Let public have say on roadless issue

There's been plenty of hand-wringing skepticism about the idea of putting a question on the June primary ballot to measure public support for roadless area conservation.

Why so much worry? Well, it tends to come from those who advocate roadless area protection. Their stated reasons for concern are many - too complex of a subject to boil down in a ballot question; a fair ballot question isn't possible; and there's just no need for a ballot question when the Forest Service has its own way of measuring public support.

Those concerns may or may not hold water, but what they have in common is an implied lack of faith in the voters' ability to understand or comprehend the roadless issue.

We can't abide by that. Sure enough, a ballot question won't communicate all of the tricky ins and outs that come with the roadless debate. But it can convey a simple question - Do you support protecting roadless areas? - that voters can understand. And while there is nothing binding about the results of this kind of straw poll, the results should nonetheless be interesting to everybody involved, including roadless advocates.

For certain, the validity of the straw poll will depend greatly on the wording that the Flathead County commissioners adopt. When a similar straw poll was conducted in 2000, the wording was considered flawed, and therefore produced results that were of limited use.

That ballot question mixed two issues - a proposal to protect roadless areas along with separate Forest Service policies involving road closures - and it included a misleading statement about the roadless initiative creating new roadless areas.

It was a mess.

But a question on this June's ballot doesn't have to be that way.

Probably the main reason we think it could be a worthwhile exercise is because of the constant, repeated claims of roadless-protection advocates that an overwhelming majority of the American public supports their position. They may be right.

The basis for their conclusion is thousands of letters of support that were generated during a public comment period on the Clinton roadless initiative.

It was no secret that a huge amount of the public comment on the Clinton roadless initiative was driven by letter and postcard campaigns organized by conservation groups. But to this day, it's still trotted out as evidence of mass popular support for the Clinton initiative, with nobody questioning whether the person behind each letter or postcard had a full understanding of the roadless issue.

Montana Attorney General Mike McGrath cites the "exemplary" public participation process associated with the Clinton roadless initiative in justifying his recent intervention in a lawsuit that challenges the Bush administration's approach toward managing roadless areas.

Presuming to represent the majority of Montanans today, McGrath notes in his amicus brief that well over 17,000 Montanans provided comments on the Clinton roadless initiative, and that 67 percent of those comments "favored even stronger protections for roadless areas" than those that were proposed.

We are glad the public had a chance to comment during the Clinton administration, but we don't see any reason why public participation today should be considered any less valid. If the county commissioners can pull together a decent ballot question, the public should have a chance to weigh in.