Crazy Mountain Trespassing case

[Schaaf]

Wow, not even trying to hide the corruption.

 

[el unit]

This is corruption. Plain and Simple.

A public employee acts on the interests of the public and he is backhandedly reprimanded? WTF

Yep. This is down-right sickening.

 

[SteveE]

This is corruption. Plain and Simple.

A public employee acts on the interests of the public and he is backhandedly reprimanded? WTF

+1
The good ol'boys taking care of each other and the FS management bending over for them. If you are in with the local prosecutor you can do as you please with federal land. Nothing new in MT. Same ol' corrupt BS.

 

[Big Fin]

Kat, please keep chasing this trail. It is very helpful to this cause of public access. Let us know how we can help.

 

[theat]

Sad state of affairs, but I am not really surprised.

 

[katqanna]

I got a call from the FOIA officer about my request, so it is being processed now.

I wrote a letter to the Big Timber Pioneer editor, advocating for public land ownership rights and access, in case they do a story on this issue.

I have some orchestrated letters from Senator Daines to USFS Chief Thomas Tidwell, getting involved in this process, which included a forward from the Montana Farm Bureau and a MOGA meeting discussion on the subject of Alex Sankiewicz advocating for public access. As well as a letter to Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue and Sen. Daines from some of the ranch owners around the Crazy Mountains, again bringing up the Farm Bureau, Stockgrowers and MOGA. Chuck Rein in one of the signatories, who outfits over there and is Vice-President of MOGA. His place was one of the places I began researching a couple years ago. I will get these documents scanned and uploaded to a page for y'all to see.

I sent a letter to both Region 1 Regional Forester Leann Marten and Custer Gallatin National Forest Supervisor Mary Erickson last fall, thanking them for District Ranger Alex Sankiewicz service to the public.

If you would like to contact the Forest Service about this issue, as well as our senators, this would be a good time.

Chief USFS Thomas Tidwell [email protected] 202-205-8439

Region 1 Forester Leann Marten [email protected] 406-329-3315

Custer Gallatin National Forest Supervisor Mary Erickson [email protected] 406-587-6949

 

[katqanna]

First, I have to apologize for misspelling Alex's last name, which I have been doing for 3 years not realizing it was wrong, running on an incorrect memory. I profusely apologized to him this morning, correcting everything I could on the site and blog, but can't correct the email newsletter sent out last night.

I have been living on the computer from morning to midnight most days to get the documents and webpages started on this Crazy Mountain access issue, which I see similar to the Durfee Hills complexity, with who the players are, the FOIA documents, the timelines, etc., so this will take some work. From the Main Crazy Mountain page I will be breaking the Crazy Mountains up into half, because the access issues involve different groups. Figure it will be easier to "eat the elephant" that way.

Here is what I sent out last night, posted to the EMWH Blog - Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

The East Crazy Mountain Public Access page - this is not fully laid out/visually designed yet, just the uploading and quick linking of some documents at this point, that were linked in yesterday's newsletter.

I am going to have to set out a map page with the who's who and connecting lines, for easier visualizations, so bear with me.

 

[Labman]

https://m.bigskypress.com/missoula/locked-out/Content?oid=2127542&storyPage=1

 

[Jon Boy]

There are public employees who are principled stewards of our trust, but they get gagged and handcuffed most of the time by private interests and bureaucratic superiors.

This is very true. Alex was the best District Ranger I ever worked for during my time with the forest service. The amount of good he did goes much farther than just these access issues as well. He was always fighting the good fight for the public. Hopefully when all of this is resolved he will be back in his post. Until then I feel we all need to let Alex know how grateful we are for public employees like him.

 

[Hunts]

This is very true. Alex was the best District Ranger I ever worked for during my time with the forest service. The amount of good he did goes much farther than just these access issues as well. He was always fighting the good fight for the public. Hopefully when all of this is resolved he will be back in his post. Until then I feel we all need to let Alex know how grateful we are for public employees like him.

Is there an email for Alex that can be used to thank him? I would like to send him a note.

 

[katqanna]

Yes, [email protected]


Advocates outraged over reassignment of Forest Service ranger

Landowner concerns over Sienkiewicz’s work to preserve public access to the Crazy Mountains near Big Timber were brought up to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue as recently as late May. Perdue was in Montana for the Montana Ag Summit, and he met with several agriculture groups along with Montana’s Republican U.S. Sen. Steve Daines.

The Montana Stockgrowers Association was part of the meeting. Jay Bodner, the natural resources director for the Stockgrowers Association, said each group in the meeting had a variety of concerns, and that public access conflicts in the Crazies was one issue for his group.

“We did have a number of our members kind of concerned with the access issue there in the Crazies,” Bodner said.

 

[Hunts]

Thanks and thanks again for your hard work Kat.

 

[katqanna]

You're welcome Hunts.

You know that saying, "Hell hath no fury like a public trust woman when the public trust is scorned"?

 

[Pierre]

Thanks again to Kat and to Rob. MSA is watching with interest!
Joe

 

[Straight Arrow]

A huge thanks to Rob and Kat. Thank-you for the email address for Alex. He responded with appreciation for support to my message. I strongly encourage Hunttalkers to contact Alex and express gratitude for his standing up for public access to public lands.

 

[Topgun 30-06]

You're welcome Hunts.

You know that saying, "Hell hath no fury like a public trust woman when the public trust is scorned"?

That's funny and I'm glad you're on our side Kat! Thanks a million for all the time you spend on this stuff!

 

[katqanna]

I have been getting the next batch of documents done to post, it has a refutation pdf collection of pages including screenshots and FOIA pages, as well as the original letter from the Montana Farm Bureau Federation, which includes MOGA, to Senator Daines; the letter from certain landowners to Ag Sec. Purdue and Sen. Daines, both of which include the false allegations.

I saw an old news article that Brett French did in 2006, where one of the outfitting landowners in the Crazy Mountains, the northern end, tried to go through Sen. Conrad Burns at the time, to get his access while locking out the public. Similar to Daines being on these ag, forest and public lands subcommittees using his connection, Burns was on the Appropriations subcommittee. He added a rider to the 2007 Appropriations bill that would give the landowner access, forcing the Forest Service to only have administrative access, instead of the reciprocity required in policy, that would include public access.

Rancher, foresters spar over access

 

[Labman]

How times have changed...Mac might let a few of his buddies in there, but he isn't as gracious towards the average Joe as he makes himself sound in that interview. His cattle graze that ground until it looks like the surface of the moon too.

 

[katqanna]

I have read through years of FS and seasonal help maintenance reports and the cows, a number of landowners cows, have been brought up, that there were cow pies all over the campground, riparian areas destroyed, fences downed and cattle out well beyond the lease time period.

 

[RobG]

I remember seeing something about reciprocity up the Sweet Grass in those FOIA docs... didn't go over too well.

This was in the article you linked to. Interesting how they protested access to state land.

During the 1993 big-game season, however, White did close public access to his ranch in protest of the State Land Board's decision to allow bird watchers and hikers access to state school trust lands. He joined several other property owners in the area, and together they closed access to 317,000 private acres.