Category: Great Falls

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Of the many wonders of our existence, time and free will rank at the top of the list. What is most important is how we use them.

The theme here is not that we should choose to make better use of our time, but rather how the Great Falls Public School District and the Great Falls City Commission use both time and choice to their advantage, and often not, for those they are supposed to serve.

Self-preservation and advancement are strong motivators, which can result in cronyism, hiding information, and corruption. Even in a small community such as ours, these acts go unnoticed to most citizens except a few, or those directly affected. In the absence of investigative journalism, the problem is even more hidden and accountability is non-existent.

For those who may not know how our elected officials and administrators use time and free will to their advantage, let’s take a little trip back into history.

Recently, when several sitting city commissioners were found to have rewarded their friends and families in the award of Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds their stated defenses went something like this:

“Great Falls is a small community and everyone knows someone.”

“But my wife works in a different part of the organization than the part which was applying for the grant.”

And so on. These public officials were admonished by the Department of Housing and Urban Development – the federal agency responsible for administering the CDBG program, and local funds were withdrawn. The Mayor’s response was – “let’s just move on”.

In other words, time is on our side and people will forget. Yes, time can be a huge ally.

Time was also used as an ally by the Great Falls Public School District when the Building and Grounds Department was rocked by charges that the supervisor was using district resources to his own benefit. An investigation ensued, the supervisor resigned under pressure, and the case was closed and sealed to protect the individual’s privacy.

How about the taxpayer’s right to know if a crime was committed? Was the whole affair just swept under the rug with the hope that with the passing of time, the public will forget? Was the district’s attitude – let’s just move on?

When a school board trustee sits on a private company’s board of directors with another board member who she votes to award a school contract to, not once but twice, is that serving herself, or helping a friend? But what the heck, let’s just move on, right?

And what about the fact that the current superintendent, Tammy Lacey, participated in the architectural selection process for both new elementary schools totaling over $30M, while her ex-husband is employed by the architectural firm selected?

How about the locker room hazing incident referred to as “power gobbling” at Great Falls High School, which was reported as a sexual assault and not reported to the police for almost two months after the student’s family first brought it to the staff’s attention?

Information obtained from the student’s family indicate that at least two members of the Great Falls High counseling staff were advised of the incident on September 15, 2011 and yet the Great Falls Police Department was not notified until October 30, 2011.

According to the Montana ACLU website a school becomes legally responsible when the school’s response to harassment “is clearly unreasonable in light of the known circumstances.”

Was a 45 day delay in reporting the assault “clearly unreasonable”? You be the judge.

The Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network website on the “Mandatory Reporting Requirements: Children Montana” page states that reports are required to be made promptly.

One of the two GFHS staff members seemingly involved in the non-reporting of the sexual assault was later promoted to principal at Great Falls High, and is now about to be hired as the new assistant superintendent of secondary education for the school district.

Of course the district’s investigation report is sealed due to attorney-client privilege. What are they hiding?

Obviously, both the City Commissioners and the school district are familiar with Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones’ song – “Time is on My Side”, with the Bob Marley refrain – “Every Little Thing is Going to be Alright”.

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See Part I here.

Spring has arrived and the snow is melting. Which is worse? The snow and ice packed roads or the slush and refreeze? Either way, it calls attention to the City’s need to revise the current snow and ice removal and control plans.

But let’s talk springtime roads… And potholes. We all know where I come from, Pothole central. With the use of salt and other ice control products, potholes are a natural occurrence. Or so I thought. There are more potholes here than I ever saw in my suburban home town.

Potholes aren’t caused by the use of ice melting products as much as they are caused by the rapid expansion and contraction of water in its frozen state. It seeps into visible and invisible cracks where it freezes and expands. Then it thaws and seeps even further. Repeat this throughout the winter and eventually you have a wicked pothole. Basic middle school science.

By not properly removing snow, our roads are at even higher risk of potholes over the next few weeks as we experience frozen nights and spring like days. How does the City plan to handle this? A well functioning city would respond to a pothole call within 24 hours.

I’ve been fighting with the same pothole at the edge of my driveway for over 2 years now. I’m sure it’s been there longer than that though. I am certain that many of you have a hatred or these tire and axle destroyers just as I do.

With a strong desire from the community to review and revise the snow and ice removal plan, the City needs to listen. Snow removal and potholes are related and the cost of each need to be taken into consideration with such an action.

The City needs to repave so many streets, not to mention making the crosswalks ADA compliant and relaying all sidewalks. This alone would cost us hundreds of thousands in taxes and possibly grants.

This would also result in probably millions being needed in the end because they would have to replace the storm and sewage drains under many roads they repaved. Do you know how much of that could have been avoided if proper snow removal techniques had been applied from the start?

The road conditions in Great Falls are pretty intense. I believe it to be a misappropriation of taxpayer funds. The City Streets Department only received enough tax money to pay the wages and salaries of department employees.

All road work of any kind is almost completely non-funded. Barely even getting donations or grants. Either the City is just that broke, or… based on the fact that the city budget is available online for public access, you can infer that fund misappropriation is the better culprit. Our city officials should be ashamed of themselves.

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In the introduction to my series, “Ideas For A Greater Great Falls”, under the category of Creating an environment for more jobs, higher wages and a vibrant, growing community, the second bullet point is the following:

• • Create a Development Process and Advisory Review Board along the lines of the Billings model.

The Billings Development Process and Advisory Review Board, DPARB, has been in place for about a decade now and continues to work quite well by most accounts for the growing city of Billings. I think we could and should adopt and adapt a similar board to address issues surrounding the development process here in Great Falls.

Here are few of the features and details of the the Billings model taken from the City of Billings web site and the Billings DPARB PDF.

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Here’s a public service announcement we think could be a very helpful local learning resource – math tutoring for local students.

According to Malachy Horning from Central Assembly of God in Great Falls, “Central Assembly has a tutoring center with 10 computers and supervision. Our youth pastor is a math genius and we have a couple teachers that would help if we were to get the students to come.”

We think this is just dandy, help spread the word.

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In my most recent article here on E-City Beat I said I would be doing a series of articles focusing on what we can do to build a better Great Falls by looking at what other Montana cities are doing to grow and develop while we struggle to remain stagnant. In other words, what are we not doing that maybe we should be, and what are we doing that maybe we should not be?

There is a lot of ground to cover so I’ll be developing a series of easily digestible sized pieces over a several month period of time. In this first piece in the series I’d like to present a rough overview of what I’ll be covering going forward. There are four main areas to look at with several sub-topics and general ideas for improving our city.

1.  Create an environment for more jobs, higher wages and a vibrant, growing community.

• • Work towards less red tape and fewer regulatory ‘hoops’ for businesses and citizens, partly by a line-by-line review of city code and policy.
  • Create a Development Process and Advisory Review Board along the lines of the Billings model.
  • The motto and attitude for all city public officials and staff should always be, “How can we serve you and help you succeed?” and not, “You can’t do that!”
  • Economic development should not be the sole domain of the Great Falls Development Authority which has no public accountability and very little oversight. Look at ways to create competition in the business of economic development in Great Falls.
  • Develop, attract, and maintain a quality local workforce.

2. Safe streets and neighborhoods.

• • Review and revise if necessary city public disorderly conduct, panhandling, and vagrancy ordinances and strictly enforce them.
  • More police foot patrols downtown and in high crime areas.
  • Prioritize funding of the Great Falls Police Department, adding the necessary resources and personnel to meet the demands of increasing crime.  

The motto and attitude for all city public officials and staff should always be, “How can we serve you and help you succeed?” and not, “You can’t do that!”

3. Zero tolerance for conflicts of interest in our city government and demand transparency and honesty at all times.

• • Prohibit any employee or board member of any organization receiving taxpayer funds or resources from serving on the committee/board that recommends or approves allocation of those funds or resources.
  • Term limits for Great Falls city commissioners and mayor.
  • Require all local elected and appointed public officials to fill out and sign annual conflict of interest forms and agreements.
  • Require the mayor and city commissioners to make public on the city website a list of any of their personal potential conflicts of interest. This would include business/professional associations and clients, personal and family member affiliations with organizations who lobby the city for resources, and campaign donors who do business with the city or seek official consideration from the Commission.
  • When the 10 year local government review and vote comes up again we should seriously consider switching to a precinct/ward system, rather than the current at-large system. for electing city commissioners. At the same time we should consider electing a mayor who would also serve as a paid city manager with direct voter accountability.

 4. Encourage more civic involvement from the public by making City resources, meetings and processes more transparent and accessible through proactive, improved communications and public relations methods.

• • Allow Great Falls citizens to participate in city commission and other public meetings in real time via social media and email.
  • Explore the possibility of setting meeting times for all city boards and councils at times most convenient for the public to attend and make participation by members and the public available via real-time technologies like Twitter, Skype, and teleconferencing.
  • Allow Great Falls citizens to use Power Point presentations and other visual/technology aids at city commission regular and work session meetings just as city staff is allowed to do.

Note – some of the conflicts of interest items under #3 have been started and implemented, but only because of citizens speaking up and demanding change, not because of any real desire or initiative on the part of the mayor or commissioners to require accountability.

In the next piece I’ll be looking at the Development Process Review and Advisory Board concept, how it’s worked in Billings and how we could adopt something similar here in Great Falls.

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