Regents Sidestepped Law To Sell Fort Missoula Land

The University of Montana, state regents and the UM Foundation sidestepped law and policies to transfer and sell land at Fort Missoula, and the state Land Board should sue to regain it, the attorney general says.

UM and the regents illegally gave the 300 acres to the foundation, and the foundation ignored state law and its own policies - and actively avoided pubic scrutiny - to sell 83 acres of it to a real estate developer, the report said.

Unless the university system gets an agreement to return the land by Sept. 18, the state Land Board should sue anyone who claims to own it, Attorney General Joe Mazurek said.

Regents have been negotiating with the developers for the return of the land.

The 300 acres, which wraps around the historic Fort Missoula, was given to the state of Montana or state Board of Education by the federal government in 1966, with the stipulation that it be used for educational purposes for the next 20 years.

Regents got the deed to the property in 1986 and sold the 83 acres to Divot Development company for $450,000. The sale came to public attention when the city was asked to rezone the property for real estate development, and a grass-roots organization called Save the Fort mounted the opposition.

Save the Fort appealed to the Land Board, which asked for the legal opinion from the attorney general.

The 31-page report culminated a 10-month investigation by Mazurek’s office that surveyed more than a decade’s worth of documents.

Taken as a whole, Mazurek concluded, the transfer and sale were aimed at “sidestepping the requirements of state law.”

UM President George Dennison, on vacation in Colorado, said he had not read the report, but after being told its major findings he said procedures were appropriate.