Representative thanks Munday for his efforts in sinking bill

To the Editor:

I would like to personally thank Mr. Munday for asking anglers to credit myself and other Republican legislators for sinking a very bad stream access bill.

I sit on three committees here in Helena — Natural Resources, Taxation and Fish Wildlife and Parks. While all three are distinctly unique in their make-up, Fish Wildlife and Parks is by far the most confusing.

Not necessarily because of the issues in the bills that are brought forth, but because a person never knows what will happen with them. I have found that it has the least amount of "partisan politics" in its make-up. This, while refreshing, is a result of the ever widening cultural gap between rural and urban realities of life.

For instance, SB 78 was, and still is a very heated topic of this legislature. While on its surface the bill sounds agreeable, we just want to provide access to our public waterways. But as with all legislation, the devil is in the details.

Folks from the more urban areas such as Billings or Bozeman have a hard time understanding why it is important for a rancher to attach his fence to a bridge, while ranchers have a hard time understanding why they just can't climb over them. With most landowner/recreationalists relationships in this state being just fine, there are a few bad actors on both sides of the fence (pun intended).

The reality is that we do not need SB 78. County governments have the ability right now to require a landowner to allow reasonable access to streams at bridges, and in four or five instances they have not. SB 78 would have landed private property owners in court because of the ambiguity of how to determine "reasonable access."

Any person who determined that their access was restricted regardless of how many others were fine with it could enter into arbitration with the landowner, at the landowner's expense.

SB 78 was a solution looking for a problem. We do not need duplicative laws on the books, nor shift the burden of responsibility onto citizens who pay taxes for their local governments to resolve these access issues.

State Rep. Chas Vincent

Libby