‘Family farm’ has spent millions buying acres of state land

Read full article in SLC Tribune. 

My comments to article:

Wow, another open name-calling fest where so many love to sling mud. Maybe someday issues as important as these can be discussed in a more fact based platform, with less diatrite & venom. First some facts from a San Juan County school board member, (or talk to your own school board representative). "Four sections of every township was designated at Utah statehood for the purpose of supporting public schools. The State Institutional Trust Lands Administration (SITLA) has the responsibility to manage these lands that are in trust for school children in the state of Utah. The lands that do not have the potential to generate revenue [i.e. National Monuments] are sold off or traded for land that can produce revenue to support public schools. When land is sold the money from the sale is deposited into the Permanent School Fund. Interest and dividends from the fund are distributed to each public school in the state of Utah each year. Community councils that consist of school faculty and parents of students attending the school make the decision of how the SITLA money is spent." Money from SITLA sales is invested, and interest and dividends each year are distributed to schools and institutions throughout Utah. In 2014, investment funds totaled over 40 Million dollars.

So maybe you feel OK about begrudging the poorest county in the State access to funds that would enhance local schools? Perhaps you feel fine about locking up more San Juan County land without multiple use possibility? Maybe you love being the attacker of a county that only has 8% of its 5,077,120 acres privately owned? If so you probably don't understand that the wealth of a country and a county is in its land. We can't run schools, government, infrastructures on air and idealism. We too want the Cedar Mesa ruins better protected, but it doesn't take 1.9 million acres to do that. The BLM is already in charge of that public land has the responsibility of supervising it. One more layer of expensive Federal Government in the form of a monument is not going to solve the problem, it will only compound it, with less tax money available for local use. Maybe you should start a SLC fundraiser for Bluff, Monument Valley, and Montezuma Creek Schools, instead of begrudging sales from SITLA lands.