Friends of Idaho Watersheds Project:

Some good news from Arizona on the school endowment land grazing lease front: Thanks to John Horning of Forest Guardians for this item.

JUDGE CONFIRMS ARIZONA STATE LEASING PROCEDURES ILLEGAL

Rejecting the claims of the Arizona State Land Department and the livestock industry, Judge Michael Dann of Maricopa County Superior Court recently confirmed his earlier ruling that the agricultural leasing system fails to generate revenue in violation of the state's constitution.

Although Dann would not order a new leasing system he affirmed his earlier ruling that sealed bidding, public advertisement, elimination of the preferential right of renewal to current leaseholders, and obtaining a surcharge on the sublease of grazing rights were necessary to increase revenue for the public schools - the designated beneficiaries of state lands. In addition, Dann said if the state land department or state legislature do not come up with a plan that complies with the constitution by a deadline to be set in January that he would invalidate the system currently in place.

The livestock industry will likely attempt to push a bill through the Arizona legislature which will prevent competition from environmental and hunting groups.  In a related story, administrative hearings to challenge the land department's rejection of Forest Guardians' and the Western Gamebird Alliance's unranching bids have been set for early February.

EDITORIAL: OPEN THE STATE LANDS
Arizona Daily Star
Thursday, December 11, 1997

For all the talk of collaborative problem-solving in the West these days, the real story remains the intransigence of the old guard. A case in point is the current state of efforts to reform Arizona's unfair and ecologically unsound state land grazing system.

Months ago Superior Court Judge Michael Dann of Maricopa County, ruling on a lawsuit filed by the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest, declared the state's maze of unadvertised grazing lease "auctions" and automatic lease renewals unconstitutional.

Citing Arizona's 1912 Enabling Act, Dann concluded the state rips off school kids by handing ranchers a monopoly on the use of 8.4 million acres of state land.

However, the judge nonetheless refrained from dictating his own reform. Instead, he gave the Land Department, the law center and four ranchers who had intervened in the proceeding several months to begin negotiating a new system. Work it out, you guys, is about what he said.

So how has Dann's invitation to collaborative reform worked out? So far it has not worked at all. First the Arizona Cattle Growers' Association tried to get then-Gov. Symington to appeal Dann's ruling. Then, in October, having rejected negotiation, the Land Department submitted essentially the same unconstitutional system to Dann as reform. And now, Dann has had to pointedly ask the department to submit by tomorrow what rules and laws it needs to change in order to introduce competitive bidding to the range.
The bottom line: The ranching establishment and its proxy state agency have utterly spurned self-reform as they continue to insist on the bad old ways.

And so Dann needs to step forward now. Shortly after tomorrow, when the state is supposed to submit an outline reform, Dann will hold a hearing to decide what order to issue to obtain compliance with his ruling. At that time, Dann should take firm control after having seen his nod to voluntary reform go to nought.

Specifically, the judge should simply order the Land Department to begin injecting competition into a closed system by advertising the availability of grazing leases and holding auctions on them. This Dann could do right now because he has already decreed that the Enabling Act requires openness.

In the meantime, the state has been treated to a depressing illustration of how entrenched remain the West's "lords of yesteryear" even in an era of conflict resolution and collaboration.

Ultimately, the arts of collaboration provide the best hope for a greener, healthier and fairer West. But for now, plenty of Westerners - given the opportunity to sit down and adjust their traditions to a changing world - are blowing it. They shouldn't complain when the courts do the adjusting next time.