Clearing Up Crazy Mountain Public Access Muddy Waters

"For the record, let's make it clear what this dispute is all about... it is about private individuals
shutting off lawful public access in order to expropriate public lands
for their exclusive use and personal gain."
~ US Deputy Assistant General Counsel, James B. Snow

 Clearing Up Crazy Mountain Public Access Muddy Waters
First, I would like to thank Senator Jon Tester for his recent public letter to USDA Sec. Sonny Perdue and Forest Service Chief Thomas Tidwell concerning Crazy Mountain public access, prescriptive easements and Alex Sienkiewicz's removal as Yellowstone District Ranger.
I have been working on getting the more complex organization of the Crazy Mountain Public Access section set up and more documents uploaded. Sen. Tester's letter has been added to the Letters section. Here you will also find the three public hunter's letters to Sen. Steve Daines, with 2 including Sen. Tester. 2 of the 3 received no response from Sen. Daines, while Gregoire was told by staff that Daines could not get involved, yet, when certain private Crazy Mountain landowners wrote to him, he not only got involved, he sent unsubstantiated false allegations to the highest level of the Forest Service and USDA. Why is that? This appears to be causing concern to others, including 2 lifelong Republicans, who expressed they will not be voting for Daines or Republicans, "Out of necessity, I’m becoming a 100 percent independent voter because my Republican party keeps trampling my family’s outdoor heritage."
7/31/2017 Daines' actions in Sienkiewicz case are despicable
7/31/2017 Daines tramples Montana's outdoor heritage

To make these Crazy Mountain matters very clear, I respect and uphold private property and their rights, including their right to restrict access to whomever they desire. But, I also greatly respect PUBLIC property and our rights to the lands, water and the access, which includes our historical prescriptive roads/trails.
Recently an oped was in the papers, which I feel did a disservice to the public access issue in the Crazy Mountains and the  public in general. The opinion piece said we need to, "provide incentives and financial support for landowners who wish to allow access to their land. This provides opportunity for hunters, and it benefits landowners by controlling the damage that elk, deer and other game cause to crops and fences."
We already have historical access in the Crazy Mountains, we should not pay for access that has been increasingly stolen, a "taking" from the public, like an extortion racket. My FOIA documents show that for decades, the Forest Service has repeatedly tried to negotiate to work with these particular landowners cutting off access, to no avail. In fact, on the east side of the Crazies, Hunt District 580, the elk objective is 975. Do you know what last years elk count was in that public access restricted hunt district? 4,616 elk. This year's count was 4,846! Now according to the Elk Management plan, if elk are being harbored, you know, the kind of harboring that outfitters boast about on their websites, that such concentrations increase their clients success rate, those harbored elk are to be removed from the count.
The oped also trotted out the same list of landowner programs they always do when landowner issues arise, such as Block Management. Block Management's intent is not a bandaid to public access theft or harbored elk. These programs are great for certain landowners, in certain circumstances. These privatizing, access obstructing, often outfitting landowners do not want BM, they probably make far more money off the outfitting.  As to Unlocking State Lands, anyone can take a look at the public Montana Cadastral program, the Forest Service map or hunting landownership maps to see there are no State blue lands in the interior of the Crazy Mountains. So why bring these things up? It simply is not applicable and muddies the waters of what is really taking place. More importantly, those programs do nothing to address year round public access to our public lands, not just hunters.
The oped also plays on the false stereotype of landowner vs recreationist, the haves vs the have nots. That is not the case. These access obstructing landowners are hurting other landowners as well, including some who sold them their lands!

For example: In response to a 1999 letter from Chuck Rein of the Rein Anchor Ranch about the Sweet Grass Road/Trail being signed (pics above I took on June 28, 2015 when I began on the ground documentation of the access obstructions), part of the road has been renamed to Rein Lane, landowners Ralph and Barbara Cosgriff  replied in 2003. The Cosgriffs were trying to maintain their friendship, but stated they were going to, "preserve our right to free and unrestricted access to our properties along Sweet Grass Creek and the general area." The Cosgriff's wrote that since 1916 their family had used the road, including commercial use,  as well as contributed to it's improvements;  as did others, including the Federal government. The Cosgriffs did not want to limit their access or that of any potential future buyer's access. "We don't intend by this letter to take any action with regard to your sign or Carroccia's sign, but we don't necessarily agree that the road is not public and certainly don't intend to restrict our future use of the road." In 2001, the Cosgriff's got in touch with USFS Frank Cifala who recorded, "Mr. Cosgriff was rather upset with a letter he had received and stated the Carroccias had gone 'too far'. The Carroccias are limiting public access across their property... Mr. Cosgriff stated he had proof that the County and Forest Service had maintained portions of the road/trail across his father-in-law's private land in the Sweet Grass Creek drainage within the National Forest." When asked if Cosgriff would be willing to exchange easements, Cosgriff replied, "...there was no need since it was a 'public road' through both." The Cosgriffs provided historical proof to the Forest Service and statements. The Cosgriff's friends and guests were at times also harassed while trying to visit them.

Another group of letters from my FOIA, involves the Van Cleves being obstructed from using these public trails to get to some of their other checkerboarded land or the public land  beyond. They were obstructed by the Langhus' of the Hailstone Ranch. So this is very clearly not a landowners vs recreationist issue, it is privatizing landowners against other landowners, the public ownership and the Federal government which manages on our behalf concerning access.

Another document I just uploaded is an affidavit by USFS Robert Dennee, the Lands Program Manager for the Gallatin National Forest in 2007. In the affidavit, Dennee discusses FS historic roads and trails, specifically the Porcupine-Lowline trail, which I did some documentation on with Brad Wilson, in the last newsletter. "In situations where continued use of a historical road or trail access route is challenged or closed, Forest Service direction and policy is also to take actions necessary to protect the existing rights to NFS lands.

The Porcupine - Lowline trail system, including Trails #195, #258, #267 and #272, is located on the southwest side of the Crazy Mountains. This system of existing historic trails crosses intermingled private and NFS lands and it continues to provide needed access to NFS lands for public recreation and for administrative purposes."

Dennee then goes on to address the need to perfect the trail access rights and specifically addresses another of the access obstructing landowners involved with the letters to Daines, Perdue, Tidwell, Marten and Erickson - that of Ned Zimmerman. Dennee states they began trying to work with Guth Zimmerman and Ned Zimmerman in 2004. That was 13 years ago.

To provide an example of another access theft by an outfitting landowner in the Gallatin Forest and the Forest Service's response, when the Forest Service wasn't afraid to do their job, as then District Ranger Alex Sienkiewicz did, is a letter from US Deputy Assistant General Counsel, James B. Snow, legal counsel for the Forest Service, calling this theft what it it. Please note, this letter is not from the Region 1 OGC office in Missoula, MT, but all the way from Washington, D.C. Here are some excerpts:

"For the record, let's make it clear what this dispute is all about... it is about private individuals shutting off lawful public access in order to expropriate public lands for their exclusive use and personal gain... In 1987, the former owner of the Ranch, Mr. James Hubbard, physically cut off access over the Donahue Trail thereby effectively expropriating four sections (approximately 2400 acres) of extremely valuable Federal land for exclusive private commercial outfitting for hunting. He also constructed roads and a gate in trespass on the Federal lands, and constructed fences in violation of the Unlawful Inclosures Act..."

The new out of state landowners, who perpetuated the obstruction, leased their land to Hubbard for continued hunting outfitting. One of the 2 landowners their Ohio congressmen to attempt legislation that would force the Forest Service into a land exchange they had previously rejected as, "not being in the public interest." Snow addressed this. "Your principal exchange proposal would merely ratify your clients' trespass and expropriation of sections... The Point of Rocks Ranch wants the Government to trade it some of the last remaining sections of forested elk winter habitat in the area in return for adjacent clearcut lands. To reduce the obvious disparity in values, your clients propose to allow the Federal Government to reserve title to the timber. However, the highest and best use of those Federally owned tracts is for hunting and recreation, not timber. Therefore, in addition to the negative public impacts of your proposals, there would be a considerable disparity in valuation in your clients favor... The Forest Service does not believe that such a swap would be in the public interest because of the loss of prime publicly owned elk habitat which would be hereafter managed for private exclusive commercial hunting and recreation. We easily predict a public outcry at any attempt to exchange away any Federal interest in valuable elk winter range..."

Snow then stated the trail existed as a matter of law, that the public had a right to use it to get access to Federal lands. "Contrary to your frequent assertions, there is no taking of private rights here. The rights are already established in the general public under Montana law. If the Forest Service does not assert those rights of public access, they will be asserted by others. In fact, by letter dated July 17, 1992, we have been notified of the intent of the Public Lands Access Association Inc. (former name of of Public Land/Water Access Association - PLWA), to sue if the Donahue Trail is relocated off its historic right-of-way."

This is the type of defense we need of our public access to our public lands, from our Federal managers, who steward on our behalf. Instead, under this administration, the DOJ quashed subpoenas the FS to testify in the Gregoire case involving FS Trail #115/136 this year. Then Yellowstone District Ranger Alex Sienkiewicz was removed from his position for DOING HIS JOB, according to Forest Service policy. Instead of out of state landowners getting their legislators to force the hand of the Forest Service to something against the best interest of the public and the Forest Service, certain Montana landowners went through Senator Steve Daines to "expropriate" (deprive an owner of their property) the public of our public access to our public lands.

On a final note, I finally got to some of the video footage shot on the west side of the Crazy Mountains with Brad Wilson, founder of Friends of the Crazy Mountains. I am having a wee bit of a learning curve with the new software. I also set up a temporary webpage for the Friends of the Crazy Mountains, who are concerned with trail maintenance, historical documentation and public access on the west side. They now have a PayPal account which also takes credit/debit cards. Please check them out. Some of you were reaching out to help with trail maintenance or historical use information, thank you, this will be helpful to restoring access.

This 4 minute video segment begins with the Shields-Lowline trail, including a statement about their meeting with then District Ranger Alex Sienkiewicz and his professionalism as a public trust steward of our public lands.

Secretary of Agriculture, Sonny Perdue, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1400 Independence Ave., S.W., Washington, DC 20250 (202) 720-2791

Forest Service Chief, Thomas Tidwell,  ttidwell@fs.fed.us   (202) 205-8439

Region 1, Regional Forester Leann Marten,  lmarten@fs.fed.us   (406) 329-3315

Custer Gallatin National Forest Supervisor Mary Erickson,  mcerickson@fs.fed.us  (406) 587-6949

Senator Steve Daines, senator@daines.senate.gov   (202) 224-2651

Even though Sen. Tester was not evident in the letters, please contact him as well.
Sen. Jon Tester,  senator@tester.senate.gov   (202) 224-2644

Representative Greg Gianforte, 1419 Longworth HOB, Washington, DC 20515 (202) 225-3211
greg.gianforte@mail.house.gov  (you can try this, this is the one his office gave me, but mine keep coming back unable to deliver. For a technology guy, you would think he would have a functioning email address)


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Thank you,
Kathryn QannaYahu
406-579-7748
www.EMWH.org
Bozeman, MT

Alex Sienkiewicz Removed as Yellowstone District Ranger

Damned if you do, Damned if you don't...

Photo courtesy the Billings Gazette

East Crazy Mountain Public Access webpage (under construction)

I have been dealing with a situation since Monday. It is a side trail of a bigger issue I began researching in the spring of 2015, about 3 years ago - the intentional obstruction of public access to our public lands in the Crazy Mountains, most specifically, the East Side. I spoke with the Yellowstone District Ranger Alex Sienkiewicz about trails, marked maps, took photos of much older maps. Periodically, I dig back into this situation which has been ongoing for decades.

Some of this research was presented at a BHA meeting this last fall in Bozeman. Rob Gregoire had drawn an elk tag for one of those hunt districts in Sweet Grass County. He scouted the FS Trail 115/136. After his scouting trip, I placed a FS FOIA for that area.Then Gregoire went back to hunt, on returning he was met by a deputy issuing him a criminal trespass citation. Shortly after I received my FOIA, which had abundant documentation of the public aspect of the trail. So I set up a webpage with his story, to help defend his case for public access (thank you to all those that contributed to Rob). See, Rob had taken every effort to avoid intentional trespass, including verifying the trail with Yellowstone District Ranger Alex Sienkiewicz. But the Department of Justice would not allow Sienkiewicz, nor the Custer Gallatin National Forest Supervisor Mary Erickson from testifying during Rob's hearing, without that testimony, everything was hearsay and my FOIA documents were after the fact.

The first deal the Sweet Grass County Attorney Pat Dringman offered to Rob included his paying $250 to the local Crazy Mountain Stockgrowers Association and another $250 to the Montana Farm Bureau (page 2). That pissed me off, this smacked of corruption. What did either of those two groups have to do with Rob's case??? So I wrote an oped - Crazy Mountain Public Access Fight, including that Pat Dringman's wife, Page Carroccia Dringman, owned the ranch at the top end of the FS Trail 115/136 (who has been obstructing access on that end), suggesting Dringman needed to recuse himself. Rob settled for a deferred prosecution, no guilt.

Then I found out that on June 16, 2017, Yellowstone District Ranger, Alex Sienkiewicz, was removed from his position for doing his job, which included advocating on our behalf in the frickin' Crazy Mountains; this removal was authorized by the newly sworn in Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue (April 25, 2017), who was recently here in Montana on a tour.  You might think that with the whole nations ag business to deal with, our local District Ranger doing his job would not be a top priority for him. Sienkiewicz's removal really pissed me off, so I contacted PLWA, Hunt Talk, hunter/anglers across the state and Brett French who had written on some of these Crazy Mountain issues before, giving French the beginning of some documents for proof and the basics. French wrote a detailed article: District ranger faces internal investigation over Crazy Mountain access dispute. 

I began setting up the web pages to deal with the documentation - y'all know - I play the long game. This is rudimentary right now, but I will be setting this up interactively like I did the Durfee Hills map so that you can see who all the players are, timelines and documents.

I have a letter from the Montana Farm Bureau Federation with false allegations against Alex Sienkiewicz, which they sent to Senator Steve Daines, who then forwarded it to Forest Service Chief Thomas Tidwell and carbon copied Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue and Region 1, Regional Forester Leann Marten (Montana in Missoula) on May 26th. Another letter, May 29th, from a handful of the landowners adjacent to the FS, some of which outfit like Page Carroccia Dringman and Chuck Rein, Vice President of Montana Outfitters and Guides Association, was sent to Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue and Senator Daines, with many of the same accusations against Sienkiewicz - who then gets removed as District Ranger for doing his job.

Here's the thing - 2 public land hunters: Joe Rookhuizen and Rob Gregoire, contacted Senator Daines about their public access issues in the Crazy Mountain. But privatizing landowners get in touch with Daines, with false allegations and no investigation into a certain matter and Daines is reaching out as far as the Secretary of Agriculture for his removal? Seriously?

These privatizers are not just targeting Alex Sienkeiwicz, they are making him the poster child for any employee who does their job, their public trust stewardship for the public, they are targeting all federal employees - "Do your job and this will be your fate".

One of my FOIA documents spells out one of Sienkiewicz's responsibilities he was fulfilling for the public:
2002 Briefing Paper, National Forest System Trails Across Private Land, Gallatin National Forest

“The growing demand for dispersed recreation on public lands, and the changes and trends in private landownership, have brought considerable attention to the trails issue on this Forest. At an increasing rate, landowners are questioning the status of trails across private land. Private land within and adjacent to this Forest continues to be sold. New owners may or may not recognize the existing public access through their lands. Some trails on private land are being lost through subdivision, closure or obliteration.

As a result, it is critical for the Gallatin NF to continue to have a strong and consistent policy and presence in: (a) signing and maintaining our trail system across private lands; (b) defending historic trail access rights if challenged; and (c) perfecting trail access rights across private lands whenever that opportunity exists.”

In the Direction and Policy section they wrote, “Under FLPMA and FSM 5460 direction...In situation where an existing NFS trail crosses private lands, and no deeded easement exist, the Forest Service position is as follows: The United States has acquired a right-of-way from the trail through development, maintenance and continuous use of the trail. As a matter of law, the Forest Service believes that there is a public access easement for the trail. The Forest Service is a beneficiary of this public right of access, will continue its efforts to defend the public's right of access.

(1) Protect and maintain historic evidence, including trail blazes, signs, maps, photos and maintenance records.

(2) Maintain and sign the trail on a regular basis, and keep records and photos of this maintenance, and

(3) Take prompt action in the event that landowners threaten or take action to close or obliterate the trail.”

As PLWA Vice President John Gibson (retired Forest Service) roared, “Don't reassign him; I say, CLONE HIM! You need more rangers with the intestinal fortitude to protect and enhance access to the national forest.”

Certain Sweet Grass County landowners threatened and took action to close or obliterate public access FS trails in the Crazy Mountains. They have also threatened and taken action against our public trust District Ranger, Alex Sienkiewicz, who was following FS Direction and Policy in defending our public trust from privatization –  doing his public trust job. 

I beg you to show the same level of defense for our public access and Alex Sienkiewicz's reinstatement as Yellowstone District Ranger, by raising your concerns to the same officials that the privatizers just did with false allegations. Because when you see the roll out of information to come and the players agendas, you will agree, this isn't just about one man and his job, it is about what he was doing as a steward of our public lands that others greedily desire for their own.

Secretary of Agriculture, Sonny Perdue, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1400 Independence Ave., S.W., Washington, DC 20250 (202) 720-2791

Forest Service Chief, Thomas Tidwell,  ttidwell@fs.fed.us   (202) 205-8439

Region 1, Regional Forester Leann Marten,  lmarten@fs.fed.us   (406) 329-3315

Custer Gallatin National Forest Supervisor Mary Erickson,  mcerickson@fs.fed.us  (406) 587-6949

Senator Steve Daines, steve@daines.senate.gov   (202) 224-2651

Even though Sen. Tester was not evident in the letters, please contact him as well.
Sen. Jon Tester,  senator@tester.senate.gov   (202) 224-2644

 

Thank you,
Kathryn QannaYahu
406-579-7748
www.EMWH.org
Bozeman, MT