Modern land rush update
The Tale of Two (or Three) Cities
What private property?
By Stephen L. Wilmeth
President
Obama recently put his phone down only to pick up his pen to sign the newest
proclamation designating a national monument.
Some 1665
acres of the Point Arena-Stormetta Public Lands in California’s Mendocino County
was added to the California
Coastal National
Monument with the stroke of his pen. The document
of record was Presidential Proclamation 9089, Boundary Enlargement of California
Coastal National
Monument. As set forth by the Antiquities Act, the
president was required to designate only the smallest area compatible with the
proper care and management of the object to be protected. He covered that base
referencing those very words, “I declare national monument land and interests
in lands … which is the smallest area compatible with proper care and
management of the objects to be protected”.
Reading the
remainder of the proclamation, there is language describing how beautiful the
place is with its various fauna and flora. It heralds the archeological values
with the ancestral homelands of the Central Pomo Indians. There was also a
brief reference to 19th century industries which prompts a question.
Is there any modern counterpart to those industries, and, if there isn’t … why
not?
The
Tale of Two Cities
When did we
have to endure Dickens’ The Tale of Two
Cities? Was it high school or was it in Mrs. Oberg’s 8th Grade
English class?
In either
case, we were not mature enough to understand its context. The book was a
depiction of how the ruling class attempted to maintain a strangle hold on the
peasantry, and how barbaric overreactions culminated in horrific conflict
between the classes. There was no way we could relate to the real world implications
and the chaotic similarities between Paris
and London before
and after the French Revolution.
Two passages elevate the unflattering
parallels.
The first
is the symbolism exhibited when the Marquis St. Evrémonde ordered his carriage
to be driven recklessly through the streets of Paris and a peasant child was killed. His
annoyance at the trivial incident was rectified when he reached into his purse
for a coin and tossed it out to compensate the distraught father for the loss.
The Marquis had better things to do with his time than consider the plight of
some minion. His world had more serious issues at hand. His importance was
immense. The worth of those masses around him registered no comparison to his
intellect and eminence.
The second
passage is what we most likely remember from the book.
It was the best of
times … it was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom … it was the age of
foolishness. It was epoch of belief … it was epoch of incredulity. It was
season of light … it was season of darkness. It was spring of hope … it was the
winter of despair. We had everything before us … we were all going direct to
heaven … we were all going the other way.
Consider the
relevance of those words today. Can there be 81 words more appropriately written
describing the parallels of our current relationship with our government and
its networking legions of governance barons?
A word to
the wise, though, don’t reread the book … it will add needless depression to
your lives.
The Tale of Three Cities … a modern
corollary
Ranchers in
Dona Ana County are concerned about the debacle they face if their private
lands become inholdings within a national monument as proposed in S. 1805. The
legislation, introduced by New Mexico Senators Udall and Heinrich, would
contain some 75 parcels of private land.
News outlets
have reported on the matter of state trust lands within the proposal. Those
lands, deeded to the state in the state’s enabling act, serve as revenue
sourcing for the state’s educational fund. The state’s Land Commissioner, Ray
Powell, told a crowd of some 700 people in the weeks preceding that he
supported the monument plan and that he would work diligently with the BLM to
trade those lands for federal lands elsewhere. Those 100± square miles of land
became topics of agreement within the press and the legislation’s proponents
for their release from any threat of isolation and the subsequent diminishment
to their earning potential. Education has to be served.
In turn, voices asking for similar and
commensurate consideration for private lands have been told time and again
the monument posed no threat to their lands. The contradiction cannot be lost
on anybody.
So, what is the truth? That can be found in referencing
the tale of three cities. Aside from Las
Cruces, the nearby municipalities of Deming, Hatch,
and Mesilla have something in common with the pending monument. The summation
of the combined deeded lands within their city limits would fit within acres of
the consolidated private lands within the proposal!
Would the citizens of those three communities believe
their land would not be affected if a monument designation was made on all
sides of their private property?
Furthermore, can you imagine
the public outcry that would take place if the three municipalities were merged
into some grand plan without a token of landowner input or comments? That is exactly
what private property owners have faced in this highly contentious debate.
Folks have been told repeatedly nothing
would happen to their private lands, but, at the same time, they were never
offered any consideration of trading their lands under the same courtesy extended
to the state of New Mexico
in order that state trust lands maintain their future earning potentials.
Indicators of things to come
When the government is in the mix, nothing
is quite like it seems.
In the case of the Dona Ana
proposal, the only way S.1805 gets done in this political climate is to hand it
off to the president for him to sign a proclamation to designate the area a national
monument by authority of the Antiquities Act. When that happens, people ought
to realize the footprint of S.1805 is not the purported 498,815 acres as stated
in the language of the bill.
When the state land commissioner
and the BLM agree on their pending land swaps, the federal footprint will
increase to at least 563,150 acres. When the private lands are annexed into the
mix, the acreage will become at least 572,500 acres.
But ... how can that be?
The citizenry continues to be told
their private land will not be affected. Notwithstanding the stepwise
elimination of future rights to enjoy the privileges of private property, a
larger, more overt specter looms. It arrives in the text of the recent designation
of the Point Arena-Stormetta Public Lands proclamation.
In Presidential Proclamation 9089,
words set forth exactly what the ranchers impacted by the proposal have
expected as the government’s preferred alternative. “Lands and interests in lands within the unit boundaries not owned or
controlled by the Government of the United States shall be reserved as a part
of the unit upon acquisition of ownership or control of the United States.”
If the United States isn’t intent on
acquiring the private property in the lands of S.1805, it needs to reevaluate
its treatment of folks pleading for protection of their homes and investments. At
a minimum, they should be extended the same rights and privileges pledged to
the state of New Mexico.
If their lives are to be shredded,
the least the government could do … is to toss a symbolic coin into their
midst.
Stephen
L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New
Mexico. “If 572,500 acres is the smallest area for
the managed care of this object … at least tell us what the object is!”
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