A mixture of fear and optimism compelled about 25 civic-minded residents to apply for membership at the Hillsboro Grange last summer.

Fear among some that a small, extreme anti-government group had found a platform for its ideology within the Grange.

Optimism that this struggling chapter of a 150-year-old fraternal organization could, in the right hands, become part of the community again.

In July and August, Grange meeting attendees included Hillsboro’s mayor, a city councilor, a retired ­­­circuit court judge, directors of two local theater companies, past and current members of the Hillsboro Arts & Culture Council, a planning commisioner and a past neighborhood organization chair.

But what they saw and heard gave them pause. And, they say, after a months-long process of “investigations” and interviews, the Grange rejected every one of them for membership, without explanation, in November.

Now, those would-be members are worried.

Scott Palmer, artistic director of Bag&Baggage theater company, fears the Grange is poised to spread hate and anti-government sentiment. “I don’t know that that is something that’s going to happen, but I don’t know that it won’t,” he said. “The problem that I have is the questions are being asked, and no one is answering them.”

Palmer said he’d seen enough to believe “there’s something rotten in Denmark.”

The mass rejection of Palmer and others came after the Hillsboro Grange welcomed Ronald Vrooman, a vocal self-proclaimed “sovereign” citizen, and three of his friends. One, Kambiz Moradi, also has online statements proclaiming himself a “sovereign American.” Another, Roger Tabb, said on the phone that he is a sovereign American and “the things that Ron stands for are true.” The third did not reply to an email seeking comment.

Sovereign citizens can have a complex set of anti-government beliefs. Among them: that by separating their personal selves from their “corporate” or “slave” selves, they can claim sovereignty from U.S. laws. Some espouse a theory that each person has a secret U.S. Treasury account created at birth by the federal government, and sovereign gurus offer tactics to claim money the government has “borrowed” in their names. In reality, the Southern Poverty Law Center says, “claiming” money from these so-called Treasury accounts is a method for tax fraud.

In June, Grange members elected Vrooman lecturer, putting him in charge of monthly speeches on topics of his choosing, which have been about his feelings about the government. He also requested and received approval, during the same meeting, to create a “government relations committee.”

“It’s a full-blown ridiculous mess,” said Cindy Wilkins, executive director of STAGES, a nonprofit performing arts youth academy in downtown Hillsboro. “The sad part is, I remember what a grange should be. This is not right.”

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Outside of the Hillsboro Grange.

The Grange, formally the National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry, was founded after the Civil War to support and advocate for farmers and rural communities. Over its 150-year history, the nonpartisan, nonprofit membership organization has lobbied for agricultural interests, including rural mail delivery and broadband access. There are community grange chapters in 37 states, with 167 granges in Oregon. Many are in small communities, where the grange might serve as a space for dances, craft fairs or farmers markets.

Hillsboro’s grange was founded in 1874. In recent years, its building has primarily been rented for private events. It didn’t gain broader community interest until the summer, when Cindy Dauer got involved.

Dauer, executive director of Tualatin Valley Creates, is a familiar face at Hillsboro’s downtown and arts organizations. A friend involved in a neighboring grange suggested she join the Hillsboro chapter because it was struggling to stay afloat. Hillsboro’s membership was hovering around the minimum of at least 13 active members needed to remain in good standing with the national organization.

“I was really excited about a new opportunity to do community service, especially with my family,” Dauer said. She had ideas about offering high school scholarships, a Christmas book drive, or a free community pantry.

She stopped by the aging grange building at 245 S.E. Third Ave., paid her membership fee, and was accepted.

Vrooman and his friends joined around the same time Dauer started inviting her neighbors and friends from other civic groups.

“Truthfully, prior to Cindy Dauer mentioning it to me, I thought (the Grange) had been closed down and was on the way to being destroyed or re-developed,” said Kimberly Culbertson. “When she mentioned it was an actual organization, I jumped on it and went with her two days later to the meeting.”

Culbertson is a past chair of the Heart of Hillsboro Neighborhood Organization and a former county commissioner candidate.

“I’ve worked for 20 years downtown to build community,” Culbertson said. “I think that it’s vital that our social institutions like granges have a lively interface with the people who live around them.”

She said she turned in her membership application in June but developed concerns about Grange management before she was denied membership. During board meetings, which are open to the public, she said board officers seemed unfamiliar with how to run a formal meeting and one didn’t seem to realize he was an officer or member until asked to take part in the meeting ceremonies.

“They didn't seem to really know how to run the meeting,” said Gayle Nachtigal, a retired Washington County Circuit Court judge who, along with her husband, City Councilor Fred Nachtigal, attended several Grange meetings before being denied membership in November. “The person that was the secretary, there were no minutes, she said, ‘I only need to read the motions that were made.’ The treasurer's report was all verbal. There was no written treasurer's report, no balance sheet, no profit and loss.”

In July, when about 25 prospective members arrived, basic organizational and financial questions remained answered.

“Things like, ‘Could we see your annual budget?’ Not available. ‘Could we see your last month’s minutes?’ Couldn’t find them,” Wilkins said.

Carol Everman, the state deputy with the Oregon Grange who was tasked with looking into concerns in Hillsboro, said it wasn’t unusual for a grange not to have an annual budget. She said minutes are kept, but would not be shared with non-members, including The Oregonian/OregonLive.

“And then someone brought up some of the things in the building,” Wilkins said. “It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see they were off code.”

After seeing the building, Palmer sent a letter to the city of Hillsboro, which prompted a fire marshal inspection. The fire marshal found nine deficiencies, including that the building did not have a functioning fire alarm, had exposed electrical outlets that needed to be covered, improperly had exterior padlocks on exit doors, and lacked required panic hardware on emergency exits.

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Grange management was one concern to some of the prospective members. Vrooman’s speeches were the other.

Vrooman began using his lecturer position as a platform to share his “sovereign” ideology, several said.

“It's alt-right, Oath Keeper gibberish, is the best I can describe it,” Nachtigal said, referring to the Oath Keepers, an anti-government organization associated with the patriot and militia movements. “It’s a very tortured and impossible path to actually follow.” There can be overlap in Oath Keeper and sovereign citizen beliefs.

In one online post, Vrooman says he joined the Oath Keepers but then found out that one of the group’s Oregon leaders was “an apologist for Islam.”

He has made lengthy posts online about the federal government and his anti-Muslim beliefs. In one post, which Vrooman described as a “lecture to Oregon State Grange,” he talks about the “incorporated fiction” of federal government, appears to refer to former President Barack Obama as a “Muslim imposter, Manchurian Candidate,” and says that all licensed attorneys are sworn foreign agents.

Vrooman also sent The Oregonian/OregonLive a document titled “Notice and Demand” that lists Congresswomen-elect Rashida Tlaib, a Michigan Democrat, and Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, among Muslims elected to various offices throughout the country. Vrooman wrote that the election of a “female Muslim to Congress is repugnant to The United States of America’s Constitution and the laws of our Congress. She must be turned away as unlawfully elected. Worthy of deportation, expatriation or imprisonment.”

In 2016, Vrooman showed up at the federal courthouse in Portland during Ammon Bundy’s trial in connection with the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge takeover, attempting to represent him as a self-proclaimed “private attorney general” before being told to sit down by the federal judge.

Vrooman was found guilty after a 2017 jury trial of driving without a license, which Vrooman has said in emails and online that he does not need.

In 2014, court records show he was banned from Beaverton School District property, after bringing a gun onto the campus of Beaverton High School and being cited for trespassing when he refused to leave. He argued he had a concealed weapon permit and was acquitted on that charge.

His presence continues to be a concern to the district. On Nov. 26, the no-trespassing order having expired, he showed up at Beaverton School District’s administrative offices “insisting to be allowed to come into the schools to talk with teachers and observe the educational process,” says an email sent to district staff, which included Vrooman’s photo. “If you are contacted by him or he shows up at your school or facility, you should ask him to leave and contact the Public Safety Office for assistance.”

All of which makes some Hillsboro residents worried about Vrooman’s new leadership roles at the Grange.

“As people age in the leadership with these organizations, young people just don’t want to be involved,” Culbertson said, “and it makes them ripe for people with a lot of energy, like Ron Vrooman, to take over. It’s not good energy, but it’s energy.”

Debby Garman, past chair of the Hillsboro Arts & Cultural Council and a local gardener and beekeeper, attended three Grange meetings before canceling her membership request in October.

“Having experienced Ron Vrooman’s lecture, I’m concerned about how he may influence that group in the downtown Hillsboro community,” Garman said. “I’m not sure what his intentions are, what their intention are, and how the mix will eventuate.”

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The Oregonian/OregonLive spoke to seven prospective members who were denied membership to the Grange and said they hoped someone would look more closely at the management in Hillsboro, including Vrooman’s lectures and the Grange’s recordkeeping.

State Grange officials did get involved – just not in the way that was hoped.

“The lecturer has a different viewpoint of the world than I do, but that’s kind of the point of the lecturer program, so other people can be exposed to other points of view,” Everman said. “He’s allowed to express his opinion, and it seems to me that a group of people has decided that they need to run him out because his opinion does not agree with theirs, and that’s not my understanding of how this country or this grange is supposed to work.”

Everman declined to provide financial information about the grange.

“The financial standing of any grange is that grange’s business,” Everman said. “We are not a transparency organization, we are a membership organization.”

The finances were “none of my business, none of yours either,” she said.

Everman also said she could not discuss the reasons the applicants were rejected.

“I viewed it as they wanted the space, they wanted the building,” Everman said. “It seemed to me to be an attempted takeover.”

Asked why the mayor and other local leaders weren’t fit for Grange membership, Belinda Sanchez, the Hillsboro Grange’s secretary and rental manager, said, “Just because you’re a prominent person doesn’t mean you’re entitled to be a member of any organization.”

She also said Vrooman’s speeches consist of “his opinion. That’s not necessarily the Grange’s opinion.”

Sanchez referred questions about the local Grange’s finances to Everman, who declined to discuss their revenues or share any financial information.

Other local Granges, when asked if they’d share their financial records with the public, gave responses ranging from no to “we’re very transparent with what’s going on.”

National Grange President Betsy Huber said the national organization generally does not get involved in the management of local granges, though the rejection of so many applicants did seem odd.

“Personally, I think that’s grounds for suspending their charter because I believe that’s in our bylaws that we should be open and welcoming and always looking for new members,” Huber said. “But, that would be up to the State Grange.”

The National Grange’s Declaration of Purposes states the group will be “welcoming to all of good moral character to membership.”

None of the approximately 25 applicants from the summer were allowed to join, though the Hillsboro grange does have at least 13 members, enough to stay open.

So the grange continues to operate.

Vrooman continues to lecture.

The optimism of some Hillsboro residents for a grange they can embrace continues to dim.

-- Samantha Swindler

@editorswindler / 503-294-4031

sswindler@oregonian.com