The Blackfoot Valley's News Source Since 1980
The Blackfoot Valley's News Source Since 1980
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As a pediatric hospice and palliative medicine physician for many years, I can speak directly to the unfathomable harm that a ballot initiative called LR-131 would cause. Titled the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, the initiative is an extreme, unnecessary, and cruel limitation of family decision-making that you'll see on the ballot this November. Although LR-131 purports to be about protecting infants, it requires health care providers to perform invasive and painful...
For the past ten-and-a-half years I've seen Lincoln move from a town stuck in an economic rut to one that began to take control of its own destiny. The successful development of Blackfoot Pathways: Sculpture in the Wild showed Lincoln can do something new and unexpected and be more than just "stinkin' drinkin' Lincoln." People began look at ways to grow the economy beyond that, without making too many drastic changes to the community. Discussions that had been going on...
The only reason you're not rich is you're lazy. My mother told me that. She didn't buy my moaning about low pay in the state bureaucracy. Mom had a point. If I had been willing to get off my duff and campaign for the Public Service Commission, I could be on my way to a life of well-paid bureaucratic leisure. You win your election to the PSC and the State of Montana will give you $112,000 a year. No qualifications needed nor much work required. The hours are great. You show up...
This is sort of a surreal column for me to write this week. While it’s not my last column ever, it is the last one to be in print…for now. If you would have asked me, almost three years ago, I never would have thought I’d have been writing for a newspaper at all. I never went to school for journalism and didn’t have a ton of experience writing for the public. Sure, I wrote a lot, but it wasn’t always for everyone else’s eyes to see. Roger and Erin needed help, and they took a...
Several days ago, Marc Racicot and Bob Brown published an editorial arguing Montana should adopt a top-two or a top-four primary election system. While both of these gentleman have cloaked their arguments in favor of these primary systems as methods of saving our "democracy", the truth is these primary election systems are fundamentally anti-democratic and wrong for Montana. In a top-two primary system, the top two finishers, regardless of party affiliation, advance to the...
There is a special event happening in Lincoln Montana Sept. 16 and 17. At Hooper Park there will be joyous celebration of the 50th anniversary of the federal legislation designating the Scapegoat Wilderness. Wilderness is the highest form of public lands protection, this being established by The Wilderness Act of 1964. When that law was signed by Democratic President Lyndon Johnson, Montana immediately gained five Wilderness areas: The Cabinet Mountains, Bob Marshall,...
We would like to express an opinion relating to an article in the latest edition of the Blackfoot Valley Dispatch by Roger Dey, BVD Editor, regarding the future of the Lincoln Chamber of Commerce. In the article it was stated that the Chamber was facing suspension if it could not get enough people to fill the board of directors. I do not write many editorials but have been moved on occasion to express an opinion when issues hit a nerve. The article called Tipping Point pointed out that the Chamber’s future is in danger if we...
There are legislators working to call a special session 90 days before the next regular legislative session to address the billion plus dollars in surplus taxpayer funds. While the news of a surplus is welcomed, legislators must now decide if a special session is the right format for making decisions on the largest surplus in our state's history. The sheer volume and rarity of this surplus begs us to be thoughtful and deliberate. The short special session format has...
untry to stage dramatic hearings about January 6th. Hiring a TV producer to create the greatest impact on the public. Characterizing this event involving a few hundred people as the greatest threat to our Democracy since the civil war! An event they must be familiar with since Democrats started it to protect their rights to keep slaves. Their objective: destroy Trump and hopefully charge him with a crime, based on speech and actions before the riot and slow response to stop...
The way many of us learn about how the things we own work is when they stop working. Like your toaster. Or maybe your car. And in the year 2022, we all started to learn about global supply chains for the same reason. Because for an astonishingly broad array of goods and components, they struggled to keep up with demand. Getting a promise to deliver instead of an actual delivery has become all too common for businesses and consumers alike. To sort out why, we first need to...
As of July 1, 2022, the US Forest Service has allowed the Big Mountain Snowmobile trail open for clearing and gathering firewood. The Ponderosa Snow Warriors will be having a major trail clearing party, July 16, meeting at the PSW Club House on Sucker Creek Road at 6 a.m., to try to beat the heat and get some trails cleared. We need all hands on deck as this is a huge undertaking and we have to get one of the most popular trails back open. The USFS is allowing access to Big Mo...
Women and men, you do still have a choice. Say no to unprotected sex unless you are seeking to have and raise a child. You can no longer think that you just can get an abortion. Get on and stay on birth control. See that your daughters are on birth control. Talk to your sons and stress the importance of respecting girls and women and to always seek clear consent for sex. Women, if you do not wish to have a child and are approached for unprotected sex, clearly say no, even if...
As we begin to approach the 2023 legislative session, Montana workers, families, employers, and elected officials are all facing a unique combination of opportunities and challenges that we haven't seen before. In many ways, Montana's economy is better than ever. Governor Greg Gianforte recently announced that our unemployment rate remains at a record low while more Montanans are working than ever before. The Treasure State's economy and personal incomes are growing at the...
A number of people -- private citizens, elected legislators and state staff -- achieved a quiet accomplishment recently. During the 2021 Legislative Session, two bills (SB 262 and SB 263) were passed to revise the duties of the Forest Lands Taxation Advisory Committee (FLTAC) and charge that advisory committee to examine and modernize the tax rate on Forest Land (Class 10) properties. Members of FLTAC have been meeting since July 9, 2021. Members include four forestry experts... Full story
Montana's Wild West is alive and well as a rogue subset of bounty hunters commit crimes and abuses against defendants on bail, their families and the public. State law gives bondsmen unrestrained arrest powers leading some to employ dangerous tactics that threaten public safety and infringe on defendants' rights. There is a clear need for Montana to create sideboards, rules, and arrest reporting standards to ensure transparency and establish minimal qualifications for...
The 2021 Montana Legislature passed major health care reforms to empower patients, reduce red tape for doctors, and provide access to more affordable care. We’re now seeing those changes have a major positive impact, and as the sponsors of the bills enabling this progress, we couldn’t be more excited. The bills we passed expanded telehealth, protected Direct Patient Care, and allowed doctors to dispense medicine to their patients. Importantly, all three bills followed con...
Letter to Editor This message is for the ears of all the atheists living in America, as more and more of you teach your children that there is no God. And they, in turn, teach their children there is no God. The world is becoming a more violent place. Just look back at the last few years and you will see I am right. I don't go to church on Sunday – I go to church every day. The last time I rode my snowmobile to the top of Ovando Mountain I touched the face of God. I g...
Know the consequences before signing the petition to put CI-121 on the November ballot. At face value, CI-121 and freezing your residential property taxes may sound like a good idea. But if you further investigate the details of this misleading ballot initiative, you will find several adverse consequences. What is CI-121? It is a ballot initiative proposing a constitutional amendment that would freeze residential property value at the 2019 level and changes the assessed value...
"The Legislature shall provide by law the requirements for residence, registration, absentee voting, and administration of elections." It doesn't get much clearer than that line in Article IV, Section 3 of Montana's Constitution. Unless of course you're an activist judge who doesn't like common sense laws duly passed by the people's representatives, the democratically elected Legislature. In that case, you'll just go ahead and block those laws in favor of your political...
We would like to thank all of the generous folks and businesses from Lincoln, Helena, Missoula and Great Falls, and all the areas in between, for donating either money or auction items. We couldn't make our department what it is without your help! We would also like to thank all the wonderful people that helped put it on. Jackie, Kathy, Diane, Ellie, and Susan back in the kitchen with the 8th grade middle school class making food magic back in the kitchen. KD, Hayes and Jim...
Idaho and Montana's successful recovery of the gray wolf was a significant achievement in species conservation. In less than ten years, not only were biological recovery targets for gray wolves met, they were exceeded. Unfortunately, delisting of the wolf has been mired in politics rather than informed by science. Last month, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland authored an editorial, devoid of facts but flushed with alarmist rhetoric, perpetuating the false narrative that Idaho...
Our property taxes now increase by double digits every year. They are being driven in large part by wealthy out-of-state transplants with sacks of money from selling their Seattle and Silicon Valley homes. Montanans of all economic backgrounds are now considering selling their homes to forestall tax foreclosure. Without change, the number of Montanans facing the same dilemma will skyrocket in the coming years. Property taxes should be based upon the value of your home when you...
We are five of the youngest lawmakers in the Montana Legislature. At 20, 21, 24, 29, and 31 years old, we are in various stages of renting and home ownership, and all of us are concerned about the housing crisis facing Montana. In every one of our communities-Billings, Belgrade, Columbia Falls, and even Malta-housing is rapidly becoming more expensive and harder to find. Many of the factors causing the housing crisis, such as migration, supply costs, and the labor shortage,...
As one of seven kids growing up in Butte, Montana, the holidays in our house were equal parts chaos and celebration. But one thing was a constant-when you reached a certain age, you could expect to find your first hunting rifle under the Christmas tree. But with that gift came responsibilities-hunter safety, fair chase hunting ethics, and an understanding that public lands are an essential part of our hunting heritage in Montana. In one way or another, the opposite of these...
In 2015, a group of Montanans from Lincoln, Helena, and nearby communities set out to accomplish something that today would seem, in retrospect, extremely daunting, given the deep political divisions that unfortunately characterize the public arena these days. We set out to draft a proposal for how the Forest Service can manage 200,000 acres of public lands that stretch across the upper Lincoln Valley and along the Continental Divide northwest of Helena, a proposal that would...
