By Jim Stanford on February 7, 2008
If you can brave the blizzard raging outside to drive to Jackson Hole High School this evening, the Forest Service will be on the marquee as it tries to explain why the agency’s headquarters should be moved to Lincoln or Sublette counties.
Maybe Regional Forester Harv Forsgren always wanted to have his name in lights.
When we last left off with this boondoggle, the Forest Service, led by Forsgren in Ogden, Utah, claimed that it was considering selling part of its 16-acre site on North Cache Drive — prime real estate at the entrance to town — because of the high cost of housing employees in Jackson.
“Let’s put the myths to rest” wrote Forsgren in an op-ed in the News&Guide, fending off questions about the agency’s motivation.
Since then, Bozeman-based writer Todd Wilkinson, in one of the finest pieces of investigative journalism seen locally in years, exposed that the sale and move were set in motion by a developer seeking to build an IMAX theater on the way to Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks.
Today’s Daily reveals that Joe Albright, owner of Flat Creek Ranch and a distinguished journalist, did more digging and found that the Forest Service is proposing selling all of the North Cache property in its latest budget.
So far, the only myths being propagated are the ones Forsgren and his brass in the Bush-Cheney administration are spinning.
It’s a compelling tale, worthy of Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade: A desperate federal agency, strapped by years of declining budgets, plots in secret to sell out and deceive the public. At least one developer, and perhaps others, are set to cash in. What will become of the Maltese Falcon of public land?
Should draw a big audience. The meeting runs from 6 to 8 p.m. Bring popcorn.
Of course, in this kind of weather, if the forum were held in Afton, Alpine or Pinedale, nobody would be going. Critics say that’s precisely the point.
Posted under environment, national forest
