Lake County not properly looking out for citizens?

How is it that our Lake County commissioners have gone stone deaf to their constituents’ unrest and legitimate concerns about the illegal passing of Kerr Dam management and operation to the tribal sovereign foreign government of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes?

Oh, they perked up a little, showing some signs of life, when they discovered that the new management had no intentions of continuing the $1.2 million subsidy to the schools of the county, but quickly fell back behind closed doors to apparently put pencil to paper figuring out how to make up for this revenue shortfall from the county residents’ pockets. The silence from their office is deafening, other than the scratching sounds of lead on papyrus.

Records indicate that the Flathead Irrigation and Power Project, started by the Bureau of Reclamation, repaid the federal government for the construction of the dam and associated power distribution systems first and then the construction costs of the irrigation system.  How is it that the FIPP did not obtain the right to operate the dam after the final payment was made? Who understood this back in 1985 when the deal was made to allow the sovereign, foreign government to step in and take control for $18 million. Who missed this unconscionable political agreement?

And now, after allowing a sovereign, foreign government to take illegal control of power distribution (MVP), our political machine is preparing them to own the power generation while attempting to change federal regulations to make it legal under PL 93-638; which it currently is NOT. That’s right, the passing of MVP to the local sovereign, foreign government, was NOT legal under PL 93-638 and is therefore not carried on the federal books as such. Why not?  Because the enterprise has to have been built for the exclusive purpose and use of a tribe and Kerr Dam and MVP were NOT EVER built for the exclusive use of this tribal nation.

A reverse engineered process: Do it, say it’s legal, change the laws to make it legal and then it IS LEGAL. Unfortunately, it wasn’t legal when it was accomplished. —Michael Gale, Ronan