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Licensed for re-distribution through Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. ------------ Montana cities, towns see local control diminish with legislative action – Daily Montanan ['Keila Szpaller', 'More From Author', '- February'] Date: 2022-02-11 00:00:00 In a growing trend, Montana’s lawmakers have been hamstringing the power of local governments on a variety of issues, from zoning to conservation to public health, according to a memo issued earlier this month by the city attorney in Missoula. “Historically, in recent decades, there were numerous instances of state preemption that directly affected the City of Missoula,” said the Feb. 4 legal opinion from City Attorney Jim Nugent. “There already had been quite a wide spectrum of State of Montana preemptively intervening into Missoula City Council and Missoula community issues.” The trend is not just taking place in Montana, either, according to the legal opinion reported by the Missoula Current earlier this week. In fact, Nugent said in 2019, the National League of Cities paid his way to Arizona to attend a one-day conference of local government attorneys in the West to share with them “the evolving propensity throughout the United States of state preemption occurring.” Of course, “blue” Missoula is sometimes seen as the stepchild of Montana, and it’s probably natural that legislation the GOP majority passes in Helena doesn’t always sit right in the liberal enclave. But Kelly Lynch, deputy director and general counsel for the Montana League of Cities and Towns, said the League is tracking the same trends, local control is on the ropes, and the organization has concerns for all of its members. She said the nonpartisan League represents all 127 incorporated municipalities in Montana and counts a 100 percent membership rate. “One of our primary policy positions at the League of Cities and Towns is to protect local decision making, and as you can see, we took a really big hit in the last legislative session,” Lynch said. “There has been, not just in Montana but nationally, a growing movement to attack local government authority, and it’s something that concerns us greatly.” Generally, Lynch said the League’s position is that local governments are the closest governments to the people, so they can be the most flexible and responsive to local needs. But state legislation is chipping away at that ability. “Any kind of restrictions on being able to innovate at the local level to address issues ranging from affordable housing to health to schools are all issues that we think are best dealt with at the local level,” Lynch said. However, she said generally, legislation that undercuts the authority of local government does benefit at least one group: “A lot of the preemption that we see happening is coming from corporate interests.” She said corporations often work through the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, an organization of state legislators that notes it is “dedicated to the principles of limited government, free markets and federalism.” She said corporations work with ALEC to come up with basic legislative templates that protect corporations. “And that’s a valid strategy, but I think people need to understand that it’s accomplishing one thing, and that is to make life easier for corporate interests not to have to deal with different regulations in different communities across the country,” Lynch said. She pointed to a law that denies local governments from regulating or imposing fees on certain “containers” as one example. The memo from Missoula identifies the same legislation and notes “auxiliary containers” are defined as bags, cups, bottles, or any packaging. In an email, Missoula Mayor John Engen mentioned one type of “container” as well — plastic bags — and he pointed to other laws that interfered with local government’s ability to manage its own affairs. “Last session, the Montana Legislature went so far as to overturn an election in repealing our Missoula County gas tax, upended our authority with regard to managing public health, altered our ability to create and maintain special districts to support ongoing operations of our local government and the potential to create ordinances to address local challenges, including a ban on banning plastic bags,” Engen wrote. “For a body that bucks hard against federal authority and espouses the virtues of local control, the Republican majority don’t seem to be practicing what it preaches.” In Baker, 565 miles away from Missoula and 14 miles from the North Dakota border, Mayor Steve Zachmann read the memo by Nugent and said this in an email: “After reviewing Attorney Nugent’s concerns, I renew my appreciation for living in Baker! Larger populations with greater opportunity and amenities does bring with it greater complexity.” However, in a phone call, Zachmann also said legislative changes have caused heartburn for Baker. Zachmann is a Republican, and he serves a more conservative community with nearly 2,000 people compared to the liberal leaning population of some 70,000 in Missoula and its Democrat mayor. “The one that’s most grating at this point is the Legislature says we cannot consider agricultural use when doing a subdivision review,” Zachmann said. “All of these small communities in Montana border agricultural lands. If you can’t add that into consideration, the whole nature of the outlying areas of a community are affected.” He doesn’t believe agricultural use should trump all other uses, and he said of course it’s a valid use of land. But he said local government should be able to consider agriculture as a factor. “If a community needs to grow, sometimes it has to go over some good crop land and might crowd somebody out,” he said. Zachmann, who said he is glad he’s not in the legislature, also noted the mandates against the COVID-19 vaccine have been disruptive for health care workers given the seesaw with federal regulations. The federal government calls for vaccines, the Legislature opposes mandates, then the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid require the shots for workers, he said — and the people in the medical industry are affected in negative ways. “Those employees are just jerked every which direction,” he said. “Unfortunately, most people have their minds made up. It doesn’t matter what information you put out.” But he said the Legislature’s approach didn’t help because lawmakers moved swiftly and didn’t give people enough time to digest the consequences and specifics of their proposals. He estimated some 80 to 90 people in the area work in the medical field, not counting those in public health. The unfortunate news for Baker and other smaller communities in eastern Montana is a lot of subdivision regulations are driven by issues that come up in western Montana, he said. (The agricultural one, for instance, arose in Missoula, he said.) “A lot of times, people in either outlying communities or even close in complain about not being listened to, but sometimes they don’t travel to where they can be heard,” Zachmann said. “And also, we have to yell a little louder than the big cities do.” In advance of the 2023 legislative session, Lynch said the focus is on educating people about what local governments do, the services they provide, and their roles in terms of providing public health, safety and welfare. But she doesn’t anticipate efforts against local authority to disappear. “We’re really seeing the legislatures go in and try and start regulating in areas they’ve never taken an interest in,” Lynch said. “It’s a national effort. [END] [1] Url: https://dailymontanan.com/2022/02/11/montana-cities-towns-see-local-control-diminish-with-legislative-action/ Content is licensed through Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/montanan/