Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 66
If Alan Muskett’s boat doesn’t measure up, I have a 48’ trawler in Guatemala for sale. Fire sale price, way warmer and cheaper cruising than the east coast....
Montana leads all 50 states in the total federal aid it receives as a percent of its total state revenue, 31.8%. Stated another way you could consider us a “welfare” state. Also, the largest employer group in Montana is government, local, state and federal combined. So when a candidate says he or she is going to cut federal spending and shrink government, we must understand we may be the most adversely affected. Montana has a large amount of federal forest service, BLM and national park land. Our state and federal park areas are combined nearly...
I would like to echo C. Burt Caldwell’s endorsement of Sen. Jon Tester in his July 25 letter to the editor in the Pathfinder. Sen. Tester has consistently demonstrated he is working for all Montanans. That contrasts sharply with Sen. Steve Daines who is highly partisan and is in fact a leader of the Republican National Committee. His first loyalty seems to be with his party. Our congressional representatives, Rep. Ryan Zinke and Rep. Matt Rosendale are junior senators who don’t seem to be accomplishing much at all, despite the fact they are...
Condon residents unhappy with Missoula County government should consider the real fact Lake County would probably reject their offer to join that county. It would be a far reach for Lake County to offer the required fire, road and other emergency services.It has plenty of problems of its own. I know I now reside in both Missoula and Lake Counties. Because the Tribal government does not pay its full share for government services it enjoys and it recently took the Kerr Dam out of the Lake County tax base, the county government is strapped. A far...
We don’t have a nitrate problem in Seeley. We have a health department/real estate developer problem. These folks continue to push for a central sewer for the area but the system they are proposing, in the sewer district as it is now drawn, will never clean up or protect the watershed. The present sewer district does not include the worst septic effluent polluters. That would be all the waterfront and riverfront properties on all the lakes. Were the Missoula County Health Department to ever develop the political courage to test all the w...
The primarily male U.S. Supreme Court has recently determined American women cannot decide for themselves what to do with their bodies. It trashed their reproductive rights while fiercely defending (primarily male) rights to carry an AR 15. Let’s bring this discussion down to the local level. I would very much like to know where my legislative representatives Representative Mike Hopkins and Senator Shannon O’Brien, stand on reproductive rights and gun control? What legislative actions will they initiate, defend or oppose at the Montana Leg...
Realtor Kevin Wetherell has noted home prices in the Seeley area have jumped by 53%...to an average price of $399,000. So much for affordable housing in Seeley Lake. What he does not mention, discuss or analyze is the impact realtors’ sales commissions have on housing prices. I would submit realtors’ commissions have a direct effect on the increased cost of housing AND the growth of local government. Here’s how: The realtors commission becomes part of the sales price of a home. That 4-6% increase in cost translates as a direct increase on an...
SEELEY LAKE - The Seeley Lake Sewer Board is sorting out its priorities and finally heading in a good direction. I appreciate the work done by Beth Hutchinson who has worked tirelessly on behalf of Seeley Lake to ensure a sensible wastewater treatment policy. Without Hutchinson’s efforts, the 500 sewer district residents would be stuck with an ill-conceived, $35 million sewer project pushed by local development groups who have large land holdings in the district. She is a shining example of what community involvement should be and her cool h...
SEELEY LAKE - Voters unanimously defeated a $35-million albatross sewer proposal but the message seems to have fallen on deaf ears. Now the Sewer Board wants to charge resident homeowners $250/year for each parcel in the district. Many residences sit on two, even three parcels so the owners will be paying $500-750 a year for what? Stuff the County Health Department should have been doing from the get-go If the Missoula County Health Department would do its job we wouldn’t even NEED a Sewer District Board. The Board has FAILED to properly m...
SEELEY LAKE - The Seeley Lake Sewer District voters have spoken....again....loudly and clearly. They do NOT want a $35 million sewer to grow the community for a half dozen developers who have touted the proposal. If the board is listening it should: 1. Return any unused taxpayer funds to the taxpayers. 2. Fire itself and disband. We can re-constitute the board down the road as a COMBINED sewer / water district if we elect to move in a new direction....
SEELEY LAKE - Curt Friede’s letter to the editor about the sewer proposal last week suggests we “get the facts.” Here are a few: Fact: Mr. Friede of one of the parties suing the sewer district board to force them to build the sewer. Fact: There is NO SIGNIFICANT groundwater nitrate degradation, in the groundwater OR the lake, that we know of definitively. The engineers recommended water quality testing in all four sewer “sub-districts” but test wells were drilled in only two. Of those two, only one was tested regularly and it consisten...
Walt Hill’s comments on our Seeley Lake sewer mess would be laughable except for the fact he is a respected community leader. His ignorance of the facts of the case are scary and dangerous. Here are some facts: • Sewer District residents have a right to KNOW all the truths about the sewer project...the reasons, the costs, the impact. The Sewer District Board has NEVER completely provided those facts to residents. • Sewer District residents have a right to PARTICIPATE in the discussion of this very important discussion. Past Boards have pooh,...
Senator Steve Daines is one of 12 senators who have decided your vote doesn’t count. Those officials, led by Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, have organized to protest Joe Biden’s victory and are making a futile effort to unseat the President-elect. By this action Senator Daines is ignoring the Constitution he has sworn to uphold. While most of us democrats have long-felt a vote for Mr. Daines is wasted, this new twist suggests these officials are telling you ALSO, your vote doesn’t matter. To hell with the will of the people. Makes you wonder where...
The Federal Government has only the powers specifically enumerated to it...all other powers accrue to the states. That’s the way the U.S. Constitution reads. However we all know, because it controls the big purse strings, the Feds make state and local governments beggar “socialist” states, ready and waiting for the myriad federal aid program handouts. And because the Fed controls these purse strings, it dictates much of what state and local leaders do. Our new Montana leaders, many of whom will take office next month, need to carefully exami...
The Seeley-Swan, and Montana generally, stayed red this past election cycle. What are the messages in this continued move to the right? Voters are apparently demanding less government, less in-your-face regulation and permitting, lower taxes and, presumably, fewer government “services.” That might even go as far as reduced funding for public education, welfare assistance and environmental protection programs. So, now that we have a Republican governor, a republican legislature and we have re-elected Republican Mike Hopkins to represent us up...
For those voters who worry about Montana becoming a socialist state, you’re too late. Montana already IS a welfare state. We get more back in federal payments than we pay out to the federal government in taxes. The Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, veterans’ benefits, unemployment insurance and the Federal highway programs are just a few of the many federal programs we enjoy. And the CRP, crop rotation program that pays farmers to NOT produce, is one of the biggest welfare scams in the country. Think about that!...
Mike Hopkins is asking to be re-elected to the Montana Legislature as the representative from the Seeley-Swan -Potomac-Bonner-Clinton area. Here’s a fact to consider in your decision to vote or NOT VOTE for him. Seeley residents have been undergoing a vigorous, divisive discussion over a $40 million central sewer proposal. Mike Hopkins has never entered that discussion and asked if or how he could help. There are four state funding entities which could assist a local government like Seeley. The funding from these entities is woefully i...
With all the “grades” being issued by the National Rifle Association (NRA) for Montana political candidates I’d like to offer some perspective on this highly partisan organization. I am 74 years old and have hunted for nearly 60 years in Montana. When I was honored to be elected as a Democrat to the Montana House of Representatives back in the 1990s I earned a “D” rating from the NRA the entire time I was in office. The Republican gentleman who defeated me in my fourth bid for re-election had never hunted, fished or owned a gun but received...
It is time to fully examine the idea of combining Missoula with the county to streamline our governments. Communities such as Butte - Silverbow have done this successfully and dramatically reduced government costs by increasing efficiency. There is only one incorporated town in Missoula County, the City of Missoula. How hard would it be to re-constitute our local governments? Conduct a poll and ask the residents and I’ll bet they will agree - combined fire, water, sewer, road, police and school systems would eliminate a ton of expensive duplica...
Missoula County Health Department Specialist Jim Erven doesn’t seem to get it. The residents in the Seeley Lake Sewer District fully understand the Health Department is a bully, it does its work poorly and the $40-million sewer project it is pushing will further impoverish us. Let me explain further. The Board has never fully tested the area aquifer to accurately determine the “need” for a sewer. Lake water quality remains virtually unchanged over the past 40 years I have resided in this community, despite considerable growth. The Board has nev...
Steve Daines’ campaign ads that claim he will bring back the jobs from overseas suggest he is either stupid or naive. Here’s why... The jobs, if they ever were in the U.S, went overseas because there is cheaper labor and less government regulation - hence more profit for the companies that went there. Until those things change, U.S. companies will continue to base their manufacturing overseas. Should a company decide to return its operations back to the U.S. there’s a good chance it will not be able to find workers to perform the labor...
COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. are at more than 100,000, more than 40 million people have filed for unemployment and the U.S. economy is officially in “recession.” While Montana has experienced relatively few deaths, its economy, too, is taking a substantial hit as people socially isolate and “non-essential” businesses have been shuttered. Montana is one of the very few states that does not have a general sales tax and instead relies on the property tax to fund its state and local governments. States which do depend on the sales tax have had to...
SEELEY LAKE - I would like to remind Sewer Board candidate Kyle Zumwalt, the Sewer Board and Missoula County, their actions overturning the 2016 public vote declining the project caused the lawsuit. The solution is obvious - restore the voters’ right to participate and let them vote on the $40,000,000 project....
SEELEY LAKE - I am writing to recommend Tom Morris and Jason Gilpin for election to the Seeley Lake Sewer District board. Here is why. With only one recent exception, current board members have blindly pursued an exorbitantly expensive sewage treatment solution which will not clean up or protect our watershed. Tom and Jason will respect our constitutional rights to know and participate in this important process. With the direct aid of Missoula County officials, the Board did an end run around our 2016 vote to NOT pursue this proposal and has...
SEELEY LAKE - Missoula County officials have spent more than a half-million taxpayer dollars in the past decade trying to sell a community sewer here in Seeley Lake. Unfortunately, the proposal the sewer board settled on stinks. It does not clean up the shore dwellers’ waste effluent (less than 25 percent of the waterfront properties on the lake and the Clearwater are in the sewer district). It does not protect the watershed. It is REALLY expensive. And it may very well pollute nearly 100 drinking water wells up near the airport where the t...
