Gianforte can help Lincoln County
As I near the end of my appointment as Lincoln County commissioner, I feel that while we are working toward some positive improvements for our county there remains much to be done! Unfortunately, many of these opportunities and needs are beyond local government authority or purview.
As many of you are aware, Lincoln County consists of 75 percent federal land, 3 percent state and 13 percent timber industrial lands. That leaves us 9 percent of total lands in small private landowner ownership to control our own destiny with which is not possible without help from public and industrial landowners. You have probably also heard that county revenues are down, costs are up and we are working hard to maintain county services at the current level. Reality is we don’t know how long we can continue to maintain this! The hard truth is we can only impact our economic situation so much at the county level.
About a year ago, I met Greg Gianforte and his wife Susan at a Montana Association of Counties meeting. I shared my contact information with them and it was not long after that that I got an email from Greg asking if he could call me and talk about Lincoln Counties issues and concerns. I responded “yes” and immediately got a call. I shared with Greg our frustrations with the lack of natural resource management and the high unemployment and poverty levels we live with here. I quickly realized that he knew our economic situation as well as I did and he offered many solutions that he would do to help our situation as governor of Montana. I was very impressed and pleased by his knowledge and sincere concern for our economic plight and his understanding of what it takes to create jobs and the need for quality jobs with benefits to support our families and provide a future here.
I visited shortly after with Rep. Mike Cuffe and he stated that present Gov. Bullock has vetoed 128 bills in his term as governor, more than any other governor in Montana’s history. Many of these bills would have very favorably impacted Lincoln County and Montana to include providing Second Amendment protection and tax relief.
While we need economic diversification, our best opportunity for an economic turnaround short term in my estimation is Hecla Mining and the Rock Creek and Montanore mines. I just learned that the Montana Department of Environmental Quality has not issued a new mining permit in 20 years. This needs to change and will under new leadership and direction. As I stated earlier, we can only do so much at the county level, we need help and we need change at the state and federal level, and I hope you will join me in supporting Greg Gianforte for governor of Montana.
Greg Larson
Troy