Northern Rockies Protection Alliance (N.R.P.A.)
Please join with S.B.C.C. to form an alliance of western Montana communities concerned about the negative effects of overdevelopment on the people and natural resources of the northern Rocky Mountains, today, by sending an email to: Chris Linkenhoker @ clinkenhok@yahoo.com. Our objective is to build a more powerful coalition to stand up against powerful developers and their allies in government. By early summer 2007, we hope to come together in either Missoula or Helena in a forum, to develop strategies and gather resources in order to significantly affect the future outcome of development in our communities.
In your e-mail, please provide a one-word Nickname for yourself or organization, which will be used in all future electronic communications. We intend to build a database of all new members of N.R.P.A. Optional information can include your actual name, mailing address and phone number. At some point in the future, we will go public and put the development interests of western Montana on notice about our intent to significantly change the outcome of their plans for the Northern Rocky Mountains, which are massive and potentially devastating.
S.B.C.C. currently maintains a roster of several hundred members and we maintain strict privacy rules to protect individuals and organizations from potential reprisal and retribution.
KUFM Opinion Piece
February 14, 2007
By Chris Linkenhoker
Treasurer, Save the Bitterroot Conservation Coalition (S.B.C.C.)
63 Sugar Mnt. Rd., Apt. A
Hamilton, MT 59840 clinkenhok@yahoo.com (406) 239-6791
www.savethebitterroot.com
The good people of western Montana are facing the most serious threat to their Rocky Mountain homeland and to their sacred constitutional rights since early settlement days. Yet there seems to be little that we can do to stop this assault, short of marching in the streets in a massive show of civil disobedience.
The real estate industry has finally succeeded in selling us out to the rest of the world, thanks to 25 years of aggressive marketing, and the internet. Insatiable greed is driving many in that industry to violate their own code of ethics and normal standards of decency.
Dozens of massive, high-density, housing developments are being proposed in even the most rural of our communities, like Hungry Horse, Seeley Lake and Corvallis, even adjacent to our most precious natural resources like the Lee Metcalf Federal Wildlife Refuge and the Rock Creek drainage. These planned developments will extend from the Bitterroot Valley all the way to the Canadian border, creating an urban nightmare; much like has already enveloped most of California.
To make matters worse, many of our own elected officials are promoting these very developments and attempting to remove your right to participate in the approval of these projects. They are offering to use your money to provide tax-subsidized infrastructure for these developments of multi-millionaires.
Senator Rick Laible of Victor, is currently sponsoring a very dangerous Senate Bill 110, which will remove current obstacles to these massive housing projects and provide millions of dollars of your tax money straight to millionaire developers.
In lieu of organized opposition, it is very likely that we will all soon be living the very lifestyles that we moved here to escape in the first place, but this time, there will be no where to go because we are truly living in the “very-last, best place”. Even worse, our forests, rivers, farmland and wildlife will all be sacrificed in exchange for strip-malls, corporate franchises, pavement and pollution. Our invaluable connection to nature will be severed, forever.
Many landowners are cashing in their land and heading to the bank, and touting their God-given rights to do so, even though this very land was stolen from the Salish Indians, just a few generations ago.
The proponents of wide-scale development are deceitfully preying on our beliefs in fairness and our commitment to our Constitution, in an effort to silence the scattered voices of opposition to their massive building plans. They are exercising their enormous influence to take our lives away from us, lives that represent the sweat-equity of every generation that came before us. They are doing this without our consent and they are trampling on our constitution rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, which in Montana, includes the right to a clean and healthful environment.
The influence-peddling that has grown in our local and state governments has now become pervasive and blatant, giving rise to a serious constitutional confrontation. Many of our public officials maintain overly-cozy relationships with developers while simultaneously marginalizing average citizens to the status of frustrated observers.
The people of western Montana must soon come together in a united defense if we are to have any chance of stopping this invasion of our homes, our farms, our communities and our environment. The organizations and individuals whom I represent are therefore proposing to use the internet and the media to network with those thousands of citizens throughout western Montana who share our concerns and our frustrations. It is time for all of us to put aside our (sometimes) petty differences, and establish a grassroots alliance to stop this clear invasion of our homeland.
In the words of Henry David Thoreau “Man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to leave alone”. The riches of western Montana are right out our front doors – let’s not give them away to private land developers.
Please go to www.savethebitterroot.com for contact information, if you or your organization wants to unite in this effort.
Please join us so that years from now, we can look back at our proud achievements and continue to see our diverse wildlife and scenery all around us – otherwise they will be replaced with concrete, dirty water, dirty air, and “anywhere-else USA”. Can you even imagine?
Thank you for your time.
Chris A. Linkenhoker