek and made a nice lake, which would help, but couldn’t begin to cover the needs of a large community and keep it sustainable.)

This was a cattle ranch.  While some farming could be done on the lower parts, (just a few very acres)  the rest of the property is many made up of sage brush, junipers, very little top soil, rocks and land that is usable only for the raising of cattle.  It took several acres to raise one cow due to the sparseness of vegetation.

There have been several stated (or speculated) reasons why she chose this ranch over places she had visited.  First, it met the criteria of isolation, they could go about their life without outside observations.

Also she felt this would be the ideal place for where her husband could be reincarnated and come back to her.

She fell in love with the ranch as she drove down the narrow road and just had to have it.

For those that have never visited the ranch, going over a small knoll looking out over the property you see purple hills and a feeling of serenity as you drive down the long narrow road to the bottom of the ranch where the original house still sits. 

You are away from the world, isolated and unencumbered by cell phones and other wireless technologies along with noise, pollution, and other things that encroach into your life that disturb you in the rest of the creation.  It is beautiful.

Her stated purpose was farming and that there would only be about 150 people living and working there.

When KD and others met with the Wasco County Planner, Dan Durrow, that was what they told him.  When they went around to the different service organizations assuring everyone that they would be good neighbors and good farmers they continued to state there would be very few people on the ranch.

The whole movement in Wasco County, the whole precept was built upon a lie that was soon shown to be a lie; as hundreds of people started moving onto the ranch and non-agriculture buildings started being erected it raised everyone’s concerns.

What were they really doing?

To be sure there were those that were opposed to the Rajneesh religion itself and therefore the followers – especially after the tax and other problems they had in India and many had watched the film “Ashram” which was filmed at the Rajneesh Ashram in India and depicted a very violent culture.

The illegal building heightened their concerns about the followers and what they thought they were capable of doing.

But Planning Director Dan Durrow, the Wasco County Planning Commission, the Wasco County Court as well as the other officials, elected and appointed, couldn’t care less about the religion, they were charged with the responsibility of upholding existing laws.

And the first and most prominent laws the Rajneesh were breaking was the Land Use Laws of the State of Oregon.  They were cited, went to court fighting the citations, and when they lost they appealed – continually building the buildings that were not agriculture related.

As an example, they wanted to build a large building to hold their meetings, it amounted to over 88,000 square feet.  They were told, no.  It was not compatible with farming.

So, they decided to build a greenhouse in the same location with the same dimensions, but, low and behold, after building it they found it couldn’t be used as a greenhouse – so it became their meeting area.

I have a friend who managed a propane company in Madras.  They supplied the tanks and propane to the commune.  One day a couple of them came in and asked him what it would take to heat such a building.

When he asked the size, they told him 2 acres.  He looked at them and said, “I don’t know, I have never figured heating by the acreage before.”  He figured it out and that was how they heated the greenhouse/meeting area.

They treated the laws of Oregon like a strong-willed child tries to treat the rules of the parents.  “You tell me I can’t, well, I am going to do it anyway.”  If they are not held accountable they continue the behavior and it becomes worse over time.

Because the Appeal process takes so long, there were no immediate repercussions for the Rajneesh actions, so they continued, even though the judge knew they were continuing to disobey the law and warned them that they might end up having to tear down all those buildings.

In the United States one of the worst claims you can make against an official (or anyone else for that manner) is unfair bias and treatment for a religious reason – and the Rajneesh worked that to a fine-tuned machine.

They made the whole issue about being told no because of their religion.  They milked the sentiments for all they were worth.

In the series there are segments of news casts of local residents who were opposed to the Rajneesh.  Frankly, it showed many as being the prejudiced people they were accused of being and gave the perception that these news segments were taken right after the Rajneesh started in.

Those segments are not dated.  But as you look at some of the background you can see several children dressed in the Rajneesh style clothing as well as several Rajneesh standing around – these people were part of the responses to what was happening when it became obvious the Rajneesh were breaking the law.

The Rajneesh were intelligent and were more ‘sophisticated’ than their ‘country cousins.’  They used intimidation and aggressiveness like an ax as they cut through any opposition and the residents were getting the brunt of those tactics.

Early on the residents of the county felt that they were ignored by the State Officials as they tried to get them to look into their situation.  Many of those officials just called them bigoted rednecks, refusing to listen or help.

Since the Rajneesh were having difficulty with the county permitting system they decided to have their own city at the Ranch.

Any incorporated city in Oregon not only can issue its own permits, but they can establish ordinances, create a police department, create their own court system, obtain access to the National Crime Information System, the DMV data for Oregon among other things.  They can pass taxes, they can receive proportional support for the gas and tobacco taxes.

In short, they can become autonomous, free from the County’s rules and decisions on planning.

Eventually Wasco County allowed the creation of a City at the Ranch, but in the meantime the citizens of the City of Antelope, knowing how a city operates, were very concerned that the Rajneesh had targeted them for a takeover.

They decided to disincorporate the city charter and just be a community dependent entirely on the services of the county.

As the election date neared more and more Rajneesh came into the community.  Under Oregon law, at the time, they could declare residency and sign up to vote on the same day as the election and several did just that.

City of Antelope became City of Rajneesh.  A police department was created.  They went from having very little (and needing very little) law enforcement presence; the citizens now had 24 hour a day coverage with at least two officers on duty if not all the time, most of it.

They made their presence known.  I was told they were constantly shining lights into residents’ homes, closely watching the less than 40 residents and all their movements.

The closest law enforcement agency to the city was actually in Jefferson County, the county seat is Madras, about a half hour away – the Sheriff’s Office was small, which didn’t matter, because they didn’t deal with Antelope, that was the responsibility of Wasco County, and we were stationed in The Dalles at least two hours (in good weather) away.  To be sure the Oregon State Police also could respond to any emergency, but they too were a long way off and understaffed.

With Law Enforcement being hours away when called upon, the longtime citizens actually felt they were in occupied territory from a foreign invader and the Rajneesh did nothing to relieve that feeling. 

The one State Official that took action as soon as he could was Dave Frohnmeyer, Oregon Attorney General.  His allegations that the cities of Rajneesh were operating illegally, being controlled by the religious needs of Rajneesh, were eventually proven out.

He advised the Police Academy to stop allowing the Rajneesh officers to come to the academy and not to certify them as officers – among other things.

He was vocal, and more importantly visible, in his efforts to curtail the lawless behavior of the leaders.

Tension between the residents in the area, Wasco County in general and the Rajneesh continued to escalate.  Each fearful of the other. 

There was prejudice on both sides; neither trusting the other.

In addition to continuing to build – even after they became a city at the ranch they would build in the area outside the city and refuse to obey the rulings handed down on those areas – they started plotting ways to take over county government.

They brought in homeless people from major cities all over the country.  It didn’t take long to figure out why, they would use these people to vote and take over the county; making sure that elected officials they deemed more moderate to them were elected – with the eventuality of electing their own people to the County Commission and they could then appoint someone they could control as the Planning Director among other things.

The series briefly touches on what happened in the court house when a bus load of the people was brought in to register to vote.  However, it isn’t a fair depiction.

Then County Clerk, Sue Profit, read a statement to everyone in the hallway, she was accompanied by her chief deputy, Karen LeBreton and another clerk Linda Brown.  While she did say that all registration from that point on would be rejected – and that is where the series stops – she also said that they would have a means for everyone to come forward and prove they had been in the county for the required 20 days (state election law had been changed due to the take over of Antelope) and were citizens.  The exclusion of this information badly skews the truth.

AND it wasn’t just the Rajneesh’s homeless, it was EVERYONE.  Some citizens’ registrations had been ‘mysteriously’ changed to another residence and had to re-register – they too had to go through the process.

Among the many other crimes that were committed by the Rajneesh, that I felt the series didn’t give enough information on, was the poisoning of the salad bars of several restaurants of The Dalles with salmonella bacteria.  This was a test run to see if they could get enough people sick that they would not go to vote and thus lower the votes where they would have a better chance of it going their way.

This had a profound effect on everyone in the County.

Over 750 people sought medical attention, flooding the hospitals in The Dalles, Hood River and Goldendale.  Many others just toughed it out or saw their doctors later.  In the series, I believe, it is glossed over.

Some restaurants had to close their doors almost immediately, as they lost business and their reputations, others struggled for years before they had to close their doors.  Hundreds of citizens suffered for several days, many several weeks and a large number are still suffering from that attack more than 34 years ago.

The bacteria seem to be their basic weapon of choice as they assaulted and almost killed county commissioners and the Jefferson County District Attorney and some of their own people.

During the investigation in September of 1985, Oregon State Police Lieutenant Dean Renfro led the investigations on everything except the Immigration issues and wire tapping.

In addition to the State Police investigators, the Attorney General had several investigators, our office and other agencies did what we could to support them.

While I have heard many comments that the Rajneesh were completely open to the officers giving them all needed information and help they could; they did not.  They screened calls, among other things, only giving a small amount of useable information. 

They tried to control the investigation – criminal investigators don’t answer to victims, witnesses or possible suspects, they have to follow the investigation wherever it leads even if those they are investigating don’t like it.

OSP lead investigators were in constant contact with two Assistant Attorney Generals.  On the day of the search warrant both attorneys were on site in a command vehicle in case they were needed.  Personally, I had a daily conversation with Frohnmeyer.

While I understand the devotion to Rajneesh by his followers.  While I appreciate their frustration on what they felt was unfair treatment of him and consequently, their religion, they are blaming the wrong people.

Many of the followers worked hard, they loved Rajneesh, they had a feeling of accomplishment; but they had very little idea that their paradise was built on lies and a complete disregard for the laws that governed land use in Oregon.

While they are proud of their accomplishments at the ranch, it was all built on sand.  It was doomed from the start when Sheila lied about why she was buying the property and then instigated the many violations, harassment, and crimes to make it happen.

In the series she states she served her time and is now free.  She once again lies.  She served her federal time, but not her state crime. 

The federal authorities were to call the Oregon Corrections Dept the day she finished her sentence so the department could pick her up and bring her back to Oregon.

They didn’t do it (we can speculate on that).  They didn’t call until later the next day allowing her over 24 hours to get out of the country and go to Switzerland where we do not have an extradition treaty with the U.S.

The series tries to consolidate the four years the Rajneesh were in Wasco County into 6 hours less the credits time.  That was a daunting task and some things had to be left out of the series.

It is understandable how they could not possibly cover it all, but I feel they downplayed the crimes, the ‘torture’ the local citizens underwent and how much of it was based on the Rajneesh leaders’ arrogance, disrespect of county citizens and their elected and appointed officials, willful wrong doing – thumbing their noses at all of them.

The leaders were criminally culpable for their actions.  Those actions, beginning at the signing of the papers awarding them the ranch, to the attempted murders, arson and multiple other crimes, is what caused the downfall of the ranch.

They never should have purchased and built on that property, Sheila duped the followers – she should have purchased property where they could legally build on and accomplish their dream.  That property was available throughout the United States including Oregon.

She did not.

That is the reason Rancho Rajneesh is no longer in existence.

In my opinion the last hour, in particular, plays on the emotions of the followers, way more than it should – thus downplaying the emotions of the other victims, the citizens of Wasco County.

Later, Art (-: