Vote no on I-161
Editor:
I am a local businessman and have operated a thriving business in Butte, for the past decade.
My business provides employment to greater than seven full-time, part-time and temporary employees from western Montana each and every year. It pays these employees what equates to approximately $25 an hour for their time and provides these individuals with a living and the ability to spend their earnings locally.
As a native Montanan, my business aims to help bolster the local economy. We purchase all of our required equipment, marketing and advertising materials, office supplies, general operation supplies, automobiles, insurance, banking service, groceries, professional services, fuel, etc. from other local businesses. We do our part to make positive contributions to the local economy and the profitability of the other businesses which we rely on.
Beyond employing locals and supporting local businesses, my business is responsible for generating in excess of $75,000 per year which is paid directly to the State of Montana. The local airport and airlines benefit to the tune of $30,000 annually (assuming a flight cost to BTM at $500). Local hotels benefit in excess of $15,000 in revenue as a result of my company’s mere existence. Not to mention supplemental income derived at restaurants, from rental cars and at local stores.
Is this business good for the state of Montana? Is this business good for the community of Butte?
This is the question being posed to Montana voters during this upcoming election. Initiative 161 on the ballot is a direct assault on the existence of this business and the livelihood of all who count on this business from employees to suppliers.
Initiative 161 effectively eliminates the outfitter sponsored guaranteed licenses ($1,250 per hunter) used by my company to attain customers and hence provide a living for myself, guides, cooks and suppliers. I-161 is not geared to provide better hunting and access. It is a direct assault on the greater than 300 outfitter businesses that exist to provide direct employment to thousands of Montanans and indirectly touch each local business in every community through out our state.
Can the Montana economy afford to lose another estimated minimum $150 million industry?
Can Montana sustain the loss of thousands more high paying jobs?
If your answer is no. Then vote no on I-161.
Hunt hard,
Mark J. Shutey
Manager
Stockton Outfitters, LLC
Editor:
I am a local businessman and have operated a thriving business in Butte, for the past decade.
My business provides employment to greater than seven full-time, part-time and temporary employees from western Montana each and every year. It pays these employees what equates to approximately $25 an hour for their time and provides these individuals with a living and the ability to spend their earnings locally.
As a native Montanan, my business aims to help bolster the local economy. We purchase all of our required equipment, marketing and advertising materials, office supplies, general operation supplies, automobiles, insurance, banking service, groceries, professional services, fuel, etc. from other local businesses. We do our part to make positive contributions to the local economy and the profitability of the other businesses which we rely on.
Beyond employing locals and supporting local businesses, my business is responsible for generating in excess of $75,000 per year which is paid directly to the State of Montana. The local airport and airlines benefit to the tune of $30,000 annually (assuming a flight cost to BTM at $500). Local hotels benefit in excess of $15,000 in revenue as a result of my company’s mere existence. Not to mention supplemental income derived at restaurants, from rental cars and at local stores.
Is this business good for the state of Montana? Is this business good for the community of Butte?
This is the question being posed to Montana voters during this upcoming election. Initiative 161 on the ballot is a direct assault on the existence of this business and the livelihood of all who count on this business from employees to suppliers.
Initiative 161 effectively eliminates the outfitter sponsored guaranteed licenses ($1,250 per hunter) used by my company to attain customers and hence provide a living for myself, guides, cooks and suppliers. I-161 is not geared to provide better hunting and access. It is a direct assault on the greater than 300 outfitter businesses that exist to provide direct employment to thousands of Montanans and indirectly touch each local business in every community through out our state.
Can the Montana economy afford to lose another estimated minimum $150 million industry?
Can Montana sustain the loss of thousands more high paying jobs?
If your answer is no. Then vote no on I-161.
Hunt hard,
Mark J. Shutey
Manager
Stockton Outfitters, LLC
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,â€
But with HB 195, the 1995 Republican controlled Montana Legislature decided that some men are more equal than others and one Montana business deserves special treatment. In a good intentioned, but misguided move (some say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions), the Legislature created the Outfitter Set-aside Licenses (OSL) to provide funding for the Hunter Management Program recommended by the Private Lands/Public Wildlife (PLPW) committee. Rather than call it a Hunter Management Program as it is defined to be, Block Management was likely considered the more politically acceptable term as Americans and more particularly Montanans don’t like to be “managedâ€. The effect of HB 195 was to create a cash cow for Montana Outfitters, numbering over 1,000 in 2005 according to stop161. Making for outfitters a ready and waiting client list of non-residents with a pocket full of money who are more than willing to pay-to-play, to pay not only for tags but for exclusive access.
While looking over the current Voter Information Pamphlet, I wondered who the opponents doing the rebuttal against I-161 were. State Senator Jim Peterson is a Republican from Buffalo, MT, State Representative Mike Milburn is a Republican from Cascade, MT, Mac Minard is the Executive Director of the Montana Outfitter and Guides Association (MOGA), and Brett Todd is on the 2010 MOGA Executive Board as President – Elect and an outfitter working out of Big Timber (Klazy3 Outfitters).
In Montana the Outfitting Industry existed prior to 1995 without the OSL and will likely continue its business existence upon passage of I-161. Their dire predictions of lost revenue, if it occurs, will be more likely attributed to our ever growing wolf problem and that effect on (declining) game populations rather than as a result of the loss of their OSL cash cow.
HB 195 did not solve the problem of access in Montana.
HB 195 missed the point which was not how can we deal with private land interests, but how we can increase access to our public lands increasingly blocked by private land interests. In an effort to compromise, large amounts of money were introduced into the equation, further complicating but not solving the access issue. Should a private land holder, with personal access to multiple sections, in some cases several square miles, of state and federal lands (public lands) in their ranch leases, that are blocked to public access by deeded acres at entry points, opt for the $12,000 that Hunter Management would pay or take the more lucrative option of charging sums like a $10,000 exclusive access fee for a group of (4) hunters to harvest an illegal elk as we saw in West Central Montana a few years ago?
Only two such groups of hunters would put him $8,000 ahead of the BMP (Block Mgmt Program).
Lets not be fooled by the claims of the anti I-161 crowd, those are only tears falling for a cash-cow and not the sky falling after all. Let’s show that in Montana we do believe all men are created equal and declare Montana’s independence from the OSL by Voting for I-161. And then we can get to work on another important issue, controlling an out-of-control wolf population and restoring our new Endangered Species the Montana Deer and Elk populations.