Libby resident displeased with response from commissioners
I recently had the occasion to write to our Lincoln County Commissioners regarding their stance on the loss of approximately 50 jobs on the Kootenai National Forest.
These 50 local employees were among the 3,400 employees nationally of the U.S. Forest Service that were illegally fired on Feb. 14 by Elon Musk and the Office of Personnel Management.
The only response I received was from Commissioner Noel Duram. He started off by insisting that these firings were not illegal, even though at least two Federal judges as well as the Merit System Protection Board have ruled that they were. He went on to state that “the plans of the Trump Administration might be the best thing for Lincoln County if we can improve the economy and stimulate a more sustainable jobs program through private industry instead of tax dollars.”
Sustainable jobs through private industry?
Apparently, Mr. Duram has already forgotten the names of all the private companies with their sustainable jobs that have rolled through Lincoln County in the past 30 years. Here are some to refresh his memory – W.R. Grace, Champion International, Asarco, Noranda, Stinger Welding, Plum Creek Timber, Weyerhauser and Stimson Lumber (Stimson does still maintain a small forestry staff in Libby and hires a few local logging companies).
The U.S. Forest Service, on the other hand has provided steady and stable employment for hundreds of individuals over that same 30-year period, I believe it was once the largest employer in the county and USDA is still one of the largest employers in the State of Montana. He ended by informing me that neither of the other two commissioners wanted to make any comments as a group. It was signed over the title District #3 Commissioner. Lincoln County.
Not being pleased with the response, I attended the March 5 weekly Commissioners’ meeting to seek further enlightenment. I learned a few things that your readers might not be aware of:
1. Letters from individual Commissioners signed over their official title are not “official” at all. Apparently, they are just the commissioner’s personal opinions. Both Commissioners Duram and Teske repeated this several times.
2. Citizens are not allowed to “debate” the Commissioners, just give “comment,” no matter how inane the Commissioners’ responses may be.
3. If you want to “debate,” you are welcome to do so privately in the Commissioners’ offices behind closed doors where anything they say can be denied later.
4. The Lincoln County Commissioners believe that the issue of the loss of 50 permanent, well-paying jobs in their county is “outside their purview” and they will have no official comment on it.
5. The Commissioners apparently have had no discussions with the Forest Service about this, but suggested I could take my concerns to them.
After I left the meeting, Commissioner Teske commented to another individual that “calmer heads will prevail” and that this “happens every time there’s a new administration.”
During my tenure with the Forest Service, I worked under 10 different administrations, five of which came after a change in the political party of the administration. I experienced changes in priorities and policies, increases and decreases in budgets and targets, limits on Full Time Equivalents (FTE’s), vehicle and mileage allowances and one official Reduction in Force (RIF).
I never experienced this illegal, wholesale firing of thousands of people with no analysis or rationale other than to create chaos and set up entire agencies to fail so that they can be eliminated.
I don’t know what Mr. Teske based his comment on or where he got his information, but I’m here to tell you that THIS IS NOT NORMAL and he needs to stop gaslighting the citizens of this county by trying to make believe that it is.
Tom Maffei, Libby, Montana