New West Network

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rally at msu

Sen. Barack Obama will be in Billings for a townhall meeting Monday morning and in Bozeman for a rally at MSU Monday evening, the campaign announced today. The visit marks Obama's second stop in Montana in as many months in advance of the June 3 primary. Both events are free and open to the public.

Details after the jump. [more]

Dems Say Obama Can Rope Independents

The Barack Obama campaign held a conference call this morning to discuss Obama's electability and appeal to people in Montana and other Western states. On the call were former Colorado Governor and former Chair of the Democratic National Committee Roy Romer, DNC Committeewoman and superdelegate Jean Lemire Dahlman of Rosebud County, Montana, and Lewis and Clark County Commissioner and superdelegate Ed Tinsley of Helena, Montana.

Here are some choice quotes from the conversation, glimpses into why these particular Western political leaders -- and Colorado, Utah, Idaho and Wyoming -- have chosen Obama as their guy... [more]

Montana STays in the Spotlight

The morning after Sen. Hillary Clinton clobbered Sen. Barack Obama in the West Virginia primary by 41 percentage points, her husband, former President Bill Clinton, came to the University of Montana in Missoula to make his case for her candidacy, despite what many political pundits and elected officials say is an insurmountable Obama lead in delegates, the popular vote and now superdelegates.

Mr. Clinton likened Hillary's campaign to the 1995 University of Montana Grizzlies football team that came back in the fourth quarter against Marshall to win the Division I-AA national championship -- a game played in West Virginia. "No Democrat has won the White House without West Virginia since 1916," he said.

That's the campaign's main argument at this stage in the game: that Hillary would be stronger than Obama versus the presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain in November in key swing states like Pennsylvania and Ohio. [more]

NewWest.Net Local Event

Missoula's Hank Green is Internet famous. He founded EcoGeek.org, noted by Time.com as one of the top 15 environmental news sites on the Web. Last year, he and his brother John exchanged video blogs every day as part of a project called Brotherhood 2.0, and the videos became so popular (more than 10 million views on YouTube) that it spawned an Internet community of "smart and nerdy young people" collectively called "Nerdfighters." They even took over YouTube for a day. And now Nerdfighters.com is its own site, with more than 8,000 members.

The secret to Hank's success on the Web? "If you can, put your creative energy into something and do it consistently and do it well," he said Tuesday. "If you can do something you know you will like, then people will find it."

Hank was speaking at a New West event at the Missoula Art Museum titled "The Secrets of Social Networking," flanked by a couple other experts on the topic, NewWest.Net co-founder and Editor in Chief Courtney Lowery, and Steven Sundheim of Modwest and Grupthink. The trio -- proof that Montana's relative geographical isolation means nothing on the Web -- chatted about the potentials (and pitfalls) of social networks. [more]

"a celebration of the missoula experiece"

The Emmitt-Nershi Band and The Clumsy Lovers will headline this summer's River City Roots Festival in Missoula, its organizers and sponsors announced Tuesday.

The free downtown festival, in its third year, will take place Saturday and Sunday, August 23-24, the weekend before fall classes begin at the University of Montana. Linda McCarthy, director of the Missoula Downtown Association, called the festival "Missoula's signature event." [more]

new west news brief

Update - The Clinton campaign has announced that Bill Clinton will visit Missoula Wednesday. He's speaking at the Adams Center, in the West Auxiliary Gym, and 9:15 a.m.

Bill Clinton will return to Montana Tuesday to stump for his wife and Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Hillary Clinton in Kalispell, the Clinton campaign announced today. Clinton will speak at Flathead Community College's Blake Hall Arboretum at 7:30 p.m. Additional details to be announced.

The former president was in Billings Saturday night for the Truman Day Dinner, a Yellowstone County Democratic fundraiser. He was also in Montana in early April visiting Havre, Great Falls, Helena and Butte.

Montana's primary is June 3, the last in this extended primary season. Clinton trails Sen. Barack Obama in delegates, the popular vote and, as of this weekend, superdelegates. [more]

media & conservation

The 31st International Wildlife Film Festival begins Saturday in Missoula and rolls through next week. This year's theme is The Changing Planet: A Global Evolution in Media & Conservation.

Special events include a Western barn dance Tuesday sponsored by National Geographic Television; a presentation Thursday by Alastair Fothergill, the executive producer of BBC's Planet Earth and Saving Planet Earth; and a free traveling photo exhibit and a wildlife and art show reception. The WildWalk Parade down Higgins Ave. is Saturday at 12:45 p.m.

Visit the festival's Website (www.wildlifefilms.org) for more information. Click here for the schedule of events, and here for film synopses. [more]

timberlands and real estate

Wednesday the Missoula County Commissioners sent a letter to Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey asking him to drop consideration of the forest road easement amendment until the documents proposed for amendment have been identified and made available to the public.

The commissioners wrote: "...the failure to identify, review, and properly reference the easements to be amended will make the proposed Easement Amendment legally void, and the process leading up to your expected approval fatally flawed."

Rey, overseer of the Forest Service, said during a meeting last week with officials from western Montana that he would not make the paperwork available and invited a lawsuit, which appears imminent. [more]

Another Harbinger of The Crunch

The Village Green at the Valley Club, a new high-end subdivision and golf course development in Ketchum, Idaho, filed last week for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, owing more than $24 million to its creditors.

The development plan includes 43 custom homes -- valued at about $3 million each -- and a nine-hole Tom Fazio golf course, but so far only 13 homes have been completed and only seven of those have been sold, according to developer Henry Dean.

"We expected to do a lot better," Dean said. "We just fell off of our pro forma."

It's the latest in a string of bankruptcies among developments in the West, from Tamarack Resort in Idaho to Promontory Club in Utah, further evidence that the high-end real estate market in the West has been deeply affected by the credit crunch. [more]

In The New West magazine: Project Watch

The national real estate pullback and the credit crunch, combined with several years of sky-high construction costs, have some luxury developments in the New West on the ropes.

While bankruptcy is an imperfect prism through which to view the effects of the market slowdown, these five cases offer rich glimpses into the operations and financing problems.

More bankruptcies are undoubtedly on the way. The B-word has even been thrown around as a possibility at the vaunted Yellowstone Club, where the divorce of owners Tim and Edra Blixseth has compounded its woes. [more]