Lake County should publicize FJBC referendum results
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Editor,
In his decision permitting the recent FJBC referendum to go ahead, Judge Manley wrote: “the result of the vote will likely be more information available to the various decision makers, which would appear to be a positive consequence in a system of participatory democracy”. Unfortunately the Lake County legal department disagrees with this view and has prevented the county elections office from revealing the outcome of the referendum in the Sanders County Camas division of the Flathead District. This is a major reversal of past practice.
The Flathead District is the largest of the three districts that make up the FJBC. In addition to the Camas divis ion, with about 14,000 acres, the Flathead District includes four divisions in Lake County with around 80,000 acres. Overall, the Flathead District voted against the FJBC with a margin of 1,359 votes. The elections office does not have the ability to report votes for each Lake County division. But if the Camas votes were made public we at least would know how the Lake County divisions voted as a group.
Based on the election for commissioners held earlier this year and for which Camas votes were made public, I estimate that the margin of the vote against the FJBC among the Lake County divisions was around 9,000 votes in this referendum. Put another way, almost 60 percent of the votes cast opposed the FJBC. Among other things, the large margin against the FJBC should cause the Flathead District decision makers to rethink their extreme approach to seeking fundamental changes in the Water Compact.
In the Jocko and Mission irrigation districts the vote margins supported the FJBC proposal. That should cause the decision makers in those districts to rethink their decisions to leave the FJBC in early December.
The stakes are high. I would prefer to see the Jocko and Mission districts postpone their planned departure from the FJBC and instead try to persuade the Flathead district to support a more reasonable approach to seeking Compact modifications.
Dick Erb
Moiese
