Access to lake should be restored

Lake County commissioners are on the right track in handling an access site on Swan Lake that has stirred up a fuss in the small community.

The narrow strip of land leading to the southeast side of the lake was donated to the county in 1925 by Mabel Bond, whose expressed intent for the property was that it serve as a public access.

And indeed it was used by locals in the years that followed. But in more recent years, neighboring landowners have sort of co-opted the land, posting no trespassing signs and denying access to the lake.

Understandably, that’s not sitting well with some in the community, who have called on the commissioners to defend the public access.

According to Commissioner Bill Barron, some of the neighboring homeowners want the county to abandon the access. His blunt response to that is, “I don’t think that’s in the public interest and I don’t think that’s what this woman wanted when the land was given.”

Barron called for a new survey to determine exactly what the property boundaries are, because the survey pins relevant to the access somehow went missing.

It seems pretty clear that Barron is intent on restoring public access — and he should be. Public access to Swan Lake is highly limited, with only one formal access where visitors are charged a daily fee of $4 per person.

The long-standing access strip that’s being surveyed may be inconvenient for the neighbors, but preserving it should be manageable, because there seems to be a community consensus that the site would be walk-in, with parking on the other side of Montana 83.

The Lake County Commissioners are right in defending it.

There may not be as easy a defense for Helena school officials who are considering a controversial sex-education program.

Although sex education is only a small component of the district’s proposed health-education program, the Helena proposal has infuriated some parents.

Parents have raised vocal concerns about teaching exact anatomical descriptions to kindergarteners, teaching first-graders about same-gender relationships and giving fifth-graders detailed information on many varieties of intercourse — among other disputed elements.

Hundreds of parents attended a hearing Tuesday on the new curriculum.

It might be wise for school trustees to heed parents’ advice and take the sex-education proposals — particularly what gets taught to the youngest students — back to the drawing board.