Vote4farmers postcards a ploy
Hey savvy news reader! Thanks for choosing local.
You are now reading
1 of 3 free articles.
Editor,
Who is “vote4farmers.com?”
If you are an irrigator in the Flathead Irrigation Project, have you been receiving post cards with pictures of the project facilities that are shown in disrepair and urging you to support the present CSKT/Montana Reserved Water Rights Compact? You know, the one that promises that the project (that the BIA ran into the ground over the past 25 years or so) will be upgraded if proposed compact is passed?
It is sent out by a group that identifies itself as vote 4famers.com. Ever wonder who vote4farmers.com is? Well I did some checking because I wondered that too. Turns out the website was registered for a one year period, beginning on Feb. 13 of this year, by Pyramid Communications of Seattle. Checking the client list that’s published on Pyramid’s web site, what I found was that the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes is a client of Pyramid Communications. I also found out that neither the State of Montana nor the Flathead Joint Board of Control are listed as clients of Pyramid Communications. That leads me to the conclusion that the tribal council of Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes is the sponsor of the vote4farmers.com website and therefore is responsible for the mailing of the postcards to irrigators in the project.
Now I have never taken the position that the tribe should not try to get all it can out of the compact because the compact negotiations are by their nature adversarial with the tribe and the U.S. on one side and the state, and project irrigators on the other. Nor would I ever deny the tribe’s first amendment right to publically state their case regarding any issue they were concerned about. I am, however, somewhat surprised that the tribal council would stoop to a subterfuge like vote4farmers.com to try to imply that their position on the compact is being supported by local farmers. Is the tribal council ashamed its position? Why not just be upfront about it? What’s there to hide?
I’ll leave the readers with that question.
Jerry Laskody
St. Ignatius
