Montana State Lands Sale

[Nemont]

As you read this keep in mind that Dennis (Denny) Rehberg is Montana's sole Representative in the U.S. House. This is a case of being stupid and throwing a softball to the anti grazing crowd.

July 30, 2004
Sale of state land near Rehbergs requested
By JENNIFER McKEE
Gazette State Bureau

Public land users are asking state officials to sell state lands neighboring the high-end subdivision in Billings being developed by Rep. Denny Rehberg and his wife because they say the lands are leased at artificially low rates by the Rehbergs and are sealed from public access.

"He's denying us access for his benefit," said Tom Madden of Billings, who said he has been trying to gain public access to parcels of state land leased by the Rehbergs for more than a decade.

Jan Rehberg, a lawyer and the congressman's wife who runs the day-to-day operations of the Rehberg Ranch Estates subdivision, said the family was merely following the law when it obtained a lease for state land next to the development for less than the highest bid. And, she said, the Rehbergs are in the process of opening up 480 acres of state land to next to the subdivision for public use.


According to Jan Rehberg, the family started thinking about subdividing part of the old Rehberg ranch in the late 1990s. In addition to their own lands, the family also leased several sections of state land for grazing the cattle and cashmere goats that the family raised before Denny Rehberg was elected to the U.S. House in 2000.

Such state lands are held in trust with the money earned for them going to support K-12 education and other state institutions.

Several of the Rehbergs' state leases came up for renewal in 2000, including the two bordering what is now Rehberg Ranch Estates. One of those was a 480-acre parcel with no public access. Only Denny Rehberg entered a bid on the land and he secured a five-year lease for the state's minimum price, which in this case was $424.56 a year, state records show.

The second parcel, of 640 acres, also came up for bid. The Rehbergs had been paying around $1,100 a year for that piece, state records show. This time, several people entered bids for the land. The highest came in at $18.22 per animal unit.

An animal unit is one 1,000-pound cow and her calf and is a measure of the grazing activity that land may support.

Following a law that was recently declared unconstitutional, Rehberg automatically matched the high bid and kept the lease. Then, as is common practice, he appealed to the state Land Board, the five-member panel of the state's highest office-holders who oversee management of state lands, to drop the rent.
The board agreed and cut Rehberg's lease rate to $11 an animal unit, or almost 40 percent below the high bid, records show. The total yearly lease came to $1,309 a year.

Although the Rehbergs were already thinking about subdividing part of the ranch, Jan Rehberg said Thursday that she didn't think those two leases are worth more to the family as land developers than they were to them as ranchers.

Any benefit they derive as land developers from selling lots next to state-owned open space, she contended, is offset by the fact that they don't own the state land and have no control over how it is used or may be developed in the future. And while the Rehbergs aren't running their own cattle on the land, they sublease it to another rancher.

While one of the state parcels that the Rehbergs lease allows for public access, the section closest to the developed part of Rehberg Ranch Estates is not. It is surrounded by private property and so far, no one has been able to get in.

Pam Capp, a resident of the subdivision, said she and her husband paid extra for their lot because of the promise of access to state lands. Even more frustrating, she said, is the reason behind the closure. When the Rehbergs subdivided the development, they left a 10-foot strip of their own land between the state land and the lots in Rehberg Ranch Estates. Although they can see the state land from their backyard, they cannot cross the 10-foot strip for fear of trespassing, Capp said.

"She said if you cross that fence, you are trespassing on my land," Capp said Jan Rehberg told her.

Madden said he thinks the Rehbergs are getting a much better deal out of the lands than the schoolchildren of Montana. The Rehbergs are using the promise of access to public lands to boost the value of the real estate development, said John Gibson, another Billings resident who is pushing for the state to sell the leases that Rehberg currently holds and buy land elsewhere.

One of the cheapest lots in Rehberg Ranch Estates sold for $35,000, records show. At that rate, the Rehbergs would have to rent the school trust land next door for more than 82 years before the trust earned the same sum.

"The whole system of management of state lands is a travesty," said Gibson, whose wife is Democratic state Rep. Carol Gibson. "It's almost as if he's able to use these sections as a buffer to his property. Let's get rid of things if, in fact, they're going to be his private property. What good are they to the public?"

Jan Rehberg said work is under way on an easement agreement with the state to allow public access over the 10-foot strip they own and into the 480 acre state-owned parcel. They do not want to offer exclusive access to state lands to residents in their own subdivision, she said. The purpose of the 10-foot strip is to control how people could get into the state section without opening it up without restriction. Use of the public land can be managed best with one public access point, she said.

"We didn't want to put (unfettered public access) on the state without working things through with them," she said. She and staff members of the state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation are working on establishing one access route that crosses the strip, Rehberg said.

As for obtaining a lease for less than the high bid, that was the law and common practice in 2000 when the Rehbergs signed the lease, Jan Rehberg said.

Sharon Moore, manager of the Department of Natural Resources Southern Land Office in Billings, said the issues of land value and public access, especially on state grazing leases near cities, are not unique to the Rehberg Ranch Estates subdivision. Across the state, she said, there are "transitional lands" that could generate more money for the school trust than the traditional grazing uses. The agency just finished a draft plan for finding better uses for these parcels.

"Now, we have these lands next to large urban areas," she said, with a high value as real estate but not as much value as grazing land. "They could be generating more money for the trust."
Moore said problems with accessing the state lands around Rehberg Ranch Estates should be resolved soon. Department officials are working on a way to connect access to the two state parcels for a total of 1,120 acres of public lands.

Moore said the public should have access to the lands in six months or less.

Nemont

 

[1_pointer]

It's a shame that type of situation is even relatively common.