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As someone with an unusual talent for getting turned around in landscapes lacking a large river valley or distinctive mountain range, I’ve always gravitated toward maps. Paper maps, digital maps, even ownership-oriented maps like those on Montana State Library’s Montana Cadastral system — I love them all.
In recent years, I’ve paid particular attention to the checkerboard pattern evident on current and now-outdated maps of some of my favorite mountain ranges: the Crazies, the Bangtails, the Gallatins. The checkerboard pattern denotes areas where public land, typically managed by the Bureau of Land Management or Forest Service, is interspersed with private land in a way that puts it in access limbo.
By one count, there are 8 million acres of public land in the West, including nearly 900,000 acres in Montana, that are “corner-locked,” meaning they are inaccessible without crossing the corner shared by adjoining private parcels. Members of the public who corner-cross can therefore find themselves facing a trespassing citation. Some public land access advocates have for decades wondered when — or if — a judge or legislative body would offer clarity about whether corner-crossing constitutes a criminal or civil trespass.
So when four men who corner-crossed while hunting in Carbon County, Wyoming, were acquitted of criminal trespassing by a jury and also cleared of civil trespassing charges by a federal judge, both access advocates and private property proponents took notice.
Randy Newburg, a Bozeman-based hunting personality who did a deep dive on the corner-crossing issue for Hunt Talk Radio, is quick to note that the hunters’ vindication in Wyoming doesn’t throw open the gates for corner-crossing in Montana, which has different trespassing statutes and is located in a separate appellate circuit. But when I interviewed Newburg for MTFP’s three-part series on corner-crossing, he expressed cautious optimism that ripples from the judge’s decision will eventually open access to corner-locked land in Montana. It’s something he’s been waiting for, he told me, for nearly 30 years.
On the other side of the issue, agricultural and landowner-oriented groups in the West have been bracing for a decision like the one written by U.S. District Court Judge Scott Skavdahl, who wrote that “there is no liability for trespass” in instances where “a person corner-crosses on foot within the checkerboard from public land to public land without touching the surface of private land and without damaging private property.” After the landowner appealed Skavdahl’s decision, the United Property Owners of Montana filed a “friend of the court” brief arguing that the judge got it wrong.
A shift in the status quo would put an increased burden on the federal government to “monitor, protect, and police millions of acres of its property,” according to UPOM’s filing, which argues that legalizing corner-crossing will inevitably produce issues with poaching, littering, fires and other crimes on previously inaccessible federal land. UPOM also argues that corner-locked land that has served as “de facto wildlife preserves” with “little or no hunting pressure” and maintains that an incursion into a private property owners’ airspace — no matter how brief — constitutes a trespass.
In the first installment of our corner-crossing series, which we published this Monday, I unpack some of those dynamics. In future installments, I’ll also explore why Montana hasn’t yet had its own “test case” on the legality of corner-crossing and examine proposals to alleviate some of the friction at these checkerboard corners. If you have thoughts to share there, please shoot me a note at [email protected].
READ MORE: Montana proponents for public access, landowners, await implications of Wyoming lawsuit.
—Amanda Eggert, Reporter
Glad You Asked 🙋🏻
Reader questions about public school funding in Montana just keep rolling into our inboxes. Among the most recent was a query focused on two very specific sources of state revenue — gambling and adult-use marijuana — and whether money from those activities is supposed to go toward education.
The short answer is no, at least not directly. Revenues from video gambling, sports betting and the like get spread around among local governments, the Montana Department of Justice and the state General Fund. Per the 2021 and 2023 Legislatures, tax revenue from adult-use and medical marijuana first fills a special addiction recovery and treatment fund, and then funds a series of conservation and law enforcement related uses, with any extra money finally flowing to the state General Fund.
According to a February report by the Legislature’s fiscal division, taxes on gambling activity kicked about $80 million into the General Fund in fiscal year 2023, with profits from the Montana Lottery contributing another roughly $23 million. Marijuana tax revenue contributed around $29 million. But it’s important to note that those amounts are quite modest compared to the largest driver in the General Fund: individual income tax, which in Fiscal Year 2023 accounted for $2.3 billion.
As we’ve discussed previously, state funding for K-12 public schools comes from three distinct buckets, the largest of which by far is Montana’s General Fund. But with dozens of revenue sources contributing to the General Fund pot, it isn’t really possible to say for sure that the dollar someone slides into a local keno machine is the same dollar that goes out to a Montana school district.
—Alex Sakariassen, Reporter
Close-up 📸
Tester’s race for a fourth term in the upper chamber of Congress is widely seen as one of this year’s most high-profile U.S. Senate campaigns. As such, Tester was the focal point of the Democratic event for rank-and-file voters, down-ballot candidates and two pro-Palestine protesters who disrupted his speech in an effort to pressure him to call for an Israeli ceasefire in Gaza. The activists, part of a larger group of demonstrators outside the event, were quickly escorted out by law enforcement as Tester staffers and supporters waved signs and chanted “Let’s go Jon.”
—Mara Silvers, Reporter
For the Record 📣
As the Cascade County Commission was deliberating last month over who to appoint as the new local elections overseer for one of the state’s key political swing counties, Montana’s top election official privately weighed in on the conversation. In a Feb. 14 email to all three county commissioners, Republican Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen urged them not to hire former Cascade County Clerk and Recorder Rina Moore or any member of her past administration.
“Doing so would directly undermine the voters of Cascade County,” Jacobsen wrote in the email, obtained and published this week by the Great Falls news website The Electric.
Jacobsen’s argument aligned with much of the public criticism leveled against the commission late last year as they stripped current Clerk and Recorder Sandra Merchant of her election administration duties. Merchant, a Republican, narrowly defeated Democratic incumbent Moore in the 2022 election, but quickly drew allegations that she was mishandling elections in Cascade County. In response, the commission passed a resolution establishing an appointed election administrator position. Moore was one of four applicants interviewed for the job last month, as was her former election supervisor, Lynn DeRoche.
Commissioners rated Moore’s qualifications high among the candidates based largely on her 16-year tenure as county clerk but ultimately chose to appoint former Great Falls Association of Realtors CEO Terry Thompson to the post. Commissioners Jim Larson and Joe Briggs told The Electric that Jacobsen’s email did not influence their votes, though Larson claimed that was clearly the intent, citing Jacobsen’s use of her state email account, which includes the state seal.
Jacobsen’s office responded to a list of questions from MTFP by email this week, but did not directly address one asking why she had chosen to weigh in. Spokesman Richie Melby wrote that there are “those out there attempting to play political games and create distractions” at a time when Jacobsen is focused on working with Thompson to “run a very successful election.” Melby did not immediately respond to a follow-up asking who specifically that comment referred to. In his initial response to questions, however, he did speak to another allegation raised in recent media coverage: that Merchant and Cascade County Commissioner Rae Grulkowski, who opposed relieving Merchant of her election duties, were observed by The Electric entering Jacobsen’s office in the Montana Capitol on March 1.
“Any ‘reporting’ that Ms. Merchant and Ms. Grulkowski (or any of the other elected Cascade County officials) met with the Secretary is completely false and therefore had absolutely nothing to do with the hiring of the new election administrator,” Melby wrote.
Jacobsen announced last fall that she would be running for reelection in 2024 and officially filed her candidacy for a second term in February. She is facing a challenge from Democrat Jesse Mullen.
—Alex Sakariassen, Reporter
Glad you Answered 🙋
More than 400 MTFP readers have responded to the election-season issues survey we mentioned in this space last week, feedback we’re using to help prioritize the questions we’ll be putting to political candidates between now and November.
If you haven’t weighed in there yet and would like to, there’s still time if you’re reading this before March 12:
From the Record 📜
A trip to Helena’s city planning office this week got me thinking about some historic perspective on Montana’s current housing affordability crisis. I was surprised to realize that the office still has the original November 1935 building permit for my starter home a few blocks from the State Capitol on file. And I was downright shocked at the permit’s listed valuation for what was then a one-story, three-room dwelling: a mere $1,000.
Even adjusted for nearly 90 years of inflation, that price tag, about $22,300 in 2024 dollars, is less than one-tenth the typical value for newly built Helena homes. That comparison has me pondering how many of our modern-day housing affordability woes come down to how damn expensive it now is to build.
Of course, 1935 construction and 2024 construction are entirely different worlds for many reasons, some of which are perhaps not worth mourning. It isn’t clear to me, for example, whether my home was originally built with electrical wiring — or, for that matter, indoor plumbing. It still doesn’t have ducted central heating, or anything approaching the caliber of insulation that building codes mandate for modern construction.
Regardless, historic public records indicate the residence, which appears to have been built on the footprint of an earlier home destroyed by the 1935 earthquake that leveled much of Helena, provided at least tenable long-term shelter for a local family. The original owner and builder, French-Canadian carpenter Pierre Paul Landry, Sr., was still living in the house with his wife, four teenage children and mother-in-law as of 1950, according to U.S. Census records.
The Landry’s did add some extra living space by raising the roof half a story in 1942. That upgrade was valued at a grand total of $400 — or about $7,700 in today’s dollars. (In another sign of how our living standards have changed, the resulting 1,200-square-foot building that once housed seven people is now occupied by only me and my cat.)
Curious about your own home’s permit history? I haven’t checked how records are kept in other parts of Montana, but the kind staff in Helena’s building office were able to hand me a physical folder with paperwork for my address within mere moments of me asking to take a look at it in person this week. If you take a minute to look up your own home’s history, I’d love to know what thoughts the experience provokes.
—Eric Dietrich, Deputy Editor
Verbatim
“We’ll continue working with our law enforcement partners to help ensure that all people in Indian Country are safe in their communities.”
— U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in a public statement delivered before beginning a closed-door meeting with law enforcement officials in Billings on Tuesday, March 5, 2024.
Earlier in the day, Garland, the country’s top law enforcement official, had met with local leaders, law enforcement and victims services advocates from the Crow Tribe to talk about issues with drug trafficking and missing and murdered Indigenous people.
In his remarks, Garland touted the department’s recent fentanyl and methamphetamine prosecutions and the addition of a new prosecutor focused on prosecuting MMIP cases. He also encouraged county and tribal officials to apply for federal grants from the U.S. Department of Justice to help hire additional officers and invest in “community violence interruption activities.”
— Mara Silvers, Reporter
On Our Radar 
Amanda — My exploration of checkerboard land management issues reminded me of a story former Bozeman Daily Chronicle reporter Scott McMillion wrote in 2008 explaining the complicated negotiations that preceded the Yellowstone Club’s creation.
Alex — Things got a bit rowdy at times during President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address Thursday night. If you missed it, columnist Susan Glasser over at the New Yorker offers a context-rich and tongue-in-cheek recap.
Arren — I’m hugely interested in the dynamics of traffic fatalities in America, especially in its fast-growing, car-dependent western cities. This High Country News piece from earlier this month digs into some of the reasons for the country’s traffic death epidemic.
JoVonne — As Lily Gladstone prepares for the Oscars as a nominee for best actress for her role in the Martin Scorsese film, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” students from the Blackfeet Nation shared their excitement and support for the actress this week. The Indigenous organization, Illuminative, shared a social media post that shows first graders from Browning cheering on Gladstone.
Mara — Seaborn Larson over at Lee Newspapers got a great scooplet this week: In late February, the state health department informed counties that the psychiatric hospital in Warm Springs is at its “legally authorized capacity.” For me, the “We’re full, come back later” message raises more questions for than it answers, especially about staffing levels and the hospital’s actual capacity. If you’re a county official trying to get residents into Warm Springs, feel free to drop me a line about how that’s going.
Eric — If you’re the count-your-blessings type, one source of gratitude might be not having the Montana Legislature in session this year. Meanwhile… down in Wyoming.
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