Defending property rights

“Our work is never done.” This is a quote from Citizens For A Better Flathead’s executive director, Mayre Flowers. During its 20-year history, CFBF has pitted neighbor against neighbor, neighborhood against neighborhood, and even community against community in the Flathead, all to try and restructure the county and its communities with a political agenda they call “smart growth.”

Smart growth has many facets, but at its heart it’s an anti-rural private property scheme to force rural residents into the new high-density ghettoes they call “urban growth boundaries,” abandoning rural property to all critters except the two legged kind, “stack and pack” for what these smart growth advocates call the “collective good.”

Because private property rights fly in the face of this smart growth forced collectivism, recently Mayre’s little group led an effort to stop the county’s adoption of what the Daily Inter Lake has termed “a private property bill of rights.”

Joining the CFBF in their opposition to this long overdue property rights measure were both Democrat candidates for the county commission, Gil Jordan and Clara LaChappelle.

On the other side, standing up for this private property owners bill of rights were Republican candidates Cal Scott and Gary Krueger, who made it clear that if elected they will preserve, protect and defend our individual private property as they were intended to be — the foundation of a free society.

Please join me in supporting Cal and Gary for Flathead County Commission. Today, just as on the national level, the stakes are high. Remember what Mayre said: “Our work is never done.”

Russ Crowder lives in Marion.