The Elkhorn Working Group, a volunteer organization that assists federal agencies with wildlife and wilderness management in Jefferson County, and the Big Elk Divide Restoration Committee voted on Mar. 11 to draft letters of concern regarding more than 360 probationary U.S. Forest Service workers who were fired in Montana as a part of federal austerity measures.
While those workers were reinstated last week when the federal Merit Systems Protection Board issued a 45-day stay on the termination of probationary employees, members of both groups, gathered at a joint meeting in Helena, said they were deeply concerned about the quality and long-term security of forest and wildlife management in Montana.
“From our point of view, the problem is that, in the sweeping brush stroke of these firings, no one took into consideration how the forest service actually operates, and who is responsible for doing what,” said Elkhorn Working Group member Mike Korn, in an interview with The Monitor. “Nobody in their right mind disagrees with the idea of going through and seeing where there’s waste, and cleaning things up. But this was done terribly. And the fact is that the folks who were canned here are our neighbors and friends, and I hate to see them in the position they’re in.”
