Montana Articles

Is There Something There?

2/26/2019

Many nights I’ll make dinner and watch one of the network evening news broadcasts on my computer.

Lots of times my 7-year-old son will catch a bit as he eats too.

But lately I’ve been skipping this evening tradition, as the news has been particularly bad lately.

Mostly I’m talking about all the sexual misconduct stuff.

I remember last week we were watching the news and it was stuff on Robert Kraft and his frequenting of a whore bar in Florida, then stuff on R. Kelly and his having sex with underage girls; finally we had even more sexual stuff about some attorney in D.C.

The week before it was all about the sexual assault stuff in Virginia.

Here in Montana we learned that an entrenched Democrat in the legislator was sending sexually harassing texts to another legislator.

And of course we have the big story waiting in the wings for May or later, and that’s whatever it is Bullock has done inappropriately with women over the years.

Is there something there?

And if so, when will it come out?

The odds-on consensus is that Bullock will declare his candidacy for president in May, after the legislature ends.

This is when the national media might start to dig into him, looking for all those skeletons in the closet.

It’s already a poorly-kept secret in Helena as to the women Bullock has slept with as he’s climbed up the political ladder.

Then there’s all the non-disclosure agreements that the State of Montana has been signing since Bullock took office.

And let’s not forget about the Kevin O’Brien mess, and how Bullock didn’t tell the mayor of New York that he was hiring a sexual harasser.

The news of that broke at the end of January, and someone told me there might be something there and that I should try to find it.

So over two weeks ago now I sent Tom Lopach - Bullock’s chief of staff - a Freedom of Information Act request asking for Bullock’s emails from a certain time period.

I asked what the cost to get me these would be, and that I be informed of the cost before anything is done.

I haven’t heard anything back, nor do I expect to.

I think Lopach is going to ignore this, hoping it goes away. I'm not sure our FOIA laws allow that, but I'm confident that's what'll be done.

More than ever, I think there’s something in those emails that the public needs to know.

I don’t think I’ll get them, but I wonder if some enterprising reporter might after Bullock declares in another two to three months.

Something’s there, I’m sure of it.

Missoula Snow Plowing: The City Can Do Better

2/25/2019

In Missoula we get snow.

The city knows this because it keeps accurate statistics of the snowfall in its budget.

For instance, the city’s greatest 24-hour snowfall was 27.5 inches way back in November 1893.

The most snow we ever got in a month was December 1996 with 54.1 inches, and that was also the heaviest year the city ever saw, with 106 inches total. It was also our deepest year, with snow 27 inches deep in some spots.

So we know it snows here.

That’s why I’m always puzzled that the city has such a hard time keeping the streets free of snow.

The side streets are the worst, with some not seeing a plow all year...even on the streets near our schools.

This is unacceptable.

That’s why today I’d like to dig into how the City of Missoula removes our snow, as well as how other cities do it.

Maybe then we can do a better job.

Facts About Missoula Snow Plowing

In Missoula we have 322 miles of city streets. The snow removal policy divides city streets into three categories - Priority 1, 2 and 3.

Each priority area is designated so based on “traffic volumes, steepness of hills, public transit routes, proximity to schools, access to businesses, and low-volume residential streets.”

Missoula has:

76 miles in Priority 1
57 miles in Priority 2
57 miles in Priority 3

The city’s goal is to plow both Priority 1 and 2 streets by 7:30 AM and get Priority 3 streets plowed within three working days.

Non-priority streets will only be plowed if 4 inches of snow falls, and if priority streets are completed.

Personally, I don’t think the non-priority streets ever get plowed.

I wonder if we have enough snow plow drivers to get the job done.

And that makes me wonder...how many snow plow drivers does a city of Missoula’s size need?

It’s hard to answer that.

At the state level, we know that the Montana Department of Transportation has 700 employees trained to clear ice and snow and slush off our 25,000 lanes miles of highway.

That amounts to 1 worker for every 35 miles of road.

The Missoula Street Division has 28 employees, or what amounts to 1 worker for every 11.5 miles of road.

Of course, not all the Street Division’s workers are plowing snow. Considering we have just 13 snow plows we know that only 13 people could be doing it at one time, and I highly doubt all the plows are ever in operation all at once.

Oh, yeah...the plows. Let’s get to those.

If you go to page 209 in the city’s 384-page budget you’ll find out how many snow plows the city has, as well as how old they are.

We learn that we have the following:

2013 Bonnell snow plow
2013 Bonnell snow plow
2012 Henke snow plow
2009 Henke snow plow
2009 Henke snow plow
2008 Boss RTE snow plow
2007 Schmidt HSP4210 Polly snow plow
2006 Schmidt snow plow
2004 Schmidt snow plow
2004 Schmidt snow plow
2002 Schmidt snow plow
1996 Schmidt snow plow
1986 Schmidt snow plow

In addition to those 13 plows the city also has 7 deicer units.

I was not able to find out what those plows cost to buy - either new or used - or what the deicers cost. There are some repair costs.

The Street Division is expecting the following equipment replacement costs in the future:

$1.1 million in 2019
$1.2 million in 2020
$222,000 in 2021
$212,000 in 2022
$764,000 in 2023

There’s also a City Vehicle Maintenance department, but their 2019 equipment replacement costs are just $253,000.

This year the city will replace the 1986 Schmidt snowplow, which is expected to cost $25,000.

I personally feel that’s repair costs, as snow plowing trucks surely cost more than that.

Next year the 1992 model will be replaced for the same amount, and in 2021 nothing needs replacing.

Interestingly, the Parking Commission is set to get a replacement GMC Sierra snow plow this year for $50,000 and another in 2020 for the same amount.

It’s really hard to find prices for new snow plows, like the Schmidt models the city has.

I did find a few used ones online, mostly from Europe. Prices range from $25,000 for used 1980s models up to $50,000 or more for used early-2000s models.

I emailed the company to find out what their prices are, and I hope to hear back.

I also emailed the head of the Missoula Streets Division, asking how many workers actually plow, what the plows cost, and what the total snow plow budget is each year.

Missoula doesn’t have a lot of public information on what it’s snow removal budget is. In fact, the only thing I can find on it goes back to 2014, when the city budgeted $211,000 for deicer but spent $300,000 on it before February was even over.

A few days after I emailed the Streets Division, they got back to me.

I learned that we paid $19,560 last year for a Schmidt snow plow, but this year we'll pay $21,516 for the same make and model, as steel prices have gone up.

I also found out that the Street Division has 27 crew members who operate snow plows, as well as two superintendents and an administrative assistant that don't operate the equipment.

The city's current budget for deicer is $236,000 and sand costs another $64,000.

We won't know what the FY 2020 snow removal budget is for a few more months just yet.

Finally, the Streets Division has some serious replacement costs this year, with big ticket items being replaced. These include a 1982 CAT grader at a cost of $350,000 as well as two sweepers for $250,000 each (2006 and 2009 models). For snow removal, it looks like 7 deicers will be replaced at a cost of $10,000.

How Other Cities Keep Their Streets Plowed of Snow

Now let’s take a moment to explore what other cities are doing to keep their streets plowed.

I’d like to do this because maybe it’ll give us some ideas here in Missoula.

Spokane was having problems plowing its snow back in 2017.

One family with a disabled daughter was getting fed-up with streets that had too much snow for their wheelchair van, which rides nine inches lower than most vehicles.

“So, just to get through these ruts is very difficult,” the dad said. “I get high-centered. Sometimes I can’t even turn and go straight.”

Doctors appointments had to be canceled because of this, and after city officials couldn’t provide answers, the family actually got a sit-down meeting with Spokane’s mayor.

“They said that its budget,” the family reported. “Always about money. About plows, not enough plows.”

The city’s main argument was that they had the same budget year-round to both plow the streets and keep them clean, and therefore couldn’t do both. Snow would just have to pile up and people would have to deal with it.

A local TV news station found out about all this and did some research.

They discovered that Spokane typically takes 4 days to plow a street with six inches of snow on it, though many take a full week.

They also found out that cities of comparable size to Spokane manage to plow their streets in 24 hours.

One city they pointed to was Green Bay, Wisconsin. That city has a median income of just $400 more than Spokane and doesn’t even have a snow removal budget.

Still, they can do in 24 hours what it took Spokane about a week to do.

When confronted with this, city officials provided no rationale and said they didn’t understand what Green Bay was doing, or what made their situation special.

Spokane’s mayor refused to comment on the situation altogether.

Madison, Wisconsin, has a population of about 255,000 people and they set aside $6.2 million for snow removal each year. This year they’ve already gone through $2.8 million of that...with several months of snow to come still.

All in all, Madison expects to spend an extra $5 million this year that it otherwise wouldn’t spend.

Here’s how the local TV news put it:

“Mother Nature may make the ultimate decision, but with every storm that dumps about five inches of snow, it costs Madison roughly $230,000, according to Schmiedicke [Madison’s finance director].

The city will take money from a reserve fund to cover the extra cost, according to Schmiedicke. The reserve fund currently has a balance of $1.9 million. He doesn’t predict the city should need that much, but if it happened another reserve fund would be tapped.”

So you can see that in Wisconsin they expect snow, budget for its removal, and even have reserve funds set aside that they can dip into if it’s a particularly bad snow year.

New York is a city of 8.1 million people with 6,500 linear miles of roads, “or what amounts to 19,000 lane miles.”

When it snows the city has 3,000 snow plow routes.

The city has 29 permanent and 14 seasonal salt storage facilities, which hold over 300,000 tons of salt.

The city had over 500 salt spreaders and snow plows in 2015. In 2017 they budgeted $88 million for snow removal, or what amounts to $1.8 million per inch of roadway.

That came in handy two days before Halloween in 2011 when it snowed three inches, breaking a record.

New York plows like so:

“The plowing begins on a three-tier routing system. The first and prioritized tier is all of the dedicated first-responder routes, which connect hospitals, NYPD and FDNY with major public thoroughfares, bus routes, densely populated areas and the two major airports. Then the focus shifts to the secondary routes — anything off of a major city street. Finally come the tertiary routes, your dead-end roads and limited-access streets.”

Once the streets are plowed the city will focus on piling and hauling the snow that’s been plowed. To aid in this, they have 36 melters that melt 60 tons of snow per hour or more. This melted snow is then drained directly into the sewer feed, where it’ll eventually reach the water treatment plant.

This New Year’s Day in Billings they had a lot of snow.

The city called in 16 people to drive snow plows to get rid of it, and they do this in two 12-hour shifts.

Here’s how the Billings Gazette put it:

“With city crews working the main roads, contractors are tasked with the neighborhoods. Residential plowing is handled by crews from FirstMark Construction, which is two years into its three-year contract with the city. Next year, when the contract ends, FirstMark will have the option to renew for two more years. FirstMark is the new name of CMG Construction.
The city's snow removal budget replenished in July with the start of a new fiscal year. Last year, with a record snowfall, the city spent $2.4 million on plowing, nearly double a normal snowfall year. To cover the extra costs, some road projects planned for the summer were put on hold, Mumford said.”

Billings has the most city roadways in Montana, with 599 miles worth. That means $4,000 is budgeted for each mile of road when it comes to snow removal.

The reason the city has so much more money than other Montana cities is that voters there approved the city’s residential street plowing initiative in 2017 and it took effect last year. That put an extra $455,000 into the city’s hands so they can plow residential streets (it cost $437,000 to plow those residential streets last year).

Conclusion

Removing snow is big business, and businesses small and large realize this. For if snow is clogging their parking lot, people will simply go somewhere else.

That’s why businesses pay top dollar to get rid of that snow right away.

Don’t believe me?

Well, just last week a teenager from Coeur d’Alene made $35,000 doing odd snow plowing jobs in Seattle.

“After Holston posted a Craigslist ad, his phone didn't stop ringing,” ABC Fox Montana reported. “A majority of the calls he received were from businesses and the others were from Seattle-area residents.”

Seattle is a city that isn’t used to having a lot of snow, so what these businesses did is understandable.

Here in Missoula, however, we know it snows and that it snows a lot.

While our local businesses might need to hire enterprising individuals to plow their private parking lots, they shouldn’t have to do the same to keep the public roads clear.

Sadly, it often seems like that’s what they need to do.

I take snow removal in Missoula quite seriously.

I like having clear roads, and I think most Missoula residents feel the same way.

Sadly, I think the city is failing in this department. Here's what we need to do:

Currently we have 13 snow plows and I think we need more. We also need to do a better job listing the annual snow removal budget for the public to see. Billings has more roads than us and they require at least $2 million. Missoula needs to budget the same, if not more. We also need to put together reserve funds for when the budgeted amount runs out, as it often will.

Oh, and we have the money to do all of this.

Here are some things the city decided to spend your tax dollars on last year:

$6.3 million for a Mullan Road transportation grid
$1 million from the county for the Mullan Road grid
$425,000 to expand the bike trail by South & Johnson
$229,000 for Russell Street water main extensions
$200,000 to save the new library’s 4th floor
$146,000 to replace the Uptown Diner with an art gallery
$93,000 to connect 10 tiny homes to utilities

All of that stuff cost over $8 million.

I personally feel that most Missoula residents would rather spend money to keep their streets free of snow than on the 7 items listed above.

The city’s priorities are askew. They spend money on wish-list items while things from the needs-list go unfilled.

I mean…$146,000 for an art gallery? The town has a ton of those, but we desperately need more snow plows!

I really have to shake my head at our city council and what they think the city’s priorities are.

During the winter we have serious issues with getting our streets plowed. The bottom line is that the city isn’t doing as good of a job as they could.

Other cities can do better, so why can’t we?

I think we can do better and that we should.

Wow, Montana Democrats Spent That Much on Food?!?

2/23/2019

The latest round of FEC finance reports came out this week and they cover the month of January.

We’ll start with the Republicans first and then get to the Democrats.

The Montana Republican Party’s January finance report with the FEC is just 21 pages and you can read it here.

For January the Republicans raised over $20,000 and spent over $18,000.

As February began the GOP had almost $150,000 cash on hand, as they started January with $147,000 leftover from 2018.

None of those giving money to the party really stood out to me, aside from the fact that there were more donors from Missoula than I would have expected.

I think the Missoula City Council is pushing many independent voters more to the right.

I did notice that the Gianforte-Rosendale Fund based out of McLean, Virginia, gave the party $351.

When it comes to spending, there’s not much to report on.

I was troubled that the Montana GOP decided to spent $7,000 with a Kansas publishing and mailing firm, even though we have many in Montana that could do the same thing.

It’s hard to call the GOP out on this, however, as the Montana Democrats also spend a lot of money with out-of-state firms when Montana firms would work just fine.

Creating jobs in Montana really is just a campaign talking point; neither party puts their money where their mouth is when it comes to that.

Another $2,600 was spent with a Florida direct marketing firm. That money would have benefited a Montana business nicely.

When it comes to employees, the Montana Republican Party has three and pays them $3,514 a month. These include:

$2,330 for Emma Sticht
$672 for John Harter
$512 for Quinn O’Connor

In addition to that, the GOP paid $1,175 in payroll taxes to keep those people on staff.

The Montana GOP didn’t spend anything on health insurance for their employees, nor did they allow any money to be spent eating out.

I don’t know much about Emma Sticht, though she started as the GOP’s office manager in August.

I do believe her parents were part of a lawsuit against the Helena School District in 2011 over human sexuality courses being taught.

The Montana Democrat’s latest finance report is 117 pages and you can read it here.

The Montana Democrats raised just $31,000 in January while they spent $116,000.

As February began the Dems had $110,000 cash on hand, as they started January with $196,000 leftover from 2018.

I wasn’t going to dig into the people that donated to the Montana Democrats that much until I noticed some of the names.

It’s funny - people that are on the MT Dems’ payroll are actually donating to the party as well.

Here are some names and groups that stood out to me:

$18,000 from the DNC State Party Victory Fund
$10,000 from Oregon’s Sussman, Selwyn, Donald Trust Asset Management
$3,000 from the DNC
$2,500 from Missoula’s Caras Property Management
$500 from Al Smith (MT Trial Lawyers)
$250 from Nick Lockridge (Married to MDLCC’s Amanda Frickle)
$250 from Mary Sexton (MT Dem Chair)

Here’s some MT Dem spending:

$4,500 to D.C.’s New Blue Interactive for donor development
$3,000 to D.C.’s Chraca Friedman Group for Fundraising
$3,000 to the DNC for a voter access file
$1,060 on Facebook ads

There are over $7,000 in various transfer payments for 2018 federal overages, but I don’t know what this is.

And now for the fun stuff.

For January, the Montana Democrats spent over $6,700 eating out in restaurants. This includes:

$2,300 on Domino’s Pizza
$1,060 at Jimmy John’s
$840 at the Pita Pit

It cost over $4,200 just to eat at those three places (the Dems spent $6,700 eating out in January).

There’s a lot more eating out if you add in all the federal money that was spent in restaurants (I just added up the state money).

In addition to that, the Montana Democrats spent $3,560 on health insurance for their 5 state-funded employees and 7 federally-funded employees.

While all these employees work in the same Sixth Street office in Helena, they just do funny accounting stuff so that certain amounts can be listed in different spots in their monthly reports.

Here are those 12 employees and their monthly salaries:

$4,548 for Nancy Keenan
$4,496 for Trent Bolger
$3,914 for Nick Lockridge
$3,660 for Roy Lowenstein
$3,392 for Derek Ketner
$3,100 for Cassidy Cook
$3,054 for Megan Simpson
$3,000 for Monica Lindeen
$2,846 for Justin Ailport
$2,372 for Thai Nguyen
$2,271 for Austin Lyle

It costs over $37,500 to keep those people on staff.

In addition to that, the Montana Democrats have to pay an extra $46,000 in payroll taxes and accounting work to Virginia’s Paychex for those 12 people.

So in effect, the Montana Democrats had to spend nearly $84,000 just to keep those 12 people working ($95,000 if you count their healthcare and food costs).

Conclusion

I feel that the Montana Republican Party is running a tight ship, and I like this.

They have few people on staff, don’t spend a lot of extra money on them, and in Montana this is working for them.

Currently the GOP controls every seat on the PSC, they have both chambers of the legislature, and occupy every statewide office but one. Federally they hold two of our three seats in Congress.

I would encourage the GOP to continue what they’re doing, as it’s working.

The only suggestion I’d have for them is to find ways to attract more young voters. Perhaps focusing on the massive student loan crisis and how this makes it hard to have money everywhere else in your life is a place to start.

Now to the Democrats.

Here’s an organization that’s lost its way in Montana.

I know the Montana Democrats working in the Sixth Street HQ think I’m a joke and that these monthly reports of mine are a joke.

They know that there’s no real accountability for them, as donations to their organization keep rolling in.

I just feel incredibly bad for the people that give the Montana Democratic Party money, thinking that it’ll actually help win a chamber of the legislature or get people elected to statewide or county offices.

That’s just not the case.

While many might think the Montana Democratic Party works in their interests, when you follow the money you find that the morally bankrupt people working for the Montana Democratic Party primarily focus on benefiting themselves.

We see this in their incredibly high monthly salaries and the amount of money they spend feeding themselves.

Few Montana workers make as much or can afford to eat out so much each week.

I’m sad that the Montana Democratic Party has grown so out of touch with the people it purports to represent.

I am happy, however, for I know that this blind self-interest can’t go on forever.

At some point something will give and true leaders will come to the fore of the Montana Democratic Party.

The riff-raff currently on staff will be shown the door and the financial healing can begin. At that point trust can be won back as well, and perhaps voters will come around too.

All of this will take time, and leadership.

I think it’ll be a long wait for both.

10 Ideas to Solve Montana’s Affordable Housing Crisis

2/22/2019

People can’t afford to live in Montana.

Businesses can’t find qualified workers as those workers can’t find affordable places to live.

Businesses can’t expand because of this.

Jobs aren’t created. Income isn’t spent in the local economy. The state loses tax revenue.

It’s a huge problem, and elected officials know it.

“Local businesses would like to expand,” Bozeman City Commissioner Terry Cunningham told the legislature this week, “but their ability to attract qualified employees is being hindered by housing affordability.”

Houses in Bozeman aren’t affordable for a variety of reasons, but a big one is that just 1% of the city’s housing rentals are currently vacant.

And it’s not just Bozeman.

Cities large and small across the state are grappling with an affordable housing crisis.

Many of the elected officials and policymakers in those cities know of the problem, and can cite statistics telling you how bad it is.

But few seem to have any ideas on how to solve it once and for all.

I’m not an expert on the issue, but I thought I’d do some research into what other cities have done to solve their affordable housing problems.

Here are 10 ideas I’ve come up with based on that research that might work in Montana.

#1 Use TIF Money

Whitefish is having its own affordable housing crisis, and they are trying two different approaches to solve it.

Back in October their city council voted to amend their downtown master plan so that an empty lot they use to store plowed snow can be used for multi-family housing in the future instead of just a parking lot.

What they did was change the land use designation so that empty lot can now fit into the Tax Increment Finance (TIF) boundaries and TIF money can be spent for things like “soil testing to aide in decisions about how the lot might be developed.”

Here in Missoula there are many areas on the Northside that could fit similar criteria. The Riverfront Triangle would have been an ideal spot for this as well, but we gave that area to the rich, out-of-state hotel developers to play with instead.

Whitefish is also developing a 137-townhome subdivision, with 10 of those homes set aside for affordable housing. That means they’ll have a price tag of $289,000.

Again, this might sound like a lot but it’s a lot lower than the average Whitefish home price of $669,000.

Whitefish has a tool in its toolbox that most other Montana cities don’t - the local option sales tax we call a resort tax.

#2 Use Real Estate Trust Funds

Resort tax money would go a long way in helping Montana solve the affordable housing crisis by funding housing trust funds.

Whitefish currently does this, using money from their local option sales tax. Other cities use realty transfer taxes to do this.

How it works is that the tax money from a sale - or the resort tax, in Whitefish’s case - is put into the trust, and then given out to people for down payments on houses or condos.

Typically for every $1 in public money that’s spent, $7 in private developer money comes about.

Many don’t like this idea because it seems like a free handout to poorer people, but if we don’t try this option the housing crisis could get worse and even the developers might suffer as demand for housing goes down as prices become too high.

Big Sky is another of our resort communities that has had success with using their local option sales tax to fund affordable housing programs.

Last year they used $1.9 million of their resort tax revenues to fund the Big Sky Community Housing Trust.

52 units were subsidized using that money, meaning two-bedroom condos in that section of the development will sell for $280,000 and a studio $120,000.

The average price for a home in Big Sky is currently $3.1 million.

#3 Allow Realty Transfer Taxes

We saw how resort communities can use their local option sales taxes to help solve the affordable housing crisis.

But what about larger Montana cities...cities which aren’t allowed to have a sales tax?

For them, there’s another option called realty transfer taxes.

Sadly, Montana won’t allow them, and this means we can’t set up real estate trust funds.

We’re prohibited by law from having realty transfer taxes.

The reason is simple - in 2010 nearly 260,000 Montanans voted yes on CI-105, which was called the Montana New Property Tax Elimination Act.

The constitutional initiative passed with 72% of the vote, preventing taxes when real estate property changed hands.

Interestingly, 85% of the complaints the Secretary of State’s Office received that year in regard to signature gathering revolved around the 48,000 signatures that came in to certify that initiative.

We also know that the Chicago-based National Association of Realtors spent $600,000 getting the initiative on the ballot, or about 98% of total funding. The Montana Association of Realtors favored the initiative, as did the Montana Chamber of Commerce, Bankers Association, Stockgrowers, and legislator turned lobbyist Dennis Iverson, now of the Montana Group.

The reason we’re rehashing all of this is because the passage of CI-105 effectively prevents the formation of housing trust funds, which rely on real estate transfer taxes for most of their revenue.

Perhaps the legislature needs to talk about undoing this with a law. If that can’t work, then a public information campaign needs to start so that Montanans can be informed of the problem and a solution can come about.

#4 Remove Local Government Stumbling Blocks

Building new affordable housing units is a challenge, and for many reasons.

Without government subsidies, most developers simply choose to build homes that will sell for the most money, not well-below market rates.

But local governments also put out their own stumbling blocks. These include “issues of land-use, permitting, and other regulatory requirements that unnecessarily raise the cost of developing new affordable rental homes, often acting as an insurmountable barrier to their production.”

Here in Missoula, zoning has been a big issue when it comes to the lack of affordable housing. Typically we have too many areas that aren’t zoned for multi-family homes, and oftentimes the city council won’t vote to rezone so we can make inroads on the problem.

One member of the Missoula Housing Coalition also says renters need more support resources, including “reducing fees for applications and creating a streamlined credit score and background check process.

#5 Employer Tax Credits

Here in Missoula we know that employers are very troubled by the lack of affordable housing, something that’s making it harder for them to recruit qualified workers and expand their businesses.

Thankfully, employers could help with the affordable housing problem as well, though it’d likely take a lot of state support for that to happen.

How it could work is that the legislature puts incentive programs in place that reward employers with tax credits when they cover a portion of their employees’ rents or mortgages.

The benefit is twofold: businesses and corporations could see less of a financial burden from taxes and their employees have a chance to live closer to work while having a better quality of life.

Businesses also attract a better quality worker with these types of programs.

#6 Increasing Amenities

One federal study suggested that increasing the available supply of affordable housing does very little to ease the rental burden for cities. They found that adding 5% more housing to the most expensive neighborhoods would only cause rents to decrease by 0.5%.

The reason for this was that people like certain amenities in their neighborhoods, like shopping options, good schools, and easy access to public transportation. They’ll pay higher rental and home prices to get those things, negating much of the effect of increasing the available housing supply in other parts of the city.

An option to overcome this is to improve those favored amenities in other parts of the city. This could be done by expanding access to public transportation in those areas, as well as building more schools and commercial shopping centers.

The latter two are longer-term solutions, but we know that doing those things could “make these neighborhoods more competitive with more expensive, downtown neighborhoods and so could relieve some price pressure in downtown neighborhoods through a substitution effect.”

Here in Missoula we’ll really need to think about these options, as our downtown is going to experience a huge growth in more affluent citizens because of the recent hotel construction there.

This kind of example creates a “cascading gentrification engine,” where people with more money are outbidding those without. This will drive up rental prices in the downtown area, driving lower-income people out of the area and perhaps out of the city altogether. The burden on our bedroom communities will be immense.

#7 Decades-Long Price Controls

Denver put a program into place recently called LIVE Denver, which aims to help solve their affordable housing crisis.

One of the things they did there was to change the city requirement that says developers need to keep their buildings affordable for 20 years if they want to get city subsidies during construction. Affordable for Denver means that the price won’t increase more than 7% each year.

Now Denver requires 60 years.

Nonprofit developers opposed this, as they’d be hit hard, but the city council voted to push it through. I personally think that this is too much and that most developers will flee Denver for other areas to build. A similar measure in Oregon will have the same results.

One option that’s sort of a middle ground is to work with developers on this idea.

For instance, if a developer is building a 30-unit subdivision and wants local government assistance in the form of tax breaks or credits or whatnot, then perhaps they need to set aside 10-20% of those units as affordable for 5 or 10 years.

I think a lot of developers might be willing to work with something like that, as they know we have a housing crisis. When you force something like 60 years down their throat, however, I just don’t think you’re being reasonable from a business standpoint.

#8 The Tiny Home Solution

Bozeman is trying out the ‘tiny home’ solution. Currently on 24th and Beall Street there are two “Humble Homes,” which are two tiny homes situated on one normal lot. They’re 300 and 600 square feet and sell for $140,000 and $174,000, respectively.

It might sound like a lot for a small home, but the average home price in Bozeman right now is $432,000.

Currently in the legislature there’s legislation to make it easier to get tax money to build tiny homes to put a dent in the affordable housing crisis.

#9 Legislative Supports

The Montana Legislature needs to get its act together, and a good place to start is undoing the damage they did years ago.

We already discussed how they could help us get realty transfer taxes.

Another option is to spend state money on housing assistance, which we currently don’t do.

Oh, we have the Elderly Homeowner or Renter Credit state-sponsored affordable rental housing program, but it’s a joke.

Despite offering a tax credit of up to $1,000 for lower-income seniors who rent, the program has not been funded since it was created in 1999.

This is an example of the legislature slapping low-income people in the face.

If the legislature decides it doesn’t want to impose realty transfer taxes - which a GOP-controlled body typically won’t - then they should at least consider allowing interest from state-held funds to be used in its place, and even unclaimed fees, such as those from document recording. Local 911 taxes could be another option.

#10 Raise Wages

Well wouldn’t you know it? I got up to nine ideas before I ran out.

So I decided to come up with #10 on my own, which is to raise wages.

I don’t for one second think that this is going to happen.

The legislature is controlled by the GOP and they’re not going to mandate any kind of minimum wage hike that will actually make a difference in people’s lives.

Businesses around the state aren’t going to raise wages, or if they do, they certainly won’t be enough for people to buy homes all of a sudden.

But if you don’t want to see the government meddling in the private sector via subsidies and trust funds and other ways to make housing affordable, then something else will have to give.

Raising wages is one option, and it’d go a long way to solving many of our crises, not just affordable housing.

Conclusion

I hope these ideas give some of our elected officials and policymakers some ideas, as well as those that will run for the various city councils around the state this year.

Montana has a huge problem with affordable housing, and it means a lot of our kids have to move out of the state when they graduate from college.

Many businesses aren’t locating to Montana because they know they couldn’t find decent living conditions for their workers.

The state loses tax revenue because of this, but worse, it puts us into a kind of an ‘economic depression’ compared to other states that don’t have such an affordable housing crisis.

Businesses and people go to those states; they don’t come here.

The good news is that we can solve this problem.

Let’s do it sooner rather than later.

Jon Bennion Stumbles Early

2/21/2019

Today was the day that Jon Bennion decided he’d launch his campaign for Montana Attorney General.

He stumbled a bit right out of the gate.

You see, in his press release - I’m relying on KGVO - he said his two main issues will be the national Democrats’ Green New Deal as well as the state’s problems with addiction.

When we dig into these issues, however, we find that having a Republican in the AG’s Office actually makes these problems worse.

Let me explain.

Bennion’s reasons for running for AG are so that Montana has “an effective advocate to lead the state on public safety issues, fight government overreach, and protect our most vulnerable citizens.”

He also wants to “prevent meddling from other states.”

Let’s dive into these ideas.

First, Bennion wants to improve public safety in Montana.

I think this is a complete joke, as we know that no matter how much time and money the AG’s Office throws at the problem of public safety, nothing ever changes.

Consider the crime lab.

In March 2016 and again in February 2018, crime lab employees were caught stealing drugs.

It’s the AG’s job to oversee the crime lab, and the current GOPer there - Tim Fox - was unable to do that. Will Bennion be able to do better, or is it time for a Dem to take over here?

What about kids?

Back in 2013 our GOP AG really made it a point to try and protect kids from sexual predators and yet we seem to have more of these cases in the news than ever (I wish I could find some stats, but I can't).

And what about Indians?

No one really knows how many Indian women go missing each year, but in 2018 it’s figured that around 24 did so.

It’s the job of Montana’s AG to oversee missing persons cases, but the issue of missing native women was never an important issue to the current GOP AG until he was forced to make it an issue due to overwhelming attention in the media.

For years the GOP has failed Indians in Montana. Is electing another Republican to that office really the answer to this problem?

Now let’s talk about gambling.

The AG’s Office oversees gambling regulations, but I think this is a joke. We know from our efforts to follow the money that gambling in Montana is the biggest corruption racket of all, with the industry paying off legislators more than any other industry.

That doesn’t really matter to our GOP AG, who even admits that we have 17,000 problem gamblers in the state.

Oh well - without them how would we make enough tax revenue to fund all our programs?

That’s what a Republican in the AG’s Office gets you - a lack of caring when it comes to public health, so long as the money keeps rolling in.

Alright, enough on the public safety aspect. Let’s turn to fighting government overreach.

The big thing here for Bennion seems to be furthering Tim Fox’s agenda of using the courts to thwart the national Democrats and their agenda.

We see Bennion championing this policy with his comments against the Green New Deal.

The main issue that Bennion has is that people from the west coast that are trying to manipulate Montana’s economy.”

Utterances like this make you realize that Bennion isn’t that smart.

For instance, so far there’s been absolutely no meddling based on the Green New Deal.

Perhaps we could put healthcare into the ‘meddling’ category, but in Montana we know that healthcare expansion has actually helped all the rich hospital owners...people that Bennion will need donating to his campaign.

Yeah, it’s helped a few poor people too...but the GOP will allow that because so many rich people profited first (mostly insurance companies).

More examples of the kind of meddling that Bennion will fight using your tax dollars include:

Fighting against clean water rules (Fox joined that lawsuit in 2015)
Fighting to keep transgender people out of bathrooms (Fox joined that lawsuit in 2016)
Fighting against endangered species (Fox joined that lawsuit in 2016)
Fighting to keep coal as a dominant fossil fuel (Fox joined that lawsuit in 2018)

Seems like a huge waste of Montana’s tax money.

Another huge waste is the policies we’ve had in place for nearly 20 years in this state that have the rich paying very little in the way of taxes (think capital gains).

But remember - it’s typically only rich people that ever get elected to the AG spot in the first place, so this isn’t important to them.

Finally, let’s look at meth and the abysmal job our Department of Justice has done to combat this problem.

The AG is in charge of the Department of Justice.

In 2008 meth was costing Montana $200 million a year, and we had 7 meth lab busts that year.

This was a huge improvement over the early-2000s.

But then Republican Tim Fox got into the AG’s Office. Meth use shot up.

The MT DOJ had 68 meth cases in 2010, but then 143 in 2012 and 232 in 2015.

By 2016 there were 500 meth cases in Yellowstone County alone. It was clear to many that the Montana Department of Justice had dropped the ball.

The impact on kids was horrendous.

In 2010 we had 800 kids in foster care due to parental substance abuse issues, but by 2016 we had 1,600.

Our court system has been decimated by this drug scourge, with 8th District Court case loads going from about 700 in 2009 to over 1,000 in 2016.

The court’s Judge Pinski spends 80% of his time dealing with drug-related issues.

Montana’s meth problem actually got worse with a Republican overseeing the Justice Department.

I’m confident that if we have another Republican in the AG’s Office, our meth problem will only get worse.

Conclusion

I’m sure Jon Bennion is a great guy and a great family man (I know he’s a helluva woodworker).

At this time, however, voting for Jon Bennion is not the best idea.

The main reason for this is that his boss has done such a substandard job as AG for the past 8 years that it’s time for a new political party to take control.

Maybe if Fox hadn’t been so focused on his gubernatorial ambitions over the past two years, Bennion would have an easier path to take over this office.

As it stands, a Dem could win this race if they point out a lot the glaring problems I just pointed out to you.

Sadly, Democrats have shown time and time again in Montana that they’re unable to exploit their opponents’ weaknesses to attain the win.

Will 2020 be different?

For 8 years we’ve had a Republican in the AG’s Office, but the problems that the AG oversees have only gotten worse during that time.

Perhaps it’s time a Democrat takes control of that office.

I think Kim Dudik would make a better candidate.

Alas, Montana is a red state and it’s likely we’ll see another GOPer in the AG’s Office.

Still, 2020 will see a lot of disgruntled Democrats come to the polls, and I think in Montana we might see a surge in urban voting...enough to put a dent in the continual rural gains that offset whatever wins the Dems typically get.

In other words, Dems could have one of their best years in the Treasure State in decades.

But the realist in me only sees two possible statewide wins for Dems - OPI and Auditor.

I think SoS could move over to the ‘in-play’ category if Stapleton keeps doing such a horrendous job and the media calls him out on it.

Let's keep our eye on Bennion and see how he does going forward.

Lobbyist Money in the 2019 Montana Legislature

2/16/2019

There are a total of 66 people that are registered to lobby the 2019 Montana Legislature for 169 different groups.

I know this because I visited COPP.

Let me give you a quick run-through of how the website for the Montana Commissioner of Political Practices (COPP) actually works when it comes to lobbying.

First, you need to visit COPP’s lobbying page.

After that you need to scroll down a bit until you find the section on “Lobbying Information,” and in there will be a link to both digital and hard copy reports for the years 2009-2019.

Some lobbyists work for several different outfits. David Galt is a fine example of this.

Although this man’s lobbying license was never completely filed, he still manages to work for:

The Association of Montana Retired Public Employees
Calumet Montana Refining LLC
BNSF Railway Company
Montana Contractors Association
Presby Environmental, Inc.

We can click on the link to each of those groups, and if we do so for Calumet we find that besides Galt, the group also has Brian Thompson lobbying for them.

In addition to Calumet, Thompson also works for:

The Montana Contractors Compensation Fund
BNSF Railway Company
Montana Collectors Association
Montana Contractors Association
Association of Montana Retired Public Employees

Some lobbyist names stood out to me, and I decided to dig into what they’re doing.

Clayton Elliott: Political watchers will remember the role this man played in Amanda Curtis’s 2014 Senate run. He’s now lobbying for Montana Trout Unlimited and is being paid $4,656 by the group to do that. There are around 30 to 40 bills he’s either supporting or opposing or monitoring or seeking to modify. You can see a list of those bills here, though they have no descriptive titles.

Steve Gibson: This man lobbies for Montanans Against Tax Hikes. So far he’s listed no expenses in his lobbying report. He’s currently in charge of $925,000 for Altria Client Services to lobby against any kind of tobacco tax increases or new regulations.

Aimee Grmoljez: This woman has lobbied for 24 different groups over the past two sessions. You can see those groups here. Interestingly, I don’t see her working at all this year.

Dennis Iverson: Political watchers will know that this man works for the Montana Group. He’s currently authorized to lobby for Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) as well as Northern Montana Oil & Gas Association. Big Pharma is paying him $3,333 in salary so he can monitor any kind of pharmaceutical issues that might come up. As of now, no money has been earmarked to lobby on those issues. The group plans to spend $40,000 this session. I see no money listed for the second group he lobbies for. Also, if you dig into his lobbying applications you’ll see he applied for a lot of other lobbyists to work.

Jeff Mangan: The head of COPP is also authorized to lobby, and he’s already been paid $2,300 to do that. He’s supporting LC325, LC350, HB181, SB105, SB109, SB150, and SB154.

Lawrence Noonan: This man is lobbying for the Montana Beer & Wine Wholesalers Association. Sadly, their latest reports is from 2005. When you change the name to Montana Beer & Wine Distributors Assoc. Association, however, you learn that the group has spent $6,347 to lobby the legislature, and that includes $318 on printing, $100 on other office expenses, and $82 on entertainment. Noonan will be seeking to modify HB84 on winery reports; monitor HB261 on veterans events; monitor HB277 on special spirits; monitor HB182 on subdividing distilleries; support SB65 DUI bill; and oppose both HB250 the winery bill and HB185 the expanded brewery bill. When it comes to the $82 spent on entertainment we know that Representatives Zach Brown, Tom Woods, Derek Harvey and Senator Nate McConnell all had $20.62 spent on their behalf at Friendly’s so they’ll see this man’s way.

Brian Ohs: Even though our laws say you have to file your lobbying report by February 15, this man chose not to do so.

Now let’s explore some of the 160+ groups that are authorized to lobby the 150 legislators we have up in the Capitol.

Many of these groups are based in Montana - the “M” listing has the most groups - but many are national.

For instance, we have the following working to affect our laws and our way of life here:

AARP
Altria
Americans for Prosperity
Bristol-myers Squibb
CoreCivic
Everytown for Gun Safety
Exxon Mobil
Facebook
Juul Labs
Monsanto
National Rifle Association
Pfizer
Phillips 66
Strategies 360
Walmart

Let’s get into a few of these groups to see what they’re doing:

AARP: This senior citizen group has paid $9,800 to lobby the legislature so far. They’re hoping to see 12 different issues/bills pass. The group has three lobbyists working for them and so far they’ve spent $500 entertaining legislators...though the specifics of this are not listed.

Altria: This pro-tobacco group lists over $77,000 spent so far to lobby the legislature. We know that Altria had Hawaii’s Ocean Golf Course pay $42.55 to Scott Sales. Why? I don’t know.

Everytown for Gun Safety: This group has spent $12,000 so far to lobby. They oppose HB145, HB325, HB357, LC1515, and LC1516.

Exxon Mobil: This group has spent $3,433 so far lobbying against SB141 Waters Edge Repeal; HB193 Carbon Tax; and SB189 Carbon Tax.

Facebook: The social media giant has spent nearly $2,700 to lobby, though no bills are listed that they either support or oppose.

Juuls Labs: This hook-em-on-nicotine-while-they’re-young company is spending $1,540 to lobby the legislature. They support HB184. They oppose SB96, SB122, HB121, HB266, and HB312.

Monsanto: The largest poisoner of our foods is spending $1,500 to lobby, though no specific bills are listed.

The NRA: Brian Judy is the principle lobbyist for this gun group, which is spending $5,800 to lobby this year. They support HB145; HB 226 shooting range tax exemption; and HB325 & HB 357 preemption. They oppose SB 95 domestic violence. The big expenditure this session was $2,452 on the Colonial Hotel for a function that all legislators were invited to.

Pfizer: This drug group is spending over $3,000 to lobby, though no bills are listed.

Conclusion

That’s all I’m going to dig into today.

I really wish our newspapers and our TV station reporters would dig into this, but they choose not to...despite COPP telling us for weeks that February 15 was the day these reports would come out.

I don’t know why they do that. It makes me sad for the future of our state.

Posts like this are a big reason I’m read by people all over Montana. Our paid media-types shouldn’t allow this, but they choose not to cover these issues.

Someone has to.

Thanks for reading.

Open Post Friday #14

2/15/2019

Well, I guess Trump is gonna get his way and call a national emergency.

Democrats feel confident they can beat him in the courts on this one, but I’m not so sure.

You see, we’ve had presidents call 58 different national emergencies since the practice went into effect 40 years ago.

31 of those national emergencies are still in effect.

Carter called one, while Reagan and Bush didn’t declare any.

Clinton declared 6 while George W. Bush declared 11 and Obama declared 10.

Trump has called for three declarations of national emergency so far - in December 2017, September 2018 and November 2018.

Those three emergencies had to do with getting hold of the assets of human rights abusers in Myanmar; sanction on Russia for whatever they did in 2016; and one to deal with the deteriorating situation in Nicaragua.

Didn’t hear anything about those three national emergencies in the media...or the 31 that are still in effect?

Well, that wouldn’t feed into the narrative that the media wants to develop that says Trump is an idiot, the Democrats are not, and this whole mess somehow affects you.

Doesn’t affect me one iota here in Montana.

I don’t think it’s affecting you, either.

What is affecting you...things that the media might not be talking about?

This is an open post, so feel free to share your concerns.

Thanks!

A Look at Bullock’s Presidential Money

2/14/2019

Shortly after 6 PM tonight, Mike Dennison put up a report on Bullock’s presidential travel plans for this weekend.

Here’s a snippet from that:

“Bullock formed the Big Sky Values PAC in mid-2017, which is paying for his travels and extracurricular political activity. Through last year, the PAC had raised nearly $1.4 million and spent about $1.1 million.

Accompanying Bullock to Iowa this weekend will be his chief of staff, Tom Lopach, and communications director Ronja Abel.”

I thought it’d be interesting to see exactly what Bullock’s Big Sky Values PAC is spending money on.

I could dig through the 14 campaign finance reports the PAC has on file with the FEC, but that’s a lot of work.

Instead, to give us a snapshot I’ve chosen to go through the most recent report.

This is the year-end report, which was filed on January 31 and comes in at 91 pages. You can find that report and others on the FEC website, and it covers the period of December 2018.

The report tells us that the Big Sky Values PAC raised just over $905,000 in 2018 and spent nearly $933,000.

The PAC still has nearly $243,000 cash on hand, as they started 2018 with $270,000 in the bank. The PAC has zero debts.

Most of the money that Bullock’s presidential PAC has received has come from individuals, about $688,000. Another $5,000 came from PACs.

A whopping $211,000 came from “other federal receipts,” which can be things like dividends and interest. I’m not sure what this is exactly.

Even though he’s raising money to run for...something, Bullock still gave $26,500 to other federal candidates and/or committees.

Now let’s take a detailed look at where Bullock’s money came from in December 2018.

He raised just $61,000 for the month.

Here’s a graph showing that:

Big Sky Values PAC money

Besides Montana, most of Bullock’s money seems to be coming from New York and California.

Those 11 donations from Montanans came from the following places:

Missoula: 2
Butte: 1
Helena: 1
Great Falls: 1
Kalispell: 1
Seeley Lake: 1
Lolo: 1
Hamilton: 1
Bigfork: 1
Belgrade: 1

Bullock’s Big Sky Values PAC spent more than they took in for the month, with $144,000 going out the door.

Here’s a snapshot of that spending:

$24,000 with D.C.’s Mothership Strategies
$17,000 spent using the American Express card
$10,000 with Missoula’s Brock Development
$6,250 for fundraising consulting with D.C.’s Maura Hagerty
$6,100 with Helena’s Power Street Strategies
$6,000 at the Hilton New York
$3,750 for policy consulting with D.C.’s Height Analytics
$1,000 at the Hilton Des Moines
$1,000 at the Doubletree Helena
$700 at the Sheraton NY Times Square
$600 at the Marriott Houston
$600 at the Doubletree Dallas
$500 on Delta travel
$500 on Amtrak travel
$500 on United travel
$100 or so spent on Uber

All that stuff right there comes to nearly $170,000.

In addition to that we know that the Big Sky Values PAC is paying salary to the following people:

Chicago’s Jack Segal, $1,500 a month
Chicago’s Tina Olechowski, $1,200 a month
East Helena’s Ashly Tubbs, $570 a month

Political Watchers will remember that Olechowski headed-up Rob Quist’s 2017 U.S. House campaign.

There’s no mention of either Ronja Abel or Tom Lopach on the PAC’s payroll, so I wonder who exactly is paying for them to go to Iowa and stay there. Perhaps these things are being taken care of with the American Express card.

The Ghosts of Futures Past

2/14/2019

It’s been two weeks since Virginia’s Governor Northam faced calls to resign in the light of 35-year-old yearbook photos.

Maybe it was him in those blackface photos...maybe it wasn’t - I dunno.

What I do know is that today, in America, we’re losing our minds.

I say this because things that happened 35 years ago can ruin your life...and I don’t think these things are really that big of a deal.

And boy, do we see this a lot lately.

Four days after the Northam ‘scandal’ erupted, we learned in an interview with actor Liam Neeson that he thought about killing a random “black bastard” because a black guy had raped a woman he knew...over 30 years ago.

That’s kind of the thing with these stories - the actual events happened decades ago.

It reminds me a lot of the Brett Kavanaugh hearings we had to endure this past fall, where again, the events that supposedly happened took place over 30 years ago.

Much of this has to do with the #MeTooMovement, which began in October 2017.

And we know how that movement operates. The Guardian put it like this:

“In this post-#MeToo era, the celebrity scandal roadmap has become rather predictable. A famous person - usually a man, typically of a certain age - is accused of unacceptable behaviour and Hollywood unites to cast them into the wilderness.”

The article then wonders if Liam Neeson is about to suffer the same fate.

What we do know for certain is that Hollywood and the world of politics operate very differently.

In Hollywood - and the media as well - if you’re accused you’re automatically tried in the court of public opinion and usually lose your job within a day or two.

In politics, however, there’s usually calls to resign or step-down or something like that...but rarely do we see these acted upon. In fact, I’m not sure we’ve seen a politician actually resign since Al Franken did so in December 2017...two months after the #MeTooMovement started.

What we as a society forget is that people make mistakes. It’s typically how we learn the most, and the fastest.

Yet today, that’s not acceptable.

Frankly, I’m quite shocked at how surprised we are that there were racist people in Virginia in the early-1980s. Hell, that state helped start the Civil War just 120 years earlier...or about four generations.

Megyn Kelly recently lost her NBC job for making blackface comments as well. Sometimes just talking about these things is enough to get you fired, ridiculed and ultimately shunned.

I’m reminded a lot of the Helena Civil War fountain, which was removed in August 2017. We think we can change what happened in the past if we remove a few people or a few memorials. This kind of 'cultural revolution' does us more harm than good, in my opinion.

Really, for the past two years in this country we’ve been hyper-vigilant when it comes to anything that might smack of racism or sexism.

The tar and feathers are brought out very quickly in these cases, and lives are ruined.

Many times this ruination is justified, but in a lot of cases it’s just the knee-jerk reactions from a foaming-at-the-mouth public - whipped-up by a rabidly yellow for-profit media - that makes these stories much larger than they need to be.

And many people are realizing this.

It’s why we don’t see Governor Northam stepping down in Virginia. That scandal has pretty much blown over already, as they usually do.

Let’s be honest - if you can weather the media storm for a few days, the media will lose interest and wander off. The public forgets a day or two later. It shows us that people don't really care that much after all.

It helps if the politicians set to replace you come under their own storm. In the case of Virginia, we see that sexual impropriety is much more egregious than racist incidents.

And let’s not forget that most of this is blown way out of proportion as the left and the right continue their endless game of ripping out each other’s throat.

I don’t think the #MeTooMovement is anywhere close to losing steam, nor do I think that we’ll see an end to this fever pitch over racist incidents from decades ago.

As a society we’ve become incredibly whipped-up and put into a frenzy over these past few years.

Trump and his election are a big part of it, but if you look deeply, you’ll see that these issues have always been just below the surface.

Trump didn’t make the country into a different thing; he just showed us who we truly are and who we’ve always been.

Many today don’t like these truths, and attempt to ruin people’s lives for things they did when they were young and stupid. I'm not sure this is a healthy, long-term approach our country should take.

All things pass, and this stage of our country’s development will too.

It’ll just take time.

Wed. Quick Thoughts

2/13/2019

The legislature has been in session for over a month and I can’t really point to any accomplishments.

In fact, I can’t think of a single thing they’ve done...besides waste taxpayer money while making it a real headache to find Capitol-area parking for our regular state workers.

Mostly we just want to get a budget passed, and perhaps fund some infrastructure. Keeping Obamacare in Montana would probably help a lot of the working poor, as well as a lot of the rich people sitting on the various hospital boards around the state.

At this point, though, Republicans aren’t happy with Obamacare in Montana...mainly because we know that anywhere from 20,000 to 28,000 people on the program aren't working, but could work (meaning they’re not ill or disabled).

Neither Dems or Republicans have asked why so many that could work aren’t. I wonder if they will.

I also wonder how GOPer Fred Thomas feel about Obamacare work requirements. He took campaign money from nursing industry workers, doctors, medical consultants as well as Consumer Direct Care Network…a group that represents over 27,000 care workers.

Sadly, no reporters have asked the architect of Montana deregulation this question yet.

So Obamacare seems to be the main focus this week, not the budget.

The budget bill - HB 2 - is not going to appear on the House floor until March 19-21, according to Representative Forrest Mandeville, which was reported by Holly Michaels on Twitter today.

So that would be February 13 all the way until March 19 that the legislature is doing...what, exactly?

I know the Democrats are mostly putting forth ‘feel-good’ bills that have no chance of winning. These are things like state-funded preschool, increasing the minimum wage, granting paid family leave, and a host of other bills that won’t make it out of committee in a Republican-controlled legislature.

Freshman Democratic legislators probably know now why I’ve been harping for five years now that Dems need to figure out how to win a chamber.

Alas, all I get for my efforts are attacks and labels of DINO or anti-semite or whatever else is favorable in Dem circles...circles which don’t really care about policy so much as padding the pockets of those at the top of the Montana Democratic Party.

Republicans are mainly trying to harm as many of the working poor as possible while they try to pad their own pockets with further tax cuts for rich people like themselves.

The governor is too busy chasing the skirt of his presidential run, heading out of state again this Friday and Saturday.

In 13 months he’ll be back in Montana, licking his Super Tuesday wounds while filing to run against Daines. Like now, any talk of his possible presidential run will be frowned upon.

Also in 13 months, new executive director of the Montana Democratic Party - Monica Lindeen - will have made an additional $91,000 from her job.

During that time, Democrats won’t come any closer to taking a chamber of the legislature, and their chances of winning a statewide office back will be slim to none.

I think Dems will have their greatest chances at taking pack OPI and possibly AG.

There seems to be a lot of consensus among the left in the state that former Republican legislator, Kris Hansen, will run for AG.

I hope so.

Here’s what MT Post had to say a couple weeks ago on it:

"That leaves Kris Hansen for attorney general. She been placing her name in a lot of press releases from Rosendale of late, she does legal work in his office, of poor quality, that is detrimental to Montanans..."

And here’s what Ghost of Tom Joad had to say about it earlier this week:

"Hansen has managed to hire her own kind to replace employees who have either quit or been fired. And then there’s her living situation in which she’s shacked up with one of her paralegals from the office. Nothing inappropriate here, move along."

Yep, Hansen is working in Matt Rosendale’s Auditor’s Office at the moment.

I hope MT Post sends a public records request to that office, requesting a batch of her emails (can you think of any other site in Montana that would even try?).

I’d be interested in seeing how she actually is treating her employees, and I feel the emails will tell that story.

Might be worth shelling-out $100 to $200 for those emails.

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