Say Anything Blog

Here on Say Anything I’ve been banging the drum on the 500,000 acre (of private land) National Heritage Area issue for over a month now.  If you’re a late comer to the story, click here to catch up on my past posts, but basically it’s a federal land designation that gives a private group called the Northern Plains Heritage Foundation (run by liberal state legislator Tracy Potter) $10 million in taxpayer funding to lobby municipal, county and township governments to regulate land a certain way.

Despite claims to the contrary from state Senator Potter, and Senator Byron Dorgan who sponsored the legislation creating this land designation, land owners were not notified that they were being opted into the designation.  At most, Potter’s group made some presentation at local township and county government meetings talking about a feasibility study.  The next thing anyone had heard, Potter had testified before Congress that the folks who land was being designated were on board and he got his millions (of our tax dollars) in funding and his designation.

And, at least initially, there was no way for any of the landowners who suddenly found themselves caught up in all this to opt out.

Well now there is, according to a Bismarck Tribune article that comes to this party several weeks too late.

A Farm Bureau flier, inviting people to a public meeting about the heritage area a month after the bill’s passage, called it “the largest regulatory taking of private property in the history of North Dakota.”

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-ND, who sponsored the designation, disputes that notion. “This is not designed to affect property rights. No one is going to have their property rights thwarted,” Dorgan said. “If they tried to, I would shut down funding.”

Potter says some landowners are unduly paranoid. “We can’t own land; we can’t regulate people’s property. The list of things we can’t do is longer than the things we can do,” he said. “The only thing is a positive action.”

Dorgan and Potter say having a Heritage Area means up to $10 million in federal money over 15 years. The funds can go to preserve and promote places like Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site at Stanton, or Double Ditch Indian Villages north of Bismarck. It can be used for better signs, better interpretation, better promotion and better preservation of the area’s cultural heritage.

Potter said the money can’t be used to buy property, nor will the foundation have any regulatory, zoning, or land use authority. “How would private property owners be affected? I can’t think of a single way, unless they wanted a grant to develop an opportunity,” he said.

The actual bill contains nine provisions that protect private property and it expressly prohibits the purchase of property with federal funds.

Klein pushed for even more protection. He helped persuade Dorgan that landowners should have an opportunity to opt out of the heritage area - language that is sometimes included in Heritage Area authorizations - and remove their property from any inclusion or participation.

Dorgan said Klein and others worried that “if we can’t get out, we’re in,” so he put an opt-out provision in an interim bill to provide that option.

If your land is in the National Heritage Area designation (and that’s everyone around the Missouri River from the Stanton/Hazen area to south of Bismarck) and you want to opt out, you can contact the Northern Plains Heritage Foundation by sending a letter to this address:

401 W. Main
Mandan, ND 58554

Or you can call them at (701) 663-4758.  Or email (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).  Even if you’re not sure if your land is in the designated area or not (it runs from the Stanton/Hazen area along the Missouri River to south of Bismarck) you would do well to contact them and opt-out anyway.

Though why onus for opting out of this land grab should be on you, the private land owner, instead of Tracy Potter and his cohorts convincing you to opt in is beyond me.  That’s not how things are supposed to work in America.

Note that in the article above, Potter claims that the NPHF has no regulatory authority of this land.  That’s the big lie at the heart of all of this.  While it is true that the NPHF has no overt regulatory authority, they do now have $10 million in funding over 15 years to lobby county and township government to regulate and zone your land the way they think it should be zoned and regulated.  And that sort of money goes a long, long way.  And if you don’t opt out now, you’re going to have to show up to every county commission meeting, every township meeting and every city council meeting to make sure these commissar wannabes don’t do something to your land without your consent.

I would recommend everyone opting out of this land grab, and then contact the North Dakota Farm Bureau.  That’s the best way to gut this ridiculous National Heritage Area.  If all the land owners are opted out, Potter and his buddies won’t have anything to do with their funding.  We’ll still have wasted $10 million tax dollars, but at least their ability to cause more mischief will have been thwarted.