Glacier Park will still be bargain
Glacier National Park visitors may have to pay a little bit more to see the park starting next year.
Glacier proposes to raise its summer vehicle seven-day entrance fee from $25 to $30 and the winter fee from $15 to $20. The cost of an annual park pass would increase from $35 to $60.
This would be the first time since 2006 that Glacier has raised its rates.
Five dollars more for admission to an incomparable million-acre natural wonderland does not seem like an unreasonable amount.
Consider the stunning views, incredible hiking and other recreational opportunities that Glacier affords.
And then consider the going rates for other all-American attractions: A day pass to Disneyland, for example, will set you back $96 ($76 per day for a three-day pass) and the scenery is not nearly as superlative as what you will find in Glacier.
In a park that has a multimillion-dollar backlog of needed infrastructure projects, the extra $500,000 a year that would come from the fee increases certainly would be put to good use.
Nobody likes to pay more, but Glacier Park at the proposed prices (and some serious park fans would say, at any price) is still a bargain.
Public involvement vital in legislative endeavors
Republicans in the Montana House of Representatives held a caucus meeting in apparent violation of the state’s open meeting laws last week, and the incident is a valuable learning tool.
The session was intended to give GOP lawmakers a chance to talk about the upcoming legislative session and discuss some of their priorities.
In the old days, that would have been no problem, but ever since the state Supreme Court ruled on the matter in the 1990s, it’s been well-known that partisan meetings of legislators are considered public meetings.
Whether that ruling is right or wrong doesn’t really matter in this case. It’s the law of Montana, and it should have been followed. It doesn’t matter what the intentions of the legislators were; they should have known better.
Frankly, this is one more case where term limits have had a deleterious effect on the institutional memory of the state Legislature because there are few if any legislators in office today who were serving in the 1990s.
The incident also highlights once again the importance of a vigilant free press. Proper and legitimate governance is too important to be left either to chance or to the wherewithal of a few elected officials. The public must be involved.
Editorials represent the majority opinion of the Daily Inter Lake’s editorial board.