By Mari Radtke
Government officials, elected or appointed, are expected to be trustworthy. While “the right thing” may mean different things to different people, expecting direct, complete and honest answers from government officials is a minimum standard. Or at least it should be.
Since September of 2020 a few simple questions to the O’Brien County Supervisors about the future of O’Brien County Conservation became twisted into a pursuit of horse trails on public lands. The fallout eventually collapsed O’Brien County Conservation.
Behind the successful, herculean effort of Conservation Board members to meet the organization’s mission through the summer months a culture of the worst intrigue is becoming more and more revealed. Communications have now been uncovered that support cover-up and deceit. The betrayal does not stop at the local level. Communications just obtained through public records requests from Iowa Department of Natural Resources verifies the regular tactical use of deception for control of land use. IDNR has successfully through these methods, and perhaps other and yet unseen tactics, limited genuine local control over land use.
With the selection of Travis Scott as the O’Brien County Conservation Director in July 2021 and three new board members it was believed that the conflict that erupted into the public could be worked through for the benefit of the greater good of O’Brien County residents and visitors. The honeymoon ended on Wednesday January 12 at the regular monthly meeting of OCCB.
President Tom Konz started the meeting by addressing the director about failing to follow explicit instructions to resolve a conflict that has yet again arisen between OCCB staff and volunteers and partners. The relationship of OCCB with Little Sioux Valley Conservation Association (LSVCA) has been at least financially beneficial to the conservation. LSVCA provided $5000 in matching funds for a grant from Gilchrist Foundation. Gilchrist awarded OCCB $10,174 on October 27, 2021. The award and the matching funds allows OCCB to put $15,174 toward its in-progress “interactive Eco System” display due to be complete by May, 2022. Konz’ disappointment was evident. And the relationship OCCB has enjoyed and can again is threatened once again. Should that relationship collapse the biggest losers are the residents of O’Brien County.
The point is, OCCB is suffering from the same subversive conduct that took its breath away in October 2020 with the sudden retirement of former director Terry Boltjes and then the near collapse of the organization in May of 2021 with the departure of former board president Royd Chambers, all of the rangers and the newly appointed director and finally board members Sherri Bootsma and Darwin Dau.
Now let’s talk about IDNR’s internal communications that, at best come off as a plan to obfuscate direct questions to the public. Missing documents make the historical, and thus, legal record weak as far as land use (in select areas) is concerned. IDNR does indeed have a mission to fulfill. Writing letters to “squash this before it gets out of hand” has an ominous sound to it and should have no place in the discussion of public land use. Such conduct from “trusted” public officials is especially disappointing when the response is to acknowledge this tactic with the …”it’s how we stopped horses for years.” That reply went on to identify a couple of projects with whom I have been in contact.
Horse riding on Hannibal Waterman Wildlife Area was never the issue when questions started getting asked. But it became that, in my view because of the behavior of one person representing O’Brien County Sportsmen’s Club.
Distortion of the facts can certainly garner support of like-minded people. But it usually only produces short-term gain.