Dear Editor,
It is interesting to watch the Weed Board with their newly found powers granted by the County Commissioners. I am not a cartoonist, but if I were, my political cartoon would look like this: Standing in the yard of the Foss family home (it could actually be the yard of any home on more than an acre in the Bitterroot valley) would be this huge giant woman, standing maybe 15 feet high. She would be dressed in farmer’s clothes with noxious weeds growing out of her hair, her ears, weeds sticking out of her nose and she would be chewing on some sticking out of her mouth. Her pockets would be full of weeds and they would be hanging out of her armpits and growing out of her shoes and socks. At every step these noxious weeds would be dropping seeds and every time she moved or took a step, whether it was in the yard or on the road. She would be labeled “Ravalli County Weed Enforcer” and she would be carrying a badge and wearing a gun with weeds sticking out of the holster and barrel. Standing behind her would be this bigger figure of a man. He would be twice as tall and one would have a hard time telling it was a man’s figure because he would be covered with weeds growing everywhere including his beard and his hair. There would be a virtual waterfall of seeds coming off this person who would be labeled “The State of Montana Weed Enforcement Officer.” He would also look like he was armed and his badge would be barely visible through the noxious weeds. Standing behind him and again three times as tall would be a round ball of weeds that was constantly dropping seeds in the Fosses’ yard and everywhere he went. It would be impossible to tell if the figure was a man or a woman, it would just be a fuzz ball of weeds. This figure would be labeled the ”U.S. Government Weed Enforcer Agent.” This would illustrate the fact that these governments represent the largest producers of noxious weeds according to the amount of property they represented. Their collateral damage caused by the weeds they grow would dwarf what the Fosses’ place could be and would dwarf the whole of the Bitterroot Valley farmland weeds. To complete the picture would be some neighbors standing around holding complaints who also had weeds drooping out of their hair and ears. Two of them would be labeled “Democrats hating conservatives” and one would be labeled “hate my neighbors.” All of them, who own more than an acre of land, also would have noxious weeds on their lands, maybe even more per acre than the Fosses. This would represent the very obvious political purposes behind much of this complaint against the Fosses or the fact that they did not like their neighbors and wanted to hurt them. The agents of the government would be the hypocrites from the government agencies following the will of the neighbors even if they are politically motivated. The newspaper report failed to mention the fact that everyone in the valley has noxious weeds to some extent or the other and certainly the large land holders. It is sad to see the government (and the media) gleefully make it look like one family has all the weeds in the county and “boy were going to get ‘em.” Does this smack of communism where neighbors were encouraged to report on their neighbors? Is this really the way to get rid of weeds? Of all the laws on the books this law reeks of “Big Government” more than any I have seen. If the commissioners would add an amendment to the law (maybe a petition?) that if an “accused citizen” (who was facing a forced weed program of spraying, or whatever) could be excused of two years of taxes if that accused citizen found weeds on County, State or Federal Government lands, then it would be a good law and could save us all a lot of taxes. This law should be put back on the shelf and ignored. I long for the days, in the 1990s, when we had commissioners who would not allow the weed board to enforce these hypocritical laws and left them on the shelf where they belonged. If we are going to get rid of the weeds in the valley, on private and government property, it is going to take cooperation and working together. Not bullying by hypocritical governments.
Dallas D Erickson
Stevensville