by Lyn Hellegaard

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My constituents are relaying some very disturbing occurrences in Missoula. One said a county attorney told them, in plain language, that the Montana Constitution doesn’t give property owners the right to decide how they use their own property. The government does.

I want you to sit with that for a second, because I did.

The Montana Constitution actually says the opposite. Article II, Section 3 guarantees Montanans the right to acquire, possess, and protect property. That’s not a technicality. That’s the whole point of owning something.

But that’s not how our local or state government is acting.

Missoula County is in the process of redrawing the floodplain map for the first time in nearly 50 years. That update alone could add 1800+ new properties. They state this gives you the opportunity to get flood insurance. It’s mandatory, with all the restrictions, additional permitting, and insurance costs that come with it. They are also stating they have to ratify the maps; then you can comment or protest.

Here’s the part that should bother every property owner in this district.

The county is applying its own elevation calculations to some properties right now, ahead of formal federal approval, while telling other property owners in the same county they’re still bound by the old, official map. A quick review of these new maps reveals a biased determination process. Both the local and state government employees stubbornly refuse to admit they are using false data to make these determinations. You can’t have it both ways. Either the new map is the rule, or it isn’t. Right now, the county gets to decide which one applies to you, case by case.

I’ve also heard directly from business owners whose commercial property was rezoned with no notice at all; same with the floodplain process. County employees showed up and told them they could no longer store business materials on land they’d used that way for years, sometimes decades. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the county has a large residential development in the works in that same area.

It doesn’t stop at the county line. Missoula’s city urban forester has told residents that every tree in the city, including trees on private property, belongs to the city. That means city government, not the property owner, decides which trees get trimmed or cut down on land you own and pay taxes on.

I want to be clear about something. None of this happens by accident, and none of it happens without someone’s support at the ballot box.

Every elected official in Missoula city and county government is a Democrat, with one independent. That’s true at the state legislative level representing Missoula too. There is no Republican check on any of it, not one elected voice in the room asking whether government has gone too far.

When there’s no opposing voice on any body making these decisions, this is what happens. Not because everyone involved has bad intentions. Because there’s no one left in the room to ask the basic question: does the government actually have the right to do this?

I believe in Montana’s Constitution. I believe property rights are not a government favor; they’re a guarantee. And I believe Missoula deserves at least one voice in Helena who will say so out loud, in public, before more of your property rights disappear, one meeting at a time.