Dear editor:

After reading the editorial from Ms. Lohman regarding the article written by Mr. Davis on public lands, I was surprised that she seemed to think that Mr. Davis had written a hit article on Harriet Hageman. Ms. Lohman states that he left out (cleverly?) the issue that many public lands do not have access. She rightly states that many of these landlocked parcels are the “personal playgrounds” of adjacent landowners and that she is in favor of selling these lands so that somehow the public is able to gain more access. “Why not sell and open public access” was her statement. I was wondering how selling these lands means more public access? As these parcels are landlocked by adjacent owners (who often restrict any access), selling them somehow doesn’t mean more access as those landowners would be the only beneficiaries of the sale. Commonsense says that one would not want to buy a property to which you could not gain access to. Thus, the only one who might buy the parcel would be the very landowner who has helped to lock it away. Once again, taking the land that may have multiple benefits to the public (i.e. conservation as one example).

However, I digress from Ms. Lohman’s original complaint that somehow this was a hit piece against Ms. Hageman. If this was somehow a hit piece against Ms. Hageman, where in the article did Ms. Lohman dispute the facts Mr. Davis wrote about. To be more pointed, Harriet Hageman did support the selling of 2.2-3 million acres of public lands in the West under the guise of “multiple use/sustained yield” and as well as Ms. Lohman’s issue of the land locked acres. Hmm, Seems to me the fact is that Harriet is in favor of selling public lands. However one wants to spin this, those are the facts. Yet, somehow Ms. Lohman wants us to think that Mr. Davis wrote a hit piece. Instead I read the article as being informative about the issues surrounding public lands and that the vast majority of the public, regardless of political affiliation, want to keep these lands in the hands of the public.

Personally I think it is unfortunate that Wyoming will most likely elect a person who has worked to the detriment of the will of the people of Wyoming on the issue of public lands. While we can all agree that public lands is a complicated topic that should have serious discussions, it is evident that selling them is not one of the solutions that we the public would want. Any notion that the article was a hit piece seems to be in the mind of those who want to support some political agenda when in fact the reporting was merely stating facts about the public’s love of public lands.

One final note on the spotlight Ms. Lohman brought on landlocked public parcels. If one looks historically at how these parcels became landlocked, look at how the train barons of the past were enticed to complete the railroads across our country by being given parcels of land. Many of these were sold off,  often leaving us with this checkerboard of private and public. Originally the oligarchs of the past benefited. Now I wonder who benefits the most from the sale of finite public lands? I would submit that there are a number of solutions to solving access issues. However, discussions of solutions often does not occur as those who would profit the most off the sale of these lands do not want to have this discussion.

Respectfully,

Daniel Kifer

Powell