Close to 15 years ago, Condon residents were ready to get out of Missoula County.
A Missoulian article from 2009 highlighted the Swan Valley Preservation Group, then led by Ken Donovan, which hoped to join Lake County, looking for less regulation and less taxes paid for things the group felt were never realized an hour and a half away from the city of Missoula.
Quite a bit earlier, during the first Constitutional Convention for the state of Montana in 1889, convention delegate Martin Maginnis from Lewis and Clark County yearned for a state of many small counties that would better cater to the needs of fewer residents.
This was a bit of a different priority than John Wesley Powell’s, the director of the United States Geological Survey at the time. Powell was an early proponent of water conservation in the arid West and urged Montana to reject an arbitrary county drawing system and adopt governmental boundaries based on water basins, according to research done by the Montana Association of Counties. Residents would control not only the land, but the water, too, Wesley said.
Ultimately, Wesley didn’t get his way and a quote included in MACO’s research from Maginnis is reflective of what Donovan and the Swan Valley Preservation Group were advocating for then, and what another group of Condon residents are looking for now — local control.
“I believe in small counties, and I believe their affairs are economically conducted,” Magginis said. “I believe their officers are closer to the people. I have known when the counties of this territory were small and their assessed valuation was small, and I believe it is the tendency of large and wealthy counties to create extravagance. Yes, to create the demand for great public buildings and extravagance in other ways.”
“I think that one ought to go to his county seat in one day; and it would be better if he could go there and back in one day. I believe the counties ought to be so small that there would be a general unity of interest between different sections of the country…I believe it will be for the interest of the territory, and for its welfare to have smaller counties and allow the people more latitude in making them,” Maginnis continued.
Ted Morgan, member of the Swan Valley Community Council and part of a second wave of incorporation or county-switching talks happening in Condon, said the echo of frustrations from 2009 is similar to what people are experiencing now.
Generally what Morgan hears from Condon residents is that they are tired of paying high taxes in Missoula County, frustrated with the county’s more stringent building codes and feeling like they don’t have a voice. As Missoula County grows and Condon remains a small part — about 0.2% of Missoula County population-wise, based on 2020 Census data — Morgan worries the latter concern will only grow.
“What’s our voice going to look like then?” Morgan, who is also running for Montana’s State House of Representatives, asked.
Chris Lousbury, chief administrative officer for the Missoula County Board of Commissioners, said a pro of incorporation is that an area is able to develop more of a sense of local control, particularly in the way it operates the facets of government that it would determine, like court systems or police departments.
County governments only have the authority granted to them by the state, Lounsbury said, and must make decisions or solutions on a county-wide basis, which makes it difficult to focus on the needs of one area.
For example, the state requires each county to have a sheriff’s department, and the services a sheriff’s department must provide — civil paperwork, criminal investigations — are the same across the state. The way it differs is by the demands of the county. Missoula County staffs its sheriff’s department 24/7 and is required to have a jail, which might not be the same in a more sparsely populated county.
Building codes are an area where the state allows counties to have different options.
There will always be a building code, but it comes down to whether the state is implementing and conducting inspections, or if a county decides to have its own local building code program, like Missoula County does, and conduct its own inspections. Missoula County recently required structures like greenhouses to have building permits, until that was amended by county commissioners in early July.
The first big con of incorporation that Lounsbury identified is that residents usually end up paying more in taxes for hyper-localized services, which plays into the next potential downside he brought up being that even with this type of local control, not everything might be solved in the way that was originally hoped.
“The reality is that local government is very good at the things it does but it can’t do everything,” Lounsbury said.
Condon vacating Missoula County and joining Lake County, instead of becoming its own municipality, was another option Morgan has talked about.
From information Morgan received, Condon doesn’t have the required population to incorporate. To start the process, two wards made up of 50 voters are needed along with a minimum population of 200. Morgan said Condon’s numbers show less than that required 200.
After getting a required number of signatures in support of the venture, changing counties has to be approved by both the county an area would be leaving and the county that is receiving. The approval must come from county commissioners and the voters in each county.
Lake County is more rural, which Morgan said could provide Condon residents with lower taxes because of the amount of and way services are provided and with more of a representative voice.
The way the county shifting option is set up in state law makes it difficult for it to happen, Lounsbury said, which also makes it so the community considering the option has to collaborate and understand what they may gain and lose in the process.
“It’s a difficult process and I think the Legislature did that intentionally to make sure it was a thoughtful process,” Lounsbury said.
Generally, Lounsbury said there’s one big issue driving talks of incorporation or county switching — like taxes or building codes — and once that’s settled, the conversation kind of dies out.
Morgan agrees, in part.
“We wouldn’t be going down this road if our county actually presented feasible options to fix our issues,” Morgan said. “They’re not, currently.”
The next Swan Valley Community Council meeting is on Aug. 20 at 6 p.m. at the community center in Condon.
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