Referendum is bully tactic
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Editor,
On October 16, 2013, the commissioners of the Jocko Valley Irrigation District and the Mission Irrigation District filed a lawsuit against Lake County in an attempt to block the Flathead Joint Board of Control from intruding into the self-governance of the two irrigation districts. The FJBC and their advisors have mischaracterized this lawsuit as an attempt to prevent irrigators from voting on the JVID and MID’s impending withdrawal from the FJBC. This simply is not the case. As commissioners duly-elected by the irrigators of our respective districts, it is our duty to protect the rights of the Irrigation Districts to manage and conduct the business and affairs of the respective Districts.
It is this duty to our respective irrigation districts that compelled us to take action when the FJBC passed the referendum requiring a mail-in ballot election regarding the Irrigation Districts’ withdrawal from the FJBC under threat of the FJBC conducting such an election if the districts refused to do so. We believe the FJBC acted unlawfully in making such a threat, and we refuse to be bullied into acting in a way that allowed the FJBC to interfere with our duties to our respective Districts and our rights under Montana law. Once the FJBC voted to conduct the referendum, we had no choice but to act to prevent this unlawful intrusion into irrigation district sovereignty. We dismissed the case after the District Court determined the Referendum could not be used to block the Irrigation Districts from withdrawing from the FJBC because the Referendum is merely advisory and informational, and in no way binding on the Irrigation Districts.
This conduct-a-referendum-or-else demand is yet another example of the FJBC’s use of big-brother tactics to bully the irrigation districts into conformance with their will. As duly elected commissioners of the Jocko Valley and Mission Irrigation Districts, we would be violating our duty to our respective irrigation districts and our constituents if we permitted this behavior to go unchecked. Rest assured, as Commissioners of the Mission Valley Irrigation District, Paul Wadsworth and I will similarly resist all future attempts to intrude on irrigation district sovereignty.
Jerry Johnson
St. Ignatius
