In a brutal rebuke to the City of Great Falls, and to Commissioner Bill Bronson in particular, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development suspended funding related to the City’s CDBG program. In a letter addressed to the City (originally published by The Electric), HUD declared the following with respect to Bronson:
“Carol Bronson’s relationship to Bill Bronson and her position with NeighborWorks Great Falls creates a conflict of interest, because of the exposure to “inside information” and potential for financial benefit for herself and the organization.”
For years, loathsome “naysayers” who had the audacity to ask questions citizens have crowed that Bronson should step aside from these matters, and not participate in Commission business that awarded money to NWGF, where his wife, Carol, is employed.
Now that HUD has heard the “case,” it turns out that Bronson, always “the smartest guy in the room,” probably should have listened to his hoi polloi constituents.
Great Falls area 2018 state legislative races are shaping up to be interesting once again. The filing deadline for candidates is about a month away, March 12th.
The Primary Election is June 5th and the General Election is November 6th.
Here is a list of who has filed so far:
Senate District 11 – Tom Jacobson (D), Adam Rosendale (R)
Senate District 12 – Carlie Boland (D) Incumbent (appointed by Cascade County Commissioners after Mary Sheehy Moe resigned)
Senate District 13 – Brian Hoven (R) Incumbent, Kevin Vincent Leatherbarrow (L), Bob Moretti (D)
House District 17 – Ross H. Fitzgerald (R) Incumbent
House District 18 – Llew Jones (R)
House District 19 – Wendy McKamey (R) Incumbent, Lynelle Melton (D)
House District 20 – Fred Anderson (R) Incumbent, Keaton Sunchild (D)
House District 21 – John Abarr (D), Ed Buttrey (R), Leesha Ford(D)
House District 22 – Laura Dever (D)
House District 23 – Brad Hamlett (D) Incumbent
House District 24 – Barbara Bessette (D)
House District 25 – Jasmine Krotkov (D), Garrett Lankford (D), Jeremy Trebas (R) Incumbent
House District 26 – Casey Schreiner (D) Incumbent
Stay tuned to E-City Beat for updated coverage, information, and articles from the candidates themselves as we continue to follow the upcoming election.
You can file for office with the Secretary of State and get all the info you need here.
Here’s where you can find all of the legislative district maps. Candidates are not required to live in the House or Senate district in which they are running but are required to be a legal resident of the county in which they are running.
Did you know that the Great Falls City Manager, all of the City of Great Falls department heads and the City Commission conducted a “State of the City” special City Commission work session meeting this past Friday morning, February 9th?
A little long but pretty interesting in parts. We will be providing more specific information on the meeting and the State of the City as soon as the meeting minutes become available and we’re able to distill some of the information into more digestible pieces.
HERES AN UPDATE on an item we posted yesterday taking KRTV and their Online News Director Dave Sherman to task for what some of their readers/viewers consider to be an unexplainable and contradictory censorship/delete/block policy on the stations Facebook page.
We used a screenshot from that Facebook page to illustrate the point. You can read our post and see the screenshot here.
Two commenters on our own Facebook page took us to task for “attacking” Sherman and KRTV. We welcome criticism and “attacks” on our content but we wondered then and wonder now why the critics of our KRTV/Sherman post didn’t seem even a little concerned that KRTV allowed the insulting, derogatory, homophobic comments to remain on the page even after 6 hours.
“…but we wondered then and wonder now why the critics of our KRTV/Sherman post didn’t seem even a little concerned that KRTV allowed the insulting, derogatory, homophobic comments to remain on the page even after 6 hours.”
So we went back and looked again – and lo and behold, two of the three slurs are STILL THERE after more than 30 hours. Here’s the screenshot taken about 6:50 PM, Thursday:
“Judge fagg lmfao!”
“What a fagg !”
This is why we find KRTV’s policy so strange; these slurs are allowed to remain even though they clearly contradict KRTV’s own policy which we’ve included below (emphasis added).
•Comments that contain vulgar, profane, hateful, or abusive language or images; personal attacks against other commenters, or offensive terms that discriminate against specific ethnic, national, racial, or sexual groups.
•Derogatory comments about a person’s appearance or name.
•Comments that point out spelling/grammar errors of other commenters
•Comments that are clearly off-topic or spam
•Comments that make unsupported legal accusations or encourage illegal activity, or which contain deliberate falsehoods or misinformation.
•Comments that implicate family members in crimes that they are not charged with.
•”Drive-by” or sarcastic comments that are designed primarily to elicit negative responses or start a comment fight (sometimes known as trolling).
•Comments that link to non-MTN news sites”
Oddly enough, these guidelines which were apparently copied and posted yesterday by a commenter on the KRTV FB page, appear to have been taken down from the link they list for guidelines. As of 8:00 PM Thursday we got the following message when clicking the link: http://www.krtv.com/story/34511953/krtv-facebook-page-commenting-guidelines
“Our Apologies
The page you requested is currently unavailable. Pages on this site are constantly being revised, updated, and occasionally removed. You may have followed an outdated link or have outdated pages in your browser cache.
Please use your browser’s BACK button to return to the previous page.
We apologize for any inconvenience.”
By not deleting the offensive comments, is Online News Editor Sherman just being stubborn to prove point or does he consider homophobic, derogatory slurs mocking someone’s name to be appropriate content for KRTV’s FB page?
An alert (and angry) reader alerted us to this item on KRTV’s Facebook page earlier today, the comments below the news item are what caught the readers, and our, attention:
So we have to ask, where was KRTV online news director Dave Sherman for this one? After all, Deletin’ Dave has gained quite the reputation around town for being real quick with the delete button and block function for comments and commenters as he’s directin’ that online news for KRTV.
Just ask the many folks who have had their comments blocked or opinions deleted on KRTV’s Facebook page if their comments were as bad or insulting as what you see here.
“Judge fagg lmfao!”
“Such a fagg”
“What a fagg !”
Yeah, hilarious huh?
Yet those comments remain after at least 6 full hours. How is this kind of juvenile mockery in any way appropriate? What is KRTV’s standard for deleting and blocking their viewers and readers opinions and comments? Because as far as we can tell it’s kind of arbitrary and depends more on Deletin’ Dave Sherman’s political views and agenda than on any kind of common sense or fair standard.
KRTV has the right to block and delete anything they see fit. Unfortunately, it appears that these kind of juvenile comments against a Republican candidate are exactly the kind of garbage that KRTV deems appropriate.
We’re asking for folks to go ahead and let us know if they’ve been blocked or deleted by Deletin’ Dave and KRTV. Just post your story here or on our Facebook page.
E-City Beat welcomes all comments related to the corresponding post as long as those comments are on point and are not slanderous, obscene or overly personal. E-City Beat will not allow this blog to be a platform to launch unrelated personal attacks or vendettas disguised as comments against our staff or contributors.
In Jeni Dodd’s recent piece about the proposed Friesen development, Great Falls Concerned Citizens chief organizer, George Nikolakakos, writes:
“On Mr, [Tom] Jacobson, as an economic authority in the region, his opinion matters and carries weight. What he has pointed out (unrelated to this project) is that the average wage in cascade county is $18 an hour, therefore, 17 an hour is literally and factually lower wage as it brings down that average.”
$17.00/per hour x 40 hours per week x 50 weeks per year = $34,000.00.
How, then, is this statement true: “What he has pointed out (unrelated to this project) is that the average wage in cascade county is $18 an hour, therefore, 17 an hour is literally and factually lower wage as it brings down that average.”
Mr. Larson's information about me is not correct. There is no Deferred sentence and no probation as stated. Yes deferred prosecution and charges dropped. I did not plead guilty or nor was I found guilty. @GFtrib_JStrauss https://t.co/0lHy5nvYVa
On New Year’s Eve, a sleepy news day, Sheriff Bob Edwards tweeted Tribune reporter Seaborn Larson’s blatant inaccuracies to Tribune publisher Jim Strauss, who, to his credit, issued a swift correction.
Sheriff Edwards’ tweet does raise important questions, however. For instance, does Larson possess the mental agility to differentiate between a criminal sentence that is deferred or not? Does he know the difference between probation versus no probation? Can he objectively tell us the difference between a “guilty” versus a “not guilty” plea?
Or, does he simply have a hard on for law enforcement?
Here’s hoping everyone had a wonderful holiday season and wishing all a marvelous, prosperous 2018.
We look forward to continuing our mission to publish great content about our city, state and region in the coming year.
Stay tuned this week for a very interesting and informative piece written by Great Falls Public School District board member Jan Cahill in response to an earlier article we published written by Steve Alley concerning the expenditure of funds from last years $98 million local school bond. You can read Mr. Alleys piece here.
Once again, thanks for reading and following E-City Beat and Happy New Year!
There are a couple of local government boards with fast approaching application deadlines readers should be aware of (and might be interested in applying for) – The Great Falls Ethics Committee and the Cascade County Zoning Board of Adjustments.
The newly created City Ethics Committee is seeking three members to serve three, two and one year terms. For more information contact Krista Artis at 455-8450.
The five member County Zoning Board has two openings for two year terms. This is the board that will decide whether or not the proposed Madison Food Park will receive the required special use permit. You can fill out and return a board application here and call (406) 454-6810 with any questions.
Both boards meet on an as-needed basis and both have application deadlines of Friday, December 15 at 5:00 PM.
