Luxury Resorts

It’s no secret that the luxury second-home market in the Mountain West has taken a huge hit since the national housing market went south, and the Wall Street Journal today does a nice job of detailing the carnage at the highest of the high-end hot-spots. A 10,000 square foot house in the prestigious Starwood area of Aspen (6 acres, barn and guest house) is now listed at $9.95 millioin, down from $15.9 million - and it hasn’t sold yet. Sun Valley, Jackson Hole and Park City are all seeing dramatic declines in sale prices and transaction volume.

While there are some signals that the high-end resort market isn’t totally dead - Sam Byrne, the new owner of the Yellowstone Club in Montana, reported surprisingly strong sales activity when he spoke at NewWest.Net’s recent conference - the frenzied building of the 1990s and 2000s has left plenty of inventory of multi-million-dollar mountain homes that will undoubtedly take a while to absorb - even in Aspen.

Commentary

A massive job awaits Jonathan Jarvis, the man who became chief of national parks this month, according to a fine feature story by Todd Wilkinson (which was published today in the Flathead Beacon).

The new park service director, a 32-year veteran of the National Park Service, kicked off his new job by visiting the home of conservationist John Muir and taking his family to Yosemite National Park, Wilkinson writes. If Jarvis got some extra energy from the trips, that’s good, the story notes. Because he’ll need it.

Press Release: Green Power in Montana

Comprehensive clean energy and climate change legislation now before Congress could create 13,000 jobs in Montana by 2020 and would increase average household incomes in the state, according to research announced today by environmental groups.

The groups releasing the information include Climate Solutions and Montana Business Leaders for Clean Energy; CERES; the Clean Economy Network; and Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2).

According to the groups, “clean energy legislation would create 918,000 to 1.9 million new jobs nationally, and increase national GDP by $39 billion to $111 billion more than what would occur without the legislation.”

Environment

An initial hearing Tuesday on revamped cap-and-trade legislation from Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry, D-MA, and Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer, D-CA) gave moderates a public mouthpiece that might spur concessions from party leaders down the road.

At the hearing in Boxer’s panel Tuesday, Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-MT, cited “serious reservations” about the bill’s requirement for U.S. greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced 20 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.

Boxer replied: “The goal is very, very doable.” Kerry agreed but said the target could change. “We’ll see what happens on the floor on that,” Kerry said. “I’m open to talking with Max; we’ll see where we end up.”

Boxer said she wants her climate bill to continue to preserve EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases despite complaints Tuesday from Baucus and Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa. “We have to keep the EPA in the game,” Boxer said. But, she added, “There are ways to make it more certain for people.” Specter challenged EPA Administrator Jackson at the hearing and Democratic leaders afterward to provide regulatory certainty.

“There’s a great deal to be gained by certainty so people can make plans,” Specter told Jackson. He also emphasized it is the job of Congress to lay out that roadmap for industries. “That’s really our job,” he said.

News Nugget

A new study shows that sage grouse, up for Endangered Species listing in February, will face even bigger population declines in the Mountain West if energy development progresses as Bureau of Land Management expects it to.

The three year study, published earlier this month in the peer-reviewed PLoS One science journal as well as here on WyoFile.com, warns that energy development plans on BLM land in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Montana and North and South Dakota could lead to a 7-19 percent loss of population for the bird.

The study’s authors, which include The Nature Conservancy in Lander, Wyoming, the National Audubon Society in Laramie, Wyoming and the University of Montana’s Wildlife Biology Program are clear about the goal of the research: To help decision makers craft a better oil and gas development pattern that would shift exploration to less sensitive grouse habitat. If done right, the authors say, oil and gas development could keep the sage grouse safe and off the ESA list.

One of the co-authors, David Naugle, a wildlife landscape ecologist at the University of Montana, tells the New York Times: “The answer to energy development in the West is not ‘no,’ but rather ‘where.’ I think our nation’s energy independence is paramount. Thus, the way we designed this study was to be helpful.”

Scott Streater’s piece in the Times’ Greenwire blog does a good job of summing up the report here. And, you can read the full report here.

Western Book Roundup

Helena-raised Kevin Connolly is on the road talking about his new memoir, Double Take.  He’ll visit Bozeman today (Country Bookshelf, 7 p.m.), and he’ll be in Helena on October 28 (Montana Book Company, 7 p.m.), and in Missoula on October 29 (Fact & Fiction, 7 p.m.). 

The 24-year-old Connolly was born without legs, but according to his bio on his publisher’s website, he “was otherwise a healthy baby and grew up like any other Montana kid; getting dirty, running in the woods, and getting dirty some more.”

Connolly began taking photographs four years ago, traveling around the world on a skateboard and “documenting the reactions” people had to him.  The photos in this series became ”The Rolling Exhibition,” which Connolly’s website describes as: 31 Cities, 32,000 photos, one stare.” Double Take is getting great reviews; Kirkus Reviews described it as “A courageous, immensely rewarding chronicle expressed in arresting words and pictures.” Visit Connolly’s website for an entertaining trailer about his experience reading an ebook on an over-sized PC.

Also in the Roundup: A Utah State senior wins the national Norman Mailer Award for nonfiction, two forthcoming regional novels, and David Sax finds some good Jewish delis in the Rockies.

internet technology

In the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as the stimulus package, Congress appropriated $7.2 billion for broadband grants, loans, and loan guarantees to be administered by the USDA’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS) and the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). The deadline for submissions was August of this year.

Now, the applications from each state are posted, and in a number of Intermountain West states, the Governors have already taken the next step of reviewing and prioritizing the projects, and made their recommendations public.

Wolf Pelts Piling Up

As Montana’s wolf hunt wags on, and so does the one in neighboring Idaho, it’s interesting to note what’s come to pass—and what hasn’t. Here are a few factoids to chew on:

--More than 70 wolves have been killed in Idaho, where hunters are allowed to bag 220 wolves total.

--Twenty three wolves have been shot during Montana’s wolf hunting season, 11 of them this past weekend alone, according to the Great Falls Tribune. The state quota is 75.

--Wolf hunting has already been shut down in the southern section of the Montana, just outside Yellowstone National Park, because the 12-wolf quota there has been met.

--Before the start of the hunts this fall, wildlife officials in both Montana and Idaho predicted that shooting a wolf or even seeing one would be tough. Chin scratching has now ensued.

--Twenty three wolves have been killed during Montana’s wolf hunting season, 11 of them this past weekend alone, according to the Great Falls Tribune. The state quota is 75.

--Wolf hunting has already been shut down in the southern section of the Montana, outside Yellowstone National Park, because the 12-wolf quota there has been met.

From the Department of Bitter Irony

W.R. Grace & Co. won a 2009 “Philanthropist of the Year” award today in a ceremony that managed not to mention the words “asbestosis,” “mesothelioma” or “Libby, Montana.” The Baltimore Business Journal reported that the Columbia, Maryland-based Grace snagged the award because it donated at least $1 million last year, “of which about 40 percent went to Maryland nonprofits.” The asbestos and chemical company giant also “encouraged employees to donate more than 1,250 hours of their time,” the story said. The annual award is given by the Maryland chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals.

Tormenting at Hellgate Middle School

Bullies are everywhere—that’s no surprise to anyone who’s ever been a kid. Bullying is a leading problem in the nation’s schools, hurting grades, lowering attendance levels, and wreaking emotional havoc that reverberates for a lifetime. At its extreme edge, bullying can end in violence or suicide. The common victims are people with disabilities, who are disproportionately targeted for violence across all age levels in this country.

Those are just a few of the serious and sad truths behind an extraordinarily sad and important story yesterday by Missoulian reporter Michael Moore.

Moore wrote about Pat Fuglei, an eighth grade boy with autism who was so tormented and humiliated by fellow students at Hellgate Middle School that his parents removed him from school several weeks ago and will send him to a private school in Arizona. Fuglei was mocked, mimicked, called “retard,” and sexually taunted, Moore reported. In the wake of this ugliness, it’s easy to feel outrage and blame the obvious target: the school. How could Hellgate allow a student to be so violated? How could teachers or administrators not know that Fuglei was being victimized? Why didn’t someone do something about it?