Farmers, ranchers miffed at rebate cancellation

<br>OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ Farmers and ranchers are crying foul over the Oklahoma Land Office's inability to grant rebates to leaseholders in the drought-stricken Panhandle. <br><br>Land Office commissioners

Monday, January 6th 2003, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ Farmers and ranchers are crying foul over the Oklahoma Land Office's inability to grant rebates to leaseholders in the drought-stricken Panhandle.

Land Office commissioners decided in October to provide rebates to farmers and ranchers affected by drought on their leased land in Cimarron, Texas and Beaver counties.

Commissioners took the action in spite of a 1955 attorney general's opinion that blocked a similar ``rental adjustment'' of lease contracts.

Two weeks ago, Attorney General Drew Edmondson's office issued an opinion stating there is no authority for issuing rebates.

Keith Kuhlman, director of Real Estate Management for the Land Office, issued a Dec. 26 letter to leaseholders that said no rental rebates would be made.

``Before you give somebody a quarter of a million dollars, you ought to check into the legalities of it,'' said Chris Purcell, a leaseholder from Beaver.

``That's the government for you,'' said Dwain McFarland, also of Beaver.

Ernest Hellwege, the director of the Land Office, said leaseholders were warned the rebates were not a sure thing.

The price tag for the whole exercise was minimal, he said. The rebates might have affected holders of about 200 leases.

The Land Office distributed more than $58 million last fiscal year to common schools and colleges in Oklahoma.

Officials kept watch on Panhandle counties during the drought, which was softened by September rains and December snows.

In some cases, ranchers were told to remove cattle from tracts of land, Kuhlman said. They've also preserved future leases by pulling some lands out of the bidding process to allow recovery of grass.

Purcell lost about 480 acres of land he had been leasing. McFarland lost four sections of land (2,560 acres) that he had used for grazing.

McFarland said he's been trying to convince Land Office officials to reduce the number of cattle on lands for the past two or three years. He said it wasn't necessary to take cattle off the land he had leased.