Family responds to Iditarod lawsuit story

To the editor,

We read your recent story entitled “Court rules against property owners in Iditarod lawsuit” in the Frontiersman with great interest and felt we must respond.

The court’s findings are currently under judicial review because there were numerous factual errors that we believe led to several misapplications of law. Many of these errors were unfortunately repeated in the article. Even the stock photo in the article is neither on our property nor on any part of the trails at issue in this case. Until this is resolved, it is extremely unfair to us to show only one side of the issue without also publishing our concerns.

For example, in our father’s initial homestead filings, it is very clear that there were no easements for these trails or roads encumbering his property. There are also innumerable historic maps and other public data that show the historic Iditarod Trail does not cross our property, including in the State’s own data bank, but the State chose to deceptively disregard these in their case against us. Their Iditarod National Historic Trail (INHT) was created over three decades ago to provide uninterrupted access along the entire route and that trail occurs to the north of our property. All other iterations of the route were officially vacated to that trail in the 1980s and again did not cross our property.

Additionally, and of great issue for us, the State has declared in several official documents over the course of many decades that there are no easements across our property, that they had no intention to pursue such easements without landowner consent, and that the historic trail in fact did not cross our property. Even the mushers themselves acknowledged this in several correspondences and they agreed to use the public easements north of us. Yet the State, using the mushers as their tools, have inexplicably reversed their previous positions and now want both the INHT plus a separate Iditarod Trail they claim crosses us. On top of that, they added a third trail that has been granted by the court as a prescriptive easement that was never part of the Iditarod system.

Despite ample alternatives on public easements surrounding us, there are now three parallel trails within a half-mile of each other with two that split our private property and violate our rights and have no impact on the Iditarod Race whatsoever. We relied on the State’s official positions for years and now have found them to be less than honest brokers in their reversals in court, costing us well over $1,000,000 in our defense. You must also wonder why the state is willing to spend that amount of time and money for less than one half mile of trails and the answer is clearly that they are trying to set a precedent to go after other private property owners to create public access across their properties. Despite the depiction of us to the contrary in the article, we have absolutely nothing against the Iditarod or mushing in general and have in fact grown up participating in the sport ourselves. Rather, this is a simple matter of property rights and reliance on our government to honor its prior commitments. We are requesting that you publish our attached letter to respond to this and we also have included some of the ample evidence to support our side of this case.

Donna DeFusco

Colorado Springs, Colorado