Bears, taxes and the decline of the local economy

I read with delight the two headlines on page 10 of the July 10 Daily Inter Lake. Particularly since they are so closely related.

The first headline read “Kalispell ready to boost special tax assessments,” the second one was “Food-habituated bear killed: All valley residents asked to help in bear-safety efforts.” How are these two related?

Back in the day, as late as the late 1980s early ’90s, the property taxes in the valley were very reasonable. That is because they were subsidized by the Flathead National Forest. At that time there were scores of sawmills scattered across the county. These sawmills employed thousands of workers. They were making living wages. Not minimum wage. In addition, there were thousands of independent loggers and truck drivers that kept those mills supplied with raw timber, which was turned into dimension lumber and sold all across the country.

The taxes produced by the mills, and the workers, as well as the fees collected from the Forest Service on the lumber sales paid the majority of the fees necessary for our infrastructure.

Then the full weight of laws like the Endangered Species Act began to take effect. The forest was systematically closed. Numbers were produced in surveys that indicated the grizzlies were endangered. (Today there are claims that we have no accurate numbers on current bear population. Where did the earlier reports come from? How accurate were they?) Reports were written that stated that grizzlies would not cross Forest Service roads. So roads were condemned. Roads were gated or bermed and the public locked out of their forest. (These reports have proven false.) Sawmills were starved out because no logs were available.

Bill Clinton, on his last day in office, signed a presidential order further restricting access to our natural resources.

To help ease the taxpayers into accepting the increase in their personal and property taxes, acts like Payment in Lieu of Taxes were passed, which gives local governments access to federal tax monies in place of the taxes and fees they normally would have received from timber sales. There’s a better than average chance that those monies will dry up due to the sequester and our fiscal emergency will have to be made up by increased taxes.

Then came the directive giving endangered species, like the grizzly, further consideration. People living within the scope of the bear’s possible range were directed to change their way of life. Do you like bird watching? Too bad, the bears may be attracted to your feeders. Take them down during the spring, winter and fall. Do you like being independent and raising your own chickens and eggs? They’re attractants. Your chicken coops are ramshackle at best. Build better coops and electrify fences around them to keep the bears out. Otherwise you could be charged with baiting wildlife.

Now the wildlife interface has broadened to include cities and towns. There are bears, lions and even wolves passing into city limits. Your pets in the kennels may attract them. You can’t feed your pets there, that may attract bears.

The fact that the bear populations have exploded is ignored as is the fact that the overpopulation of animals has pushed the bears into the valley floor and urban areas where further human/bear conflicts are inevitable, and sooner or later will lead to tragedy.

When will people say “Enough!”?

Our national forest is still capable of producing enough timber to make a huge difference on our taxes! Instead, Sen. Tester wants to create more wildernesses — tying up the forest with a designation that forever locks our land from productivity.

We have enough wilderness, senator. What we need is tax relief and real jobs that pay living wages and the freedom to do with our property what we want!

Funk is a resident of Kalispell.