Navigating Trust and Turbulence: Our Journey in the Face of Local Opposition and Misunderstandings.
“Good neighbors help out, and so does zoning”
Our family has been ambushed by Montana’s HB599 passed by the 2021 Legislature. A secret agreement was reached, a permit applied for, with no recourse to defend our property from a taking by the TMC-Black Ranch-3462 open cut gravel mine proposal. In recent meetings, our neighbor has stated that no one asked him whether they could build their home near his property. While technically correct, when my husband bought our land, and began to build our home over 50 years ago, the neighbor had not yet been born. Nor did he see his grandparents welcome my husband with family meals, and extend invitations to participate in clearing the Black’s fields of rocks, or putting up hay, and advice on what grass seed to use, noxious weeds — things neighbors do. Good neighbors make a strong community.Our neighbor’s “right” to place a football stadium sized gravel pit on his land, 100 ft from our house, has destroyed our right to a healthy and safe home. Good neighbors don’t exercise their freedom by hurting other neighbors. By damaging the Gallatin River, the aquifer and our wells. By exposing neighbors to the risk of lung disease, cardiovascular disease, cognitive failure. Who would do this? Not a good neighbor.
This could happen to you, if you live anywhere in Gallatin County that does not have residential zoning. In the name of simplifying the process, a permit is assured once applied for, with protection against intervention by the County. Urge the County Commissioners (Zach Brown, Chair, 582-3006) to issue emergency zoning to protect you against the next disastrous project, and importantly, to challenge this law that prevents them from protecting the citizens of Gallatin County.
Ruth Angeletti – Bozeman Daily Chronicle | Sep 7, 2023
Libel stings with a peculiar pain, especially when it arises from a place where trust once bloomed. I felt this acutely when a neighbor, someone whom I believed held mutual respect for my family and me, penned a scathing letter to the editor in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle. The words on the page were more than just ink; they were accusations, branding my family as ‘bad neighbors.’ This, after TMC Inc. had taken considerable measures at our request to ensure our new gravel pit development was a respectful distance from her home—300 feet from their property border, to be precise. Our efforts were conscious and deliberate, aimed at mitigating any disturbance our operations might cause. She was made aware of the steps we had taken long before she wrote this letter. Although I respect her position, I did not appreciate the unfounded personal attacks in her letter.
The irony wasn’t lost on me when, despite the coldness that had settled between us, I reached out to fulfill a gesture of goodwill I made to our neighbors earlier in the year. I offered to install a snow fence for her and her husband, hoping it might shield them from more than just the winter winds, perhaps even from the chill of our strained relationship. Yet, my offer was declined. It was a moment of realization that sometimes, intentions, however noble, can be obscured by misunderstandings or the frost of grudges held too tightly.
Despite the hurt, we remain committed to being a good neighbor and steward of the land. The experience has been a tough lesson in community dynamics and the delicate balance between progress and preservation. As we move forward with our plans, conscious of the community’s needs, it’s clear that the path of reconciliation is often rocky and steep. Nevertheless, we remain hopeful that time will erode the harsh edges of this ordeal, and the values of dialogue and understanding will eventually pave the way to restored trust. After all, in a landscape as vast and open as Montana’s, there’s surely room for bridges to be built, even across the most troubled waters.
Our neighbors persistence in writing letters to the editor and bolstering opposition to the Gravel Pit is admirable in some ways but underscores a rift that time has yet to heal. Our hope is that, eventually, they will recognize and have gratitude for the many years they have benefited from the open space our land has provided and the effort we have invested in being good neighbors—efforts characterized by stewardship, understanding and respect. While her personal attacks sting with a dissonance that resonates through our shared history, we stand ready to embrace either outcome. If they choose to acknowledge our good intent, we’ll welcome the thawing of relations with open arms. If not, we accept this too with a forgiving heart, for sometimes, the paths of reconciliation and acceptance must diverge.
“You have no enemies, you say?
Charles Mackay
Alas! my friend, the boast is poor;
He who has mingled in the fray
Of duty, that the brave endure,
Must have made foes! If you have none,
Small is the work that you have done.
You’ve hit no traitor on the hip,
You’ve dashed no cup from perjured lip,
You’ve never turned the wrong to right,
You’ve been a coward in the fight.”