Sorry, but that complaint is kind of misleading, because gaming licenses are tied to liquor/alcohol licenses which are controlled by the state and apportioned to communities according to population.
Think Whack-a-Mole. One has to close before another pops up. We haven’t had any “new” additional casinos here for a long time.
I’ve said this before, but because of the misperception about how our local economy works I’ll say it again: The City Commission has no legal authority to prevent any business, including a casino, from opening as long as that business meets all of the safety, permitting, zoning and state licensing requirements.
It is a common misunderstanding that the City of Great Falls local government picks and chooses which kinds of businesses we allow to open and operate here. We do not.
How many times have you heard, “Why don’t they bring in (fill in the blank)?”
There is no “they”. This is a free market economy and the kinds of businesses that open and succeed or fail in Great Falls is determined by market forces, not the City Commission or City Manager etc.
Local government can help shape the regulatory, development, and tax environment to a certain degree, but beyond that it’s up to what the marketplace will support.
If you don’t like the kinds of businesses or developments “they” are “bringing in” to Great Falls and think “they” should “bring in” the kind of businesses or developments you would like to see here, then here’s a suggestion:
Put a business plan together, invest your own money, apply for a big ol’ loan, or get a group of investors together and open that business or build that housing subdivision.
Put some of your own skin in the game – then maybe you’ll understand what a huge risk it is and how hard it is to actually start and run a profitable enterprise.
Editors note: The following press release was received by E-City Beat Monday morning. We are publishing it without edits or editorial comment. The press release doesn’t necessarily reflect the opinion of E-City Beat or any of our contributors and it is not a campaign endorsement for Tony Rosales.
Emphasizing Constructive Change While Acknowledging Good Faith Efforts of All Parties
GREAT FALLS, MT, April 8, 2024 – In recent weeks, Tony Rosales has engaged in critical discussions regarding an identified conflict of interest (link), speaking with both school administrators and members of the involved non-profit. A summary of findings are as follows:
· Lance Boyd, the Executive Director for Student Achievement and Director of Student Services at GFPS, previously held positions on the board and as chair of the organization Peace Place
· In February 2024, Boyd resigned from his role at Peace Place, indicating a key reason for his departure included scheduling conflicts between school board and non-profit board meetings
· Peace Place receives funding from various sources including government grants, with the majority coming from grant application programs and a smaller portion from funding that follows students
· Boyd’s role in any fund transfers or referrals of children and families to community resources have additional oversight mechanisms beyond the Director of Student Services’ purview
· Peace Place’s aims to provide “respite with a purpose,” which is a unique community offering defined as support and supervision to provide temporary relief to a primary caregiver
· Peace Place also provides educational services, albeit this is not their main mission
· Both Superintendent Tom Moore and Executive Director Lance Boyd emphasized that administrators are highly encouraged to be involved in the community and to serve on non-profit boards that align with their passions
Acknowledging the Executive Director’s resignation, it is still evident there was a past conflict of interest with GFPS’ commitment to students. Holding dual roles that have substantially overlapping responsibilities posed substantial risk to GFPS. Any risk, known or unknown, associated with Peace Place was inextricably linked to GFPS, and had the potential to impose significant legal costs despite our current budget deficits. While we can advocate for community involvement of our administrators, it must come with School Board oversight rather than individual discretion.
The significant community response, including over 1,000 social media engagements and numerous private messages expressing concern, underscores the need for greater oversight and evaluation, especially for special education programs and external community resources.
This situation illustrates the critical need for more assertive leadership from the school board. To rebuild trust within the community, we urge the school board to take immediate and transparent action by:
· Publicly addressing this conflict of interest, including the board’s prior knowledge and stance on such external appointments
· Providing a comprehensive list of cabinet members’ involvement in other organizations, possible conflicts of interest within that list and GFPS, and clarifying if the board approves
· Developing and implementing robust conflict of interest policies to better mitigate risk, including an approval procedure ensuring awareness of administrative engagements within the community
The E-City Beat✓ article correctly identified the two folks who together donated the bulk of ‘Yes for Libraries’ PAC funding and their relationships to the library director and library board chair. Hard to argue with the truth, so Taylor tries to reframe it with hyperbolic attacks on E-City Beat✓.
Philanthropy? Why didn’t those donors give $130,000 directly to the library instead? That would have more than covered the $120,000 projected budget shortfall for FY2024. The library had no problem accepting $300,000 last fall from an anonymous donor through the Great Falls Library Foundation to cover a budget shortfall when the library director failed to account for increases in electrical and personnel costs. Increases she claims took her by surprise but there is evidence that she would have known about those costs. But instead of taking that under consideration and planning for those increased costs, she continued spending money with her hiring spree for new library personnel.
Seems to me that if pointed out to them, many folks in Great Falls would note the distinction between pure philanthropy and money spent to support a political agenda. It happens far too often that the side with the most money wields the political influence and that’s what happened in this library levy election. The two donors mentioned funded a ballot issue POLITICAL Action Committee to a push the pro-levy narrative and win an election. So don’t be fooled by Taylor’s attacking E-City Beat✓ as being anti-philanthropic— it’s simply obfuscation.
‘Yes for Libraries’ TV ads used the cuteness factor of children. One ad featured a cute child exclaiming, “learn me to read”— definitely an appeal to emotion. False reporting by local legacy media that the library would close its doors if the levy wasn’t passed undoubtedly duped some voters. I noticed that the library director, the library board and ‘Yes for Libraries’ didn’t step up to correct that misnomer. Of course not, it was a huge gift in their favor.
In fact, what many Great Falls voters failed to grasp, due to the spin by ‘Yes for Libraries’ and local media, is that levy was meant to fund a huge EXPANSION of the library’s mission and services.
The director and board were determined to tread into social services waters when the Montana Code Annotated defines a public library’s purpose as the following — “to give the people of Montana the fullest opportunity to enrich and inform themselves through reading.” Seems a venture into providing social services would therefore be unlawful under the MCA. I would also opine, given the library’s usage and patron numbers, an expansion appeared unwarranted.
So no, dear readers, I’m not going to stop beating the drum on the fact that voters were misled by pro-levy proponents, including the media, about the library levy. It is something we should NEVER forget.
For some time now, I’ve also noticed that Taylor repeatedly attacks the ‘Liberty and Values MT’ organization for their billboards against the library levy, which included both the word “no” and the red strike-through symbol — messaging that no doubt could be perceived as a double negative. But keeping her proper English theme, it seems a bit hypocritical of Taylor to criticize that when she’s used “canvas” and “canvass” interchangeably throughout several of her blog entries about elections. I’ve included a screen shot of one of her headlines as an example. Perhaps she’ll just blame the autocorrect.
Taylor appears to do little to no research or fact checking. Her latest error — incorrectly identifying a new hire at the elections office as Beth Cummings and tying this person, who isn’t Cummings, to one of her Election Protection Committee conspiratorial narratives. In particular, the conspiracy where she equates library levy opposition to being anti-library. It seems Taylor doesn’t have the discernment to understand that those two concepts aren’t the same and can actually co-exist. But not being able to grasp something like that is true of much of the leftist rhetoric these days.
Then there’s Jake Sorich, who is one of the newer hires for the Great Falls Public Library. He’s their communications person and he also has a Substack account where he posts his musings.
His recent effort, ‘Powerful people will start to listen if you raise your voice enough’, is an uninformed piece about local politics. In it, he writes, “Locally, we have seen elected officials repeatedly try to overturn the will of the people for what THEY want. And yes, I’m talking about the local levies. Certain officials have expressed their desire to take the money granted for one organization in a levy the people voted to approve, and dump it into other public entities that had their levy fail. (Even if they disagree, that’s essentially what would have happened no matter what anyone wants you to believe otherwise.)”
Pretty obtuse to not name names. Wonder who and what he’s referring to in his piece.
Could it be Sorich is referring to Great Falls City Commissioner Tryon as the elected official, and his efforts to reexamine the 1993 agreement between the city and the library board which granted the library 7 mills? If so, he needs to do some research before spouting off.
Get a clue — “the people” never voted for that 7 mills; it was never on a ballot. It was voted on by the city commission and the library board. That’s why it is called “7 mills by agreement” in nearly every city and library reference. So much for Sorich’s “overturn of the will of the people.”
Yet regarding the actual overturn of the will of the people that occurred when two county commissioners took election duties away from the Clerk/Recorder AND ELECTIONS ADMINISTRATOR less than a year after the will of the people elected someone to that combined position — crickets from Sorich.
E-City Beat has confirmed that the two largest contributions to the ‘Vote YES for Libraries’ committee, which advocated in favor of the Great Falls Public Library levy in 2023, appear to have come in equal amounts from the spouses/partners of Susan McIntyre, the Library Director, and Whitney Olson, the Chair of the library board.
As Library Director Susan McIntyre is a paid employee of the City of Great Falls.
Douglas Little also contributed $65,000 to the committee, here’s the screenshot:
Mr. Little is referenced as a co-donor, which indicates either spouse or domestic partner, along with Whitney Olson on the United Way donor web page, here’s the screenshot:
As Chair of the library board Whitney Olson is not a paid employee of the City of Great Falls.
On January 16 at the Great Falls City Commission meeting I proposed an initiative to meet a process deadline which would have then given the City Commission, the library board, and the public three months time (90 days) to review and have a discussion about a 30-year-old agreement between the City and the Great Falls Public Library Board of Trustees. The agreement would have been discussed and reviewed in that three month period and could have been renewed as is, renewed with amendments, or terminated.
Some say the initiative was proposed too suddenly, that there wasn’t enough time given for the commission to vote on opening a 3-month window of opportunity to review the agreement. It seems to me the urgency of considering City budgets in light of the public safety funding for police, fire and courts was important enough to move quickly and open discussion on the library funding agreement.
There was an immediate deadline looming to open that discussion by Commission vote with no final decisions needed until the three month period of review concluded.
The 7 mills of funding in the agreement (current value of which is about $900,000) was not intended to provide taxpayer dollars for the library exclusively in perpetuity without any possibility for review or discussion.
The agreement is up for renewal each and every year and the funding is discretionary, as the library board, City finance personnel, and the city commission have all clearly understood every year during budget time.
My initiative was a request to publicly review that agreement before the FY25 budget is passed and before the automatic renewal of the agreement.
There is an argument that citizens were fully aware of the 7 mill funding agreement and its dollar amount and therefore this agreement should not be reviewed because it is ‘written in stone’ as only for library use, even though it has an annual renewal date and was never voted upon by the citizens of this community.
It follows that if citizens were fully aware and educated about the 7 mill funding agreement, then they also would be fully aware of its annual renewal and would therefore not have assumed it is 7 mills only for library expansion for ever and ever, amen.
The library currently receives 24 mills of City funding (15 more than they received prior to the levy vote in June of last year) 17 mills of which are voted mills, and 7 mills (those in the agreement) having never been voted on by Great Falls voters – they are general fund mills that can and should be used for ANY City priorities and which are not limited to library expansion projects.
Priorities can and do change, especially over a 30 year period.
I have been a regular GFPL patron, library card holder, frequent service user, and supporter of our library and its historical role in our community for many, many years. I value the role of our library and its staff and board.
My concerns are about funding priorities without regard to political or ideological considerations. Period.
I was reelected to the Great Falls City Commission a little over two months ago based on a clear, unambiguous, and repeated platform of public safety and public infrastructure being the top priorities for Great Falls. I will continue to hold those as my top priorities when considering budget issues going forward.
At the very least we should have a full, open and honest public discussion about this issue – and the sooner the better.
Over the past few months I have received quite a few emails in my city commission mailbox from local constituents with the subject line, ‘Reaffirm your commitment to America’s closest ally, Israel.‘
The content of the email is the same but from many different local folks concerned about the ongoing war in Israel. You can read it in its entirety here.
Here is a paragraph from the email:
“Israel is under constant threat, both from terrorists such as Iran’s proxies Hamas and Hezbollah, and from those who undermine Israel’s right to exist. The attacks of October 7 destroyed any assumptions that Hamas’ had a pragmatic interest in governing Gaza – its sole goal is the elimination of Israel and the Jewish people. As such, calling for a ceasefire gives Hamas credit and authority it no longer deserves. Calls for a ceasefire are not reasonable or realistic, nor is it the only way to guarantee that Palestinian civilians will be protected. Existing efforts to allow for food, water, medicine, and other essential assistance to flow into Gaza and to the people who need them must be bolstered.”
I agree with the sentiments expressed here – especially the point that a ceasefire is not “reasonable or realistic” given the circumstances.
So yes, I reaffirm my personal commitment to Israel and to our Jewish community in Great Falls. But I also recognize the horror of war and its hellish impact on all of the civilians caught in the crossfire.
And certainly I recognize that there are others in Great Falls who hold a different viewpoint from my own concerning calls for a ceasefire. One of them is Eamon Ormseth, who was invited by the Great Falls Public Library to give a presentation on Palestine. You can view the entire one hour talk, given on January 4th, here.
Ormseth is an activist with a group called “Montanans for Palestine” and he organized a rally in Great Falls the day after his talk at the library. The rally was covered by Joe Taylor at the Fairfield Sun Times and here is an excerpt from that reporting:
“I have friends whose friends have been killed in the Israeli airstrike on the church, the orthodox church in Gaza. Another friends’ relatives are sheltering in the catholic church in which Israeli snipers killed two of them, two people in that church recently. And a friend of a friend was just murdered by the Israeli army very close to where I live. So, it’s very personal. I have friends in Palestine and I just don’t see how the United States continues to support such a brutal occupation,” said Ormseth.
Around 8-10 people were at the rally at the Civic Center and chanted along side Ormseth, “Free Palestine” “Stop the Bombing” and “Cease Fire” were among the chants.
We live in a such a time that even far-flung controversies and wars can reach across the distance and touch us right here in Great Falls, Montana. Interesting times indeed.
Not only are taxes inevitable – it can be hard to understand how they get calculated, assessed, and collected.
The finger pointing concerning taxes in Montana is in full swing – counties blaming cities, the state blaming counties and cities, cities blaming the state, state legislators blaming county and city commissioners, county and city commissioners blaming state legislators, Democrats blaming Republicans and vice-a-versa, cats blaming dogs, etc.
Angry citizens blaming all of the above.
Here are a few basic facts to help sort through it all and answer some questions I’ve been hearing lately from Great Falls taxpayers:
All property valuations in Great Falls are assessed by the State Department of Revenue, not the City of Great Falls.
All of the various classes of property tax rates are determined by the State Legislature, not the Great Falls City Commission, City Manager, or Finance Director. Those current basic multiplier rates are 1.89% for commercial property and 1.35% for residential. Multiply your assessed value times the class rate to determine your taxable value.
The overall valuation of taxable property in a given jurisdiction, i.e., school district, county, municipality, is determined by the State Department of Revenue. This year the state DOR assessed an historic increase in newly taxable property within the Great Falls city limits.
The local option tax on recreational adult use marijuana sales countywide is calculated at 45% of the 3% tax collected by the County, not the 20% state rate as some have mistakenly suggested. The local 3% ‘weed tax’ will be distributed by formula to the incorporated towns within Cascade County and is estimated be about $240,000 per year for Great Falls. Not chump change, but only a small fraction of the cost of our public safety needs.
Local property tax dollars go into the City of Great Falls general fund, out of which our local police, fire, and courts are paid for. Other City services are funded through fees for services etc.
A few things you should know about the so-called ‘Election Protection Committee’ here in Great Falls – it is NOT a local government commission, nor is it a legally appointed committee. Their ads appearing on the front page of the Great Falls Tribune as local mail-in ballots are being received by eligible City election voters is just another dirty trick from the local Democratic machine and the complicit Great Falls School District, to which the greatest share of your local tax dollars go.
EPC is simply a group of self-appointed vigilantes who view politics as a blood sport where lying, cheating, and stealing are parts of their modus operandi.
Their end game is to discredit, slander, and besmirch the duly elected Cascade County Clerk and Recorder, Sandra Merchant, who is also charged with the supervision of elections. In doing so, they are akin to a losing basketball team who can’t win on the court so accuses the other side of cheating and starts a brawl.
One look at the EPC membership and spokespersons will tell you everything you need to know about it – it’s comprised almost entirely of sour grapes Democrats who lost in previous elections and their family members.
Our advice is to ignore EPC’s attacks against our duly elected Cascade County Clerk and Recorder, and FIRST report any problems with your ballots to the Cascade County Elections Office. EPC cannot solve any problems, they can only create them.
And E-City Beat will be reminding everyone about some of these same EPC people who will be candidates in the upcoming 2024 state legislative elections and what they’ve been doing and saying when they think voters aren’t paying much attention. E-City Beat is paying attention, and saving the receipts.
The ‘Election Protection Committee’ would like you to believe that they are protecting the flock, but they are really wolves in sheep’s clothing. Don’t let them pull the wool over your eyes.
Recently the local WTF406 blog attempted to silence E-City Beat. They failed.
WTF406 is a far left opinion blog run by Cascade County Democratic Central Committee Chair Helena Lovick and CCDCC former/current precinct committee person Jasmine Taylor.
Both are also failed Democrat candidates for state legislature.
Apparently Lovick and Taylor actually believe they can silence opinions and information with which they disagree by using dirty tricks like trying to co-opt an already in-use, copyrighted name.
Here’s a Facebook post dated 10/4/23 from the ‘Jasmine Taylor For Montana’ page:
No, WTF406 does not own this blog.
And this isn’t the first time these Democrats have tried to silence peoples voices in Great Falls – they deployed the same tactic against a local group called ‘Liberty And Values MT’ a few months ago because they didn’t like that groups message.
Someone should inform Lovick and Taylor that E-City Beat will not be silenced no matter how hard they try, and that an expensive and lengthy legal action may be forthcoming if they continue.
Someone should also inform the Cascade County Democratic Central Committee and their 2024 candidates that their official silence on these attacks by their Chair and officer against the First Amendment rights of Great Falls citizens is tantamount to complicity and will not go unanswered now or in the upcoming 2024 local campaigns.
