LO Closes Public Road

[belly-deep]

Really? They're going to give him 60 days? Imagine if some a-hole did this on an access road leading to your hunting spot. He wouldn't have to open it until the season was over.

FS should go up there with bolt cutters instead of "asking" him and giving 60 days to comply

HELENA – A landowner who gated and locked two roads leading to public land in the Helena National Forest will be asked to unlock one by January if it doesn’t happen sooner, a Lewis and Clark County official says.

Administrator Eric Bryson tells the Independent Record that landowner Tom Hoffman will have 60 days to comply once asked.

Hoffman put up gates on Forest Service Road 774-A1 that travels through land Hoffman owns and where the county doesn’t have an easement. He also put up a locked gate on Anderson Road, which the county owns.

“He can have a closed gate, but not a locked gate,” Bryson said. “He also can’t put restrictions on horses or ATVs, because clearly Anderson Road is a county road.”

Hoffman said he put up the locked gates to prevent all-terrain vehicles and partiers from using his land, but he’ll remove the lock on the gate on Anderson Road if the county asks. But he said visitors will be required to stay on the road.

“If the county wants their road open, I can open it up. It’s not a big deal, as long as people stay on the road,” Hoffman said. “My position is people wanting to continue to access public lands should use the county road. It’s kind of straightforward.”

But he also said that if Anderson Road is opened, he’ll close Forest Service Road 774-A1, also called Deadman Road, to all forms of travel. He recently posted a sign near the locked gate on Deadman Road allowing use of the road for walking, biking, cross-country skiing and snowshoeing.