Page 24 - Flathead Beacon // 8.31.16

ROUNDUP
FROM BEACON STAFF AND WIRE SERVICES
2 93 1
KALISPELL
90 3 93
2
15 2
94
performed their duties, and county o - cials had already unsuccessfully searched for the signatures, Ulbricht wrote.
BLACKFEET INDIAN RESERVATION 2. Judge Says Cultural Studies in Lease Case are Con dential
A federal judge has ordered a Louisi- ana company not to disclose details of cultural studies conducted in an area near Glacier National Park where the company bought a disputed energy lease.
Solenex LLC of Baton Rouge wants to drill for oil and gas in northwest Mon- tana’s Badger-Two Medicine area. The company wants U.S. District Judge Rich- ard Leon to overturn a March decision by federal o cials canceling its 6,200-acre lease.
The area is considered sacred by the Blackfoot tribes of the United States and Canada. Studies on its signi cance have been conducted since the 1990s.
Judge Richard Leon said in an order last week that Solenex cannot disclose information from those studies as it pursues its lawsuit against the govern- ment. Attorneys for the government and Solenex had previously agreed to the restriction.
MISSOULA
3. Western Montana Plane Crash
Kills ‘Ice Road Truckers’ TV Star
A plane crash in western Montana has killed a star of the History channel reality show “Ice Road Truckers” and another man.
History spokeswoman Susan Ievoli con rmed Aug. 29 that 52-year-old Dar- rell Ward died on Aug. 28 in the ery crash on the shoulder of Interstate 90, southeast of Missoula.
Missoula County sheri ’s Capt. Bill Burt says the pilot appeared to be trying to land at a small airstrip when “some- thing went drastically wrong.” Witnesses say the plane went through a stand of trees, hitting some of them.
A statement on Ward’s Facebook page said he was traveling to Montana to begin lming a pilot episode of a new documen- tary-style show about the recovery of
2
HELENA
15
4
GREAT FALLS
MISSOULA
90
BUTTE
BOZEMAN
15
BILLINGS 7 90
5
KALISPELL
1. Anti-pot Initiative Sponsor Gives
Up Montana Ballot E ort
The sponsor of a proposed initiative to repeal Montana’s medical marijuana law said on Aug. 24 he won’t appeal a judge’s refusal to place the measure on Novem- ber’s ballot, but instead will focus on defeating a separate initiative to expand medical pot distribution.
Billings car dealer Steve Zabawa told The Associated Press in an interview that there isn’t enough time for him to appeal to the Montana Supreme Court before Secretary of State Linda McCull- och’s o ce certi es the ballots and sends them for printing.
Instead, he said his Safe Montana group will focus on defeating I-182, a bal- lot measure that would ease restrictions on medical marijuana distribution.
Zabawa made the comments a day after Flathead County District Judge Heidi Ulbricht denied his request to intervene and order McCulloch to place his initiative on the ballot.
The initiative fell more than 4,100 signatures short of qualifying. Zabawa claimed thousands of signatures gath- ered for the measure had been lost or improperly invalidated.
Zabawa’s measure, known as I-176, sought to repeal Montana’s medical mar- ijuana law and declare that any drug ille- gal under federal law is illegal under state law. The result would have been a ban on marijuana use and possession in the state, including the 13,170 medical mari- juana patients on Montana’s registry.
Ulbricht in her order did not address Zabawa’s argument that county o cials across the state improperly rejected about 3,200 signatures he said came from registered voters.
The judge also denied Zabawa’s requests for Flathead County o cials to conduct an exhaustive search of their o ces for more than 2,000 missing sig- nature and for the initiative to be put on the 2016 ballot or the 2018 ballot whether those signatures are found or not.
Flathead County election o cials are entitled to the presumption that they
24
AUGUST 31, 2016 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM
6