At Tuesday’s regular meeting of the Great Falls Planning Advisory Board/Zoning Commission the members voted unanimously to recommend the denial of a conditional use permit submitted by the First United Methodist Church to operate an outdoor emergency homeless shelter on their property in downtown Great Falls. The Planning Advisory Board/Zoning Commission is comprised of Great…
The City of Great Falls Planning Advisory Board/Zoning Commission will take up a conditional use permit request by the First United Methodist Church in downtown Great Falls to operate an Emergency Shelter on its property. The meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, June 14 at 3:00 PM in the commission chambers at the Civic Center. The…
I’ve been asked to put on my amateur political analyst hat here for a little minute to talk about Tuesday’s primary election results in the Cascade County Sheriff’s race between incumbent Republican Jesse Slaughter and challenger Jay Groskreutz. This race wasn’t even close. Groskreutz got ‘slaughtered’ in a 70% to 30% landslide. That’s 9,248 votes…
In the interest of full transparency and in response to the dozens of complaints, comments and expressions of concern I’ve received over the past couple of months I am taking this opportunity to share the information made publicly available concerning the action recently taken by the City of Great Falls related to the ‘homeless encampment’…
In recent weeks I’ve received numerous complaints and questions about the situation at the so-called “homeless camp” in the parking lot and property of the First United Methodist Church in downtown Great Falls. The situation has caused a lot of controversy due to it’s location and the fact that the “camp” is growing, in the…
At last weeks Great Falls city commission meeting we voted unanimously to approve a tax abatement, worth about $2.8 million over 10 years, for the Calumet refinery here. The abatement is an incentive for Calumet’s bio-fuel expansion project which is creating more high-paying jobs in Great Falls, is environmentally friendly, and will help to boost…
Because I’ve been asked about it several times, I felt it necessary at last night’s Great Falls city commission meeting to publicly correct a piece of incorrect reporting by the Great Falls Tribune last week. The front page of the Tribune’s Thursday, March 31 print addition carried the following headline, “‘Not in my neighborhood’ Anti-Semitic,…
At last week’s Great Falls city commission meeting we voted to approve a $150,000 funding request, using federal ARPA funds, for the Great Falls International Airport. The money will be used as part of a matching fund package for a Small Community Air Service Development Grant (SCASD) to help lower air fares at Great Falls’…
During the public comment portion of last night’s Great Falls City Commission meeting quite a few local residents got up and expressed their opinions on the “homeless encampment” at the First United Methodist Church. You can view the video of the meeting here. Public comment begins at about 7 minutes 30 seconds into the meeting….
This week I received and reviewed some of the latest economic data put out by Patrick Barkey and the Bureau of Business and Economic Research at the University of Montana. Once again I found it interesting, and a little discouraging to be honest, to see how Great Falls/Cascade County is faring compared to other Montana…