Letters to the editor Dec. 1

Public access

It was bound to happen. Wealthy individuals and corporations buy up large tracts of Montana land and close them to public access.

Currently Montana timberlands and farmlands are taxed at considerably below market value. It seems there should be some way to use property taxes to motivate the owners of large tracts to continue to allow historic public access. I know this would be complicated to enforce fairly but Montana taxpayers have been subsidizing these large tracts for years, partly in exchange for access.

If the new owners want to exclude the public, it’s certainly their right, but it is the state’s right to place that land into a new taxable category.

Just something to consider.

— Ken Madsen, Somers

School board bias

The Columbia Falls School Board member Barb Riley went to the statewide meeting of the Montana School Board Association. When she gave her report I thought she was going to say what their goals were to improve our student’s education and to communicate with parents to reach education goals, etc.

Boy, I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The report from Ms. Riley’s meeting with the MTSBA was that mostly “conservatives,” (said with derision) were in leadership now and the school board has to keep a close eye on the harm they were going to do to our students. Call our representatives what you will, these are the people we voted in to represent us.

We voted them in to protect our children from school board members like Barb Riley. The political bias was so evident it was extremely disturbing. School board members are supposed to be non-political and put education in the forefront before their political views.

Then to make matters worse, Ms. Riley gave a “call to action” to all the principals in the room from kindergarten through high school to make sure they sent emails or letters to their representatives to make sure our students were not hurt by the “conservatives.”

Here is my “call to action.” Next year Barb Riley comes up for re-election, vote her off the school board. After 25 plus years, Barb Riley has lost her ability to make decisions based on the benefit of our children in favor her own political bias.

— Judy Territo, Columbia Falls

Unrestrained lawlessness

This is my home, where I grew up. It’s where I have always lived. I can’t see myself living or wanting to live in any other country. It’s still the best country in the world, but it will be destroyed quickly and permanently.

Why are people from all over the world being allowed to just walk right in, in unrestrained lawlessness, to my, our, country? 5.5 million since Biden became president, 225,000 in September along, a huge new high. September’s alone is like two full football stadiums.

Why isn’t someone saying, just stop? You can’t invade our country day in, day out, like it is nothing and doesn’t matter. Everyone is just sitting and watching, and saying “isn’t that horrible” and nothing is done.

The one’s that area here are here for good. They can’t be sent back, but at lease stop it now.

If you don’t think this is an extreme threat to America, you either don’t have any sense or you’re asleep.

— Robert Gansel, Redford