HED: Thanks to Helena Commission for Supporting Lincoln Proposal

In 2015, a group of Montanans from Lincoln, Helena, and nearby communities set out to accomplish something that today would seem, in retrospect, extremely daunting, given the deep political divisions that unfortunately characterize the public arena these days.

We set out to draft a proposal for how the Forest Service can manage 200,000 acres of public lands that stretch across the upper Lincoln Valley and along the Continental Divide northwest of Helena, a proposal that would serve conservation, timber, OHV use, mountain biking, snowmobiling and other interests that have historically been in conflict with each other.

After four years of collaboration and compromise, we achieved what we set out to do and signed the Lincoln Prosperity Proposal, a plan that incorporates conservation, forest restoration, and outdoor recreation.

As a testament to the strength of our proposal, the Helena City Commission formally endorsed our proposal late last year, as did Downtown Helena and the Helena Tourism Alliance.

We can't thank each of these groups enough for their support of our proposal. Their endorsements offer validation of our approach to public land management, one that steers clear of pitting conservation against timber or motorized use and instead finds common cause in the betterment of our communities and the health of our public lands and wildlife populations.

For a town like Lincoln, which has struggled ever since the downturn of the timber industry, our proposal offers hope of a more prosperous future tied to our public lands, one where conservation, timber, and outdoor recreation can together help sustain the economy and foster job growth.

Our proposal would put dozens more people to work in Lincoln restoring prized fisheries, improving forest conditions, and reducing wildfire risk. It would also increase the number of jobs that come with outdoor recreation such as mountain biking, hiking, hunting, wildlife viewing, fishing, snowmobiling, ATV riding, and dirt biking, all of which our proposal enhances.

The proposal calls for the creation of an 18-mile high-elevation mountain biking trail near Stemple Pass, part of the 65 miles of mountain biking access the proposal would permanently secure. It also calls for the creation of a 70-mile off-highway vehicle trail loop between Lincoln and Helena. Moreover, it secures snowmobiling access to the Copper Bowls Winter Recreation Area north of Lincoln and expands the area by 400 acres. All of these recreation improvements would boost Lincoln's quality of life and bring more visitors from in and out of state, contributing to a stronger local outdoor recreation economy.

Of course, Helena residents and its economy also stand to benefit from our proposal, making it easy to understand why the Helena City Commission, Downtown Helena, and the Helena Tourism Alliance supports the Lincoln Prosperity Proposal, especially its creation of a brand new wilderness area covering Nevada Mountain. A crucial migration corridor for grizzly bears, wolverines, elk, and other wildlife, our proposed Nevada Mountain Wilderness would be the first standalone wilderness area Montana has seen in nearly 40 years.

As Downtown Helena and the Helena Tourism Alliance noted in a recent guest column, "western towns near protected public lands have shown to fare much better economically than those that aren't near them. That's largely because protected lands add to a quality of life that attracts entrepreneurship, which in turn creates and sustains local jobs and enhances the vibrancy of the downtown areas."

In this day and age, we believe it's more important than ever for Montanans to find common cause around improving the quality of peoples' lives. We believe we've done just that with the Lincoln Prosperity Proposal, and hope that Montana's congressional delegation will give our proposal the consideration we think it deserves.

In the meantime, we invite you to be part of our cause by visiting lincolnprosperity.com/take-action and becoming a supporter.

Zach Muse is Lincoln's fire chief and a member of the Upper Blackfoot Community Council. Eric Grove, a mountain biking advocate in Helena, is former owner of the Great Divide Cyclery. Zach Angstead, Great Falls, is a field director at Wild Montana. Bill Cyr is an outfitter and a member of the Lincoln Restoration Committee. All are members of the Lincoln Prosperity Group.