A dispute over state-owned land has been causing an uproar in the Sundance area about a 4,714-acre parcel of scenic canyon lands bought by the state of Wyoming in 2020.
The state has refused to put fencing around the parcel, which has led to cattle from neighboring land users drifting onto the parcel and frustrating ranchers.
Despite the Office of State Lands and Investments (OSLI) recommending the local sheriff write trespassing tickets to ranchers and let the situation play out that way, Crook County Sheriff Jeff Hodge has refused to do so and has been petitioning OSLI to change its stance. A trespass ticket comes with a fine and possible imprisonment under Wyoming law.
“They want me as sheriff to write citations,” Hodge said. “That’s not a solution to the problem, nor is it right.”
Hodge also said threats of lawsuits were also being thrown around by all sides involved this summer, and he expects tensions to inevitably flare back up again in the future if the land issue isn’t resolved.
What’s It About?
Until 2020, the Moskee Land Corp. owned the parcel located in the Moskee area of Sundance, bordered by U.S. Forest Service land on one side and private land on the other, with a Forest Service road separating the parcels.
After discussions that date all the way back to former Gov. Dave Freudenthal’s administration, Moskee sold the land to the state in 2020, which started the trouble that’s now coming to a head.
Although neighboring rancher Schloredt Inc. had been active in either grazing or owning the land for decades and owns the private land to the west, the state awarded the leasing rights to higher bidders for the grazing rights based on emergency rules that had been recently developed for about 141 parcels around the state. Those rules say that preference goes to the highest bidder.
This created a situation where new leaseholders were running livestock on a parcel surrounded on both sides by livestock owned by another owner with no fence to separate them.
Despite state Rep. Chip Neiman, R-Hulett, and other local officials trying to alert state officials to the potential problem before it was too late, the State Loan and Investment Board still voted to award the grazing rights to other bidders, with State Treasurer Curt Meier the only member to vote against it.
Neiman and Hodge cried foul, arguing that Jett Schloredt should have been given the bid, or at least a chance to match the competing bids, to avoid stray cattle issues and honor his prior use of the state land for grazing.
If Schloredt had been given a chance to beat the bids, Neiman told Cowboy State Daily the state would have fulfilled its fiduciary responsibilities to make as much money as possible off its lands.
“My heartburn is the state did not do its due diligence in going up and really looking at these leases and evaluating the long-term implications this is going to have on everyone involved,” Neiman said. “This all could have been avoided if the state took into consideration the information that was given to them by our county commissioners, by local landowners, by their representatives.”
But Earl Williams, owner of Antlers Angus, one of the renters, and Interim OSLI Director Jason Crowder disagree. They both say Antlers would have been deemed the winning bidder even before the emergency rules were established.
As a result of changes approved by the Legislature in 2022, Schloredt would likely win the bid today based on new preferences established if another auction was performed.
Williams said he just wants to be left alone and move past the situation.
Despite winning the bid a few years back, this summer was the first he ran his 82 cow/calf pairs and five bulls on the parcel, as he first waited for an appeals process to play out.
“All I want to do is enjoy the property I won by a fair bid by the state,” Williams said. “I want to run my cattle there and be left alone.”
Williams said he tried to get Schloredt to remove his cattle from the state land he’s leasing, but he refused and also wouldn’t let Williams return his cattle to him. Not only is intermixing a cattle pain to sort out, but it also results in the already-limited quantity of grass getting chewed up by cattle that don’t belong on a property.
Schloredt did not immediately respond to Cowboy State Daily’s request for comment.
The Office of State Lands and Investments is fueding with ranchers near a 4,800-parcel of state-owned land it leases for grazing. The land isn't fenced, and it wants the local sheriff to issue trespassing tickets to ranchers whose cattle wander onto the parcel, but the sheriff has refused. (Office of State Lands and Investments) 
The Office of State Lands and Investments is fueding with ranchers near a 4,800-parcel of state-owned land it leases for grazing. The land isn't fenced, and it wants the local sheriff to issue trespassing tickets to ranchers whose cattle wander onto the parcel, but the sheriff has refused. (Office of State Lands and Investments) 
The Office of State Lands and Investments is fueding with ranchers near a 4,800-parcel of state-owned land it leases for grazing. The land isn't fenced, and it wants the local sheriff to issue trespassing tickets to ranchers whose cattle wander onto the parcel, but the sheriff has refused. (Office of State Lands and Investments)
Fencing Drama
The biggest problem with the land predicament is deciding who should pay for fencing to separate the state and private parcels, a cost Hodge has estimated would run around $350,000 to $380,000.
In an August letter to Crowder, Hodge wrote that the state should have considered the “impossibility” of fencing the state lease because of its extreme terrain when awarding the bid.
He also believes the lease agreement gives OSLI the authority to remove a lease without any specific reason.
“Currently, cattle movements on the state lease are problematic; cattle are being moved off the state lease and onto federal property, partly due to Antler Angus’ failure to maintain the border fence; a clear requirement under their lease,” Hodge writes in his letter. “This negligence has led to cattle intermingling across leases, creating significant tension among ranchers, who now fear confrontations when they encounter each other on the lease area.”
Although Wyoming is a fence-out state, which lays the responsibility of fencing out lands to the landowner who wants it, Crowder has said that the state is exempt from this obligation because the state isn’t specifically mentioned in Wyoming’s fence-out laws.
During a Joint Agriculture, State and Public Lands and Water Resources Committee meeting last month month, Crowder said that OSLI has followed this guideline for a number of years.
“We feel we are sovereign and that the laws provided need to explicitly discuss state lands and how they are to be managed and if they don’t discuss it, if they remain silent there, then they are not applicable to state lands,” he said.
Cheyenne attorney Karen Budd-Phalen disagrees with this determination and said there have been a number of instances of this issue coming up around the state.
“It may have always been done that way, but there isn’t anything in state statute or I could not find a single court case that exempted state lands from fence-out,” she said at the meeting.
During the October meeting, a Park County rancher described a similar situation happening in his area and Neiman said he knows a Douglas rancher that’s also experienced similar problems.
“It’s growing, it’s getting worse and if we don’t look at it and make some changes, I think it’s just going to cause a lot of heartache for a lot of people and it shouldn’t have to be this way,” Neiman said.
Brighter Skies Ahead?
Hodge and Crowder said tempers have simmered between Antler Angus and Schloredt for the time being, a determination which Williams said he agreed with.
Williams said he has added water and fencing that he paid for with his own money on the land and Crowder said discussions are now underway with the Forest Service to get it to pay for some fencing as well.
“We have no problems now,” Williams said.
But Williams still has concerns that the state might sell the land to the Forest Service out of concerns the land is too difficult to manage, which he said would likely result in the lease being handed over to Schloredt. Crowder said although the state has been “exploring” this possibility, he said any possible land transfer would be a long way away.
During the Agriculture Committee meeting last month, the committee rejected a bill that would have put the responsibility of fencing state lands on the state or lessee if conflicts arise and prevented OSLI from seeking a trespass action solely on trespassing cattle.
Neither Hodge and Neiman viewed this proposed law as a great solution and saw it as a one-size-fits-all solution to a unique problem. Rather, they’d both prefer for OSLI to buy out the lease and reissue the bid to Schloredt.
Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.
