The Columbian editorial “In Our View: From Free to Fee,” of May 23, completely missed the point. The opinion piece insinuates that rural residents, like myself, feel “entitled” to use private land free of charge because we always have. They state in that “if people are accustomed to receiving something for free, they come to view it as a birthright.”
But access hasn’t been free for decades. Each citizen pays more in property taxes so timberland can pay less. This tax structure compensates timberland owners for the public benefits of forests, including recreation.
Nobody has claimed that private companies don’t have the right to charge. And The Columbian is correct on one account: Companies do not owe the public free access because it has provided access in the past. They owe the public recreational access because of the spirit and intent of our tax law.
Yet, the editorial chooses to completely ignore this fact. If times are changing, the tax structure can change, too. After all, in the same logic of the editorial, the suggestion that the public somehow owes Weyerhaeuser full tax breaks simply because it has provided them in the past is an argument without merit.
