Application

Received two phone calls on Friday 14 October 2011, from Sandy Tuck, Clay B. Poulter, about the recent business license issued to Garet Jones Prime Cuts Meat Processing in Eden, they talked about what they had seen not being consistent with what they had led to believe was the criteria of the issuance of the license. I was also asked if I knew what was going on from the County Commission office, Shelly the office manager said one of the Commissioners had received a long lengthy phone call and then an e-mail had been sent the next day which misrepresented content of what the Commissioner had spoken about to the constituent. Commissioner Jan M. Zogmaister then spoke to me and said she would forward an e-mail which twisted her words of a conversation she had had a day earlier, the Commissioner indicated that she had sent the e-mail to the attorney’s office for instruction on how to proceed, in the meantime would like to know exactly what was going on. I printed out this e-mail to show Scott Mendoza as he was the issuing Planner on this project. I proceeded to the Valley and to the location of the business; I spoke to the meat cutter as he was sitting in his vehicle taking a break from work. I asked if I could enter the premises to see exactly what was taking place inside and take some photos, he said I could that it was no problem, he also said that there was a young man in the building and for me to go ahead and let him know that he said I could. I entered the building and the young man was processing some hamburger “elk burger”. He stopped what he was doing and allowed me to look at what was going on in the general cutting area and as I was taking photos he left the building. I did not open the cooler doors there were two cooler’s one on each side of the cutting area as I had not asked so I waited for one of the workers to come back so I could obtain permission. I walked out of the building to talk to the meat cutter and noticed that he was surrounded but some neighbors that had gathered there appeared to be about seven of them one of them Sandy tuck was on a golf cart. I asked the cutter if I could have his attention for a moment in the building, the mood of the small crowd was becoming a little vocal. He walked with me to the building, and by the time we reached the entrance of the building when the younger man appeared and asked that I wait and talk to the boss, this I did. Mr. Garet Jones appeared about two minutes later and introduced himself I stated that the County would like to see what was going on in the building, and take some photos of their operation as there had been some complaints, namely that they had just received and cut up thirty six buffalo. He laughed at me and said that this facility couldn’t handle more than four maybe five elk at a time let alone that many buffalo. Elk can weigh around 400 pounds to about 900 pounds depending on if their cows or bulls and ages, and the average weight of buffalo are anywhere from 800 to 2200 pounds. I asked if he could open the coolers so I could see what was in them and he said that’s fine and opened both coolers for me, in the first cooler nearest the entrance of the building I saw that in the far left corner some bones that looked like discarded rib cages of elk, towards the other side there was a wooden pallet. Hanging up was a carcass of what I presumed was an elk that had been chopped in half, the rack area that had the elk hanging looked like that it would only be able to accommodate four to five elk, and on the near right side there were some empty cardboard boxes. In the second cooler at the right far end of the entrance of the building, when the door was opened for me I saw several plastic containers staked at the back on the left side, on the right side I saw approximately nine/twelve inch cardboard boxes with product in them. At the entrance toward the right side of the wall I saw a metal stacking basket tray on wheels that was empty and then in the right side nearest corner at the entrance of the cooler I saw an skull with its antlers attached with two hoofs on either side of the skull that had been cut off just below the knees with its fur still attached, this appeared to me to be an elks skull. There were no other animals around. In the general cutting area they were grinding meat for hamburger, a basket tray that was empty near the entrance and another one that had two trays with product, a triple sink at one end of the general cutting area three tables on the three sides at the back and far end of the general area that is or has been used for cutting up meat, on one of the tables was a sausage maker. I left the building and went to my vehicle and proceeded to leave when the neighbors surrounded my truck and asked me what I was doing. I informed them that I was looking at the operation inside the building and I had taken a few photos, they then proceeded to tell me that there had been many different animals other than elk that had been brought to this facility namely buffalo, I did tell them that I did not see any buffalo, that I had only seen one carcass. Mr. Poulter, then said that they were bringing down carcasses of buffalo from Idaho and processing them in the building, I asked him if he had any evidence and could he forward it on to me, they all said they had evidence and would e-mail it to me. When I returned to the office I printed off and showed the photographs to Commissioner Jan M. Zogmaister and talked to her about my impressions of the building.