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Eye on Boise: Southern Idaho lawmakers fail attempt to block conservation easement budget item
The money will be used to purchase sportsman access to the Clagstone Meadows project in North Idaho, which is part of a conservation easement sought by Stimson Lumber, the owner of the property.
Stimson is giving up development rights to the big chunk of timberland – at one time approved for major development – in the center of the Panhandle, in favor of continuing to operate it as timber production land in perpetuity and allowing public access and hunting privileges. It’s Bonner County’s largest contiguous tract of private forest land, with 13,000 acres of timber, lakes and wetland.
The conservation easement plan includes $5.5 million in federal funds for a forest legacy project through the Idaho Department of Lands, $2 million in federal hunter access funds from the Fish and Game budget, $2 million from a public lands trust, and a $3.1 million contribution from Stimson.
The three lawmakers who oppose the funding were Rep. Jason Monks, Sens. Jim Guthrie and Dean Mortimer.
“We have two-thirds of Idaho already public owned, and it just seems contrary to me that we pay to have these easements and different things,” said Guthrie, R-McCammon.
He said if people in the area think the land needs to be protected, the local planning officials could deny the development application.
Sen. Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint, co-chair of the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, noted the project is in her district.
“It is a remarkable piece of land,” she said. “There was a proposal for 1,200 homes and two golf courses. It was very controversial. And a majority of the neighbors surrounding the proposal were opposed to it. A lot of work was done by the company and the county.”
Keough said there’s “a public desire for fishing and hunting and hiking and the recreational values that that piece of land provides,” and Stimson recognized that. “It seems like this is, to me, a win-win situation, where the private property owner can still retain the land, can still harvest and grow trees, but at the same time the public has access for hunting. … And the sportsmen’s communities of that area are solidly behind this proposal.”
Rep. Luke Malek, R-Coeur d’Alene, said he’s familiar with both the property and the company.
“I’d say both are tremendous assets to our area up there,” he said. “How do I go back to the landowner in my district and say the Legislature doesn’t want you to do what you want to do with your land? This is a fantastic project that’s on the line here.”
Mortimer, R-Idaho Falls, tried an unusual maneuver – he moved to hold the Fish and Game budget to a later date, and not set it Friday, at least in part because one of the backers of removing the Clagstone funding, Sen. Sheryl Nuxoll, R-Cottonwood, was absent. The committee’s co-chairs and vice-chairs were taken aback.
Rep. Marc Gibbs, R-Grace, the committee’s House vice chair and a former state Fish and Game commissioner, noted that the deal doesn’t buy land, it provides access.
“Whatever gamesmanship we are playing this morning shouldn’t be taken out on the backs of the sportsmen,” he said.
Mortimer’s motion to delay the budget failed on a 7-10 vote. Then, the motion from Monks, R-Nampa, to cut the funding for the Clagstone Meadows project failed, 3-14, with just Mortimer, Monks and Guthrie supporting it. The original motion for the Fish and Game budget, showing a 10.8 percent increase in total funds with no state general funds included, then passed on a 14-3 vote with just Mortimer, Monks and Guthrie dissenting.
Budgets set piecemeal this year
The budget for the Office of the State Board of Education was set by the Legislature’s budget committee last week without addressing Gov. Butch Otter’s recommendation for $5 million in startup funds for a new community college in eastern Idaho, should voters there approve one.
That’s because the bill dealing with that had just passed the House and not yet come up in the Senate. If it passes, the joint committee would come back with a “trailer” appropriation bill to follow the policy bill, filling in the funding.
It’s one of an array of education-related issues that are getting that treatment this year, because key pieces of education policy still are pending in the Legislature and it’s budget-setting time.
This approach will have its biggest impact Monday, when the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee sets the public schools budget. Major pieces of Otter’s education proposals haven’t passed, including a $10.7 million early literacy initiative and a $3 million proposal to deal with funding when students move from one district to another; that means the budget committee won’t include them when it sets the overall public school budget. As a result, Monday’s action may be on a considerably smaller increase than schools actually will get after trailer bills are addressed.
Rep. Wendy Horman, R-Idaho Falls, who is working on the school budget, is worried about that.
“I don’t want educators to think the commitment isn’t there, because I believe it is,” she said. “But because of these other items, the numbers are not going to look like the governor’s recommendation or the superintendent’s request.”