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From the Flathead Beacon

For its February issue, the national ski magazine, “Powder,” published a feature called “The Draft,” identifying the world’s best 20 skiers age 18 and under. While the list was populated mainly by 17- and 18-year-olds, it also included a boy from Whitefish who is barely a teenager: Mitch Gilman.

“A 13-year-old who can throw 1260s in the pipe,” the article says, “Mitch Gilman could be the Tiger Woods prodigy of skiing.”

From the Flathead Beacon

A Kalispell attorney is suing the Evergreen Water and Sewer District, and the developers and designers of a septic system that he says resulted in the drowning death of a 3-year-old boy in 2007.

Attorney Lee Henning spoke to reporters Thursday afternoon in his office, where he described Loic Rogers’ tragic death as one that could have been prevented had the septic system manufacturer installed an inexpensive guard called a “kid catcher,” over the top of septic tanks.

“For $10 worth of plastic, a whole bunch of children’s lives could be saved,” Henning said. “My intent is not just to protect the children of Flathead County, I want this to affect the entire septic industry throughout the nation.”

From the Flathead Beacon

Montana lawmakers adjourned the Legislature in the spring of 2009 with what looked, at the time, like a budget equipped to fund the state through one of the worst economies in a generation. Yet barely nine months later, with Gov. Brian Schweitzer slashing spending and telling his departments to find ways to save amid plummeting revenue forecasts, the state does not look nearly as strong.

And while most Flathead lawmakers seem to agree that a special session in 2010 is unlikely, no one would rule it out completely, saying it depends on how much worse Montana’s budget outlook appears.

“If important cuts need to be made, I think the Legislature has to be involved,” Sen. John Brueggeman, R-Polson, said. “It would be a lot easier if we didn’t have to come to town, but that’s what we were elected to do.”

From the Flathead Beacon

Although the newly elected Libby City Council intends to deal professionally with whatever civic matters come before it in 2010, the distrust, accusations and legal maneuvering that ensued between council members over the last several months could make that difficult.

The new Libby council had its first meeting Jan. 4, and while Mayor Doug Roll said it “went very well,” suspicion by a councilman that Roll might prevent him from being sworn in at the meeting’s beginning shows just how much ill regard exists between the two elected officials.

Councilman D.C. Orr has been locked in a rhetorical battle for months with Roll in the pages of Libby’s newspaper, The Western News, after Orr filed a restraining order against the city clerk, Glena Hook, in November, claiming he was under “threat of violence” from her. Although things got so bad other council members took it upon themselves to escort Orr in and out of city hall so he didn’t have a one-on-one encounter with Hook, Orr dropped the restraining order shortly before a judge was to hear it, and reportedly asked for a “group hug” on the council.

From the Flathead Beacon

In the coming weeks, the United States Supreme Court will hand down an opinion that could have vast implications for Montana’s campaign finance laws, potentially altering bedrock rules that have governed the state’s politics as far back as 1912 – an era when it was controlled by the Anaconda Copper Company and the Montana Power Company. Depending on how it rules, the Court could allow corporations to once again make direct political contributions if it decides the free-speech rights of those corporations are currently being infringed.

Three Thousand New Jobs and Counting

In 2010, Montanans will have an opportunity to increase their state’s federal funding, and even take steps toward adding to the Big Sky state’s representation in Congress. It’s not about voting; it’s about the U.S. Census, and this year, those administering the national data-gathering campaign are redoubling their efforts in Montana.

The ten-question survey will begin appearing in the mailboxes of Montana’s urban areas in March, with federal workers depositing them on doorsteps of the state’s more sparsely populated and difficult-to-reach homes around the same time. (Census forms cannot be mailed to P.O. boxes.)

In 2000, census workers undercounted Montana’s population by 14,390 people, an error that cost the state roughly $43 million in federal funds over the last decade, according to Mary Craigle, bureau chief for the Montana Department of Commerce’s Census & Economic Information Center.

Decking the Halls in Kalispell

What is it about the holidays that compels us to decorate our homes? What qualities drive someone to festoon their house with robotic characters and plastic candy canes and blinking displays as Christmas approaches – compounding one more obligatory undertaking to a holiday season that almost bursts with them?

In search of answers to these questions, I spent several nights trolling through Kalispell’s neighborhoods looking for the best and the brightest of the town’s holiday decorators to ask them why they did it. Whether it was a modest home or one of the oldest, grandest houses in the city, their answers were similar sentiments. Because there really is no logical reason to decorate one’s home so much – but in a way, that’s the point. The motivation stems from something indefinable yet persistent, a melding of religious conviction and community celebration that might be most accurately described as the holiday spirit. 

From the Flathead Beacon

A request by the Northwest Montana Association of Realtors calling for a special session of the state Legislature to address “current inadequacies” in the property tax reappraisal carried out in the 2009 regular session was immediately swatted down by Gov. Brian Schweitzer last week.

The letter, written by NMAR President Barb Funk, states that 11 counties, including Flathead and Lake, will be “disproportionally affected by higher than expected residential property values,” and asks Schweitzer to convene a special session to immediately adopt a “stop gap” measure to solve current reappraisal problems, and establish an interim committee to deal with long-term property tax issues and draw up a bill for the 2011 session.

In an interview with the Beacon, Schweitzer criticized NMAR’s letter for using inaccurate figures and questioned why the reappraisal legislation, HB 658, received the broad support of Realtors during the session and afterward, citing a story that appeared Sept. 29 in NewWest.Net where a lobbyist for the Montana Association of Realtors called it, “a pretty darn good bill.”

The governor also took aim squarely at Republicans, who led the Senate Taxation Committee in crafting the final iteration of the reappraisal bill, saying he would not spend taxpayer dollars at a rate of $80,000 per day, the rough cost of a special session, to bring lawmakers back to Helena when there wasn’t a plan in place beforehand to fix any shortcomings in the current bill.

Saying they were concerned about the rights of white people, five demonstrators gathered in Kalispell Saturday evening on the sidewalk next to Depot Park, with one man waving a flag for the Creativity Movement and others holding hand-lettered signs at the cars passing by, which occasionally honked in support. Though small, the Kalispell rally was in line with what the Montana Human Rights Network has identified as “an upswing in white supremacist activity recently” in the state.

A 20-year-old Kalispell woman who would only identify herself as “Kat,” and who held a sign reading “Affirmative Action = Racism,” said she organized the demonstration to show, “how everyone has their own rights but the whites don’t.”

Barkus and Rehberg

In a blog I wrote about two weeks ago I wondered out loud how long it would take before the Aug. 27 boat crash into the rocks of Wayfarer’s State Park became fodder in Denny Rehberg’s 2010 reelection bid. And the answer is ... not very long at all!

Democratic challenger for Rehberg’s seat, Dennis McDonald, has been issuing press releases almost daily blasting Rehberg for how he handled the accident and its aftermath, saying his drinking was irresponsible and asserting that Rehberg bears some responsibility for the injuries suffered by his younger staff members for allowing them to get on the boat driven by Kalispell Republican state Sen. Greg Barkus – who had been drinking that night, though it remains unknown how much.

Let’s be clear: McDonald is not making subtle allusions. He is coming out guns blazing and calling Rehberg’s handling of the crash a “cover-up.”