Just the facts, ma’am
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Editor,
In her Letter to the Editor in the March 17 edition of the Valley Journal, Susan Lake makes the statement that “Irrigators in the Flathead District should pay particular attention because the legal bills are being paid by the Flathead District.”
Ms. Lake implies that the Flathead Irrigation District is paying for the legal bills that her fellow Compact proponents in the Mission and Jocko Valley Districts incurred prior to their recall or their loss in the 2014 District elections.
Susan is either being deceptive or lacks the knowledge that Wayne Blevins and Shane Orien, the present commissioners running for re-election, specifically required that upon reforming the FJBC, the FID would not assume the legal obligations incurred by the Mission and Jocko Districts. So the statement referred to in Ms. Lake’s quote above is patently false. Further, administrative fees are assessed on per acre basis and are presently uniform across the Districts so naturally the bigger districts have larger assessments.
The BIA re-assumption did not occur as Ms. Lake’s states, but was the direct result of the actions of the rogue commissioners of the Mission and Jocko Districts. Their dissolution of the FJBC also voided the CME agreement. Proponents of the compact, including Ms. Lake, failed to consider the far reaching consequences of their efforts.
To prevent the BIA re-assumption after the dissolution of the CME, the FID, again led by Wayne Blevins and Shane Orien, proposed a contract between the FID and the BIA to operate the project and the hiring by the FID of the then existing workforce to operate the irrigation works. The BIA never responded to this offer.
Susan’s comments regarding the disproportionate make up of the Districts is apparently caused her lack of knowledge as to how this came about. The Districts were formed in 1924 by order of the U.S. so they could sign contracts to pay for construction of the Flathead Project. The FJBC was formed in the early 1980s, so she can’t pin this one on the present FJBC.
Ms. Lake is entitled to her own opinions, but not her own “facts.”
Jerry Laskody
St. Ignatius
