February 16, 1994
Wood River Journal
Marvel vows to fight 'cow-ocracy'
By, JENNIFER PETER

Despite a recent and resounding Land Board defeat Hailey architect Jon Marvel remains confident that the Idaho Watersheds Project's bid for a tract of state land will ultimately prevail. "This will all go down in court," Marvel said Thursday, "if we take it to court." And that is a very real possibility, Marvel said. "Honestly, they might have done us a favor, " the conservation group's leader said. "Their vote gives us the opportunity to settle this once and for all in the courts and we are strongly considering filing a court action."Although disturbed by the outcome of the vote, Marvel said he was not surprised by it. "The entrenched nature of the cow-ocracy is extremely difficult to dislodge in a political forum, " he said. "It was clearly a political decision and therefore the many facts were ignored."...Appearing the day before [the Land Board] made their vote was a Republican press release threatening to alert every farmer and rancher in the state should the Land Board vote to give the lease to the "extreme environmentalist over the rancher." "The Land Board not only violated statute and regulation but the Constitution of the State of Idaho," Marvel said after the vote.