Demographics
Counting Blessings
Bozeman Gets a Homeless Shelter
For over seven years, Rev. Paul Thomas has tirelessly provided Bozeman’s homeless and down-and-out with a meal, a cup of coffee, clothing, company and any other kind of help he can through his mobile soup kitchen named HIS Soup. Thomas’ white Econoline van and those who flock to it are fixtures on the east and north parts of a town that has never had an official homeless shelter or mission. This month Thomas received a permit to create a historic rescue mission in the very same place he serves his complimentary home-cooked Thanksgiving meals.
Not so long ago, Bozeman police used to “float” homeless residents and transients by buying them a ticket on the next Greyhound out of town. City officials say they haven’t floated anyone for many years, but when a homeless man froze to death in a U-haul truck here last winter, the homeless issue became hard to ignore and elicited a strong community response.
Bozeman, “the most livable place,” is the only major city in Montana to not have a homeless shelter or rescue mission, but thanks to Thomas and his supporters, this is about to change.
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Philanthropy and Community Building
Park County Community Foundation Holds Two-Day Kick-Off EventPark County Community Foundation (PCCF) board members and a diverse array of interested parties met for two days this week at the Mountain Sky Guest Ranch in Paradise Valley to discuss the future of the young philanthropic organization.
Over 80 attendees attended Monday and about 60 on Tuesday for strategic community building sessions with Bliss Browne of Imagine Chicago. The groups focused on growth, demographic and economic trends in the West to identify the best ways to involve all citizens in community development, especially in the areas of education, youth empowerment and poverty reduction. With Park County growing and more and more wealthy people buying second and third homes in the area, the group hoped to effectively reach out to potential donors to help address the county’s needs, such as reducing an 11.4 percent poverty rate.
David Eaton, vice president of the PCCF board of directors, emphasized the group’s role in engaging and serving the community’s needs: “This is just a first step…Our intent is to keep you guys really involved and continually getting knowledge for your community.”
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More Growing Pains in Montana's first Capital
Growing Madison County Debates $10 Million Bond for Virginia City Facility
Citizens in Montana’s Madison County again find themselves facing a vote on whether or not to significantly expand their courthouse, law and justice center and jail in the county seat, Virginia City.
Several lawsuits have been filed against the county because of the inadequacies in the jail and courthouse, and county officials say those lawsuits are only part of the reason they are still pushing for the new center. Last November voters turned down a bond to fund the new law and justice center. Contending the significant need for expansion had not changed, the county adjusted the design of the expansion and redoubled their efforts to fund the project through a mail-out ballot for a $10 million bond, which began arriving in voters’ mailboxes on September 18, 2007.
The new center would be built on historic Virginia City’s main street, which has raised the ire of many citizens. Commissioners argue the planning and design of the project are not only sensitive to the historic character of Virginia City, but will also help protect important historic records and preserve the town’s vitality. Some citizens are demanding the county go back to the drawing board and have launched a campaign against the bond in one more manifestation of the growing pains in Madison County and Montana’s first territorial capital, Virginia City.
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Rural Healthcare
Gov. Schweitzer, Madison County & Ennis Break Ground for New Clinic
Striving to meet the needs of this growing valley, the Madison Valley Hospital and Clinic broke ground on the construction of an over $10 million hospital in Ennis this past Tuesday. Well over 100 people attended the ceremony at the construction site adjacent to the existing and humble Madison Valley Clinic, including Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer and representatives from the offices of Senators Baucus and Tester as well as Rep. Rehberg.
Governor Schweitzer spoke briefly at the beginning of the ceremony, calling Madison County “one of the most vibrant communities in Montana.” However, Schweitzer’s comments related to healthcare were limited to emphasizing the importance of the health of a community and that “the best healthcare is the healthcare that’s closest to your family.”
When pressed after his speech on what is being done to improve healthcare in Montana’s other less vibrant communities—in particular, communities that do not benefit from as many tourist dollars as Madison County, such as in eastern Montana and in the state’s seven Indian reservations—Schweitzer responded, “The best thing we can do for every one of these communities is to grow jobs” with things like biodiesel and “clean coal” technology.
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Immigration's New Face
Elvira Arellano is No Martyr
Tonight at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, a prayer vigil will be held for Elvira Arellano, the 32-year-old Mexican immigrant who since her arrest and deportation last week has swiftly become a symbol of the human tragedy surrounding U.S. immigration policy.
Arellano was picked up by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement last week in Los Angeles after leaving the Chicago church where she had sought sanctuary a year before. Now staying in Tijuana, Mexico, separated from her eight-year-old son Saulito, who was born in the U.S., she has become a celebrity in the Hispanic immigrant community and is said to be planning a series of media appearances and demonstrations to demand change in U.S. immigration policies.
Arellano's supporters have portrayed her as a Mexican Rosa Parks, but her story is more complicated than that.
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Kuna, Idaho: A great place to live, muy tranquilo
Idaho Immigration: Genesis of a Suburban Barrio
Last week the Census Bureau released its 2006 estimates for county populations. The numbers showed Hispanic growth almost everywhere, including in Idaho. Particularly in the larger urban areas.
A few stories highlighted the fact that Idaho’s Hispanic population grew by 8,300 last year. All but two of the state’s counties saw some Hispanic growth. Parts of Wyoming experienced the same type of growth.
The Billings paper ran an AP story noting that Garfield County in Montana, on the other hand, is still among the nation’s whitest counties.
In this second installment of a NewWest series about immigration in the American West, we take a look at Kuna, Idaho, once a sleepy, nearly all-white country town. Now Kuna, experiencing the same explosive growth that has appeared in similar places across the West, is considered a “good place to live” by many, many Hispanic families.
If the town didn’t smell like cow dung every couple of days and was easier to pronounce, I’d be apt to agree. It’s quaint. It’s near a river. It’s still affordable. It’s close enough to Boise. It has a Coyote Ugly style cowgirl bar.
Oh, and it has a totally authentic taco buffet where a woman presses hand made tortillas onto your plate at the end of the line.
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FROM SUBURBS TO EXURBS TO 'WEB-URBS'
E-Commuters Make Western Resort Towns Their HomeAdvances in technology have allowed many deskbound workers the opportunity to work from anywhere, and consultants, software designers and other “location-neutral” professionals are deciding that they prefer that anywhere be the areas where they used to vacation.
The New York Times today takes a look at how “location neutral" professionals are changing the economies and politics of areas as diverse as Nantucket, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Teton County, Idaho, and Steamboat Springs, Colo.
Wealthy retirees and second-home owners have already been credited -- or blamed -- for making substantial changes to many Western towns, but this new crop of virtual commuters are different from those émigrés in that many bring their families and are much more involved in the community.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the population of the nation’s 297 counties rated highest in natural amenities grew nearly 10 times as fast as the population of the 1,090 rural counties with below-average amenities.
And Colorado’s Routt County, where Steamboat Springs is located, is one of the first counties to recognize this new class of newcomer. A 2005 survey found that one in ten year-round households reported income from a “location-neutral” business.
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Monday Business Roundup
Local Moviegoers Await Theater OpeningFor years analysts have considered the movie-theater business overbuilt, as evidenced by the closing of cineplexes across the West that were built in the small-box cinema boom of the 1980s. Try telling that to Boulder residents, though, who have exactly one aging four-screen theater in a town of more than 100,000 and who have been forced to drive south to the Colony Square and Flatirons megaplexes to get a decent choice of new releases.
That will change, finally, in August when the 16-screen movie theater at Boulder's Twenty Ninth Street mall will light up after multiple delays, nearly a year after its original scheduled opening.
The theater was delayed by a change of ownership, when Century Theatres was bought out by Cinemark USA Inc. As it happens, Cinemark USA is one of the parterns in Centennial-based National CineMedia, a digital theater-ads company that beams pre-movie programming via satellite to around 12,000 theaters nationwide. While benefiting from new-theater construction, National CineMedia is also moving into a new line of business: digital programming for health clubs.
In other business news: Denver law firm sinks in personal-injury morass; anti-smoking-ban group broadcasts gloomy and dubious figures; and casino towns get rich off billions in bets.
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Monday Business Roundup
The Dying-Industry DigestPlenty of news from the business world today, so I will forego the longer piece of analysis that usually leads off this weekly feature for some more bite-sized business briefs. Happy snacking!
-- Local micro-brewers are seldom considered polluters on the scale of, say, multinational petroleum companies, but New Belgium Brewing Co., of Fort Collins, had sufficient raised the ire of Eric Sutherland, an environmentalist and former employee, that Sutherland had resorted to what a judge considered harassment and stalking. A critic of New Belgium's use of non-returnable bottles for its product, Sutherland has been barred from coming within 15 feet of New Belgium's facilities or its personnel.
-- Hoping to find that special bottle of MD 20-20, Night Train, or Steel Reserve for your next dinner party? Good luck.
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Future of the Yampa Valley
Steamboat Wrestles With Prosperity
I'm headed up to Steamboat Springs tomorrow for what promises to be the first in a long series of 50th-birthday celebrations – since 50 is the new 40, the half-century mark is now celebrated by younger Baby Boomers as the passage to full adulthood rather than the gateway to middle age, it seems. The celebrant is Steven Wesley Dearborn, whose nickname in high school was "Yondu the Mountain Boy," which pretty much tells you all you need to know about what kind of weekend it's going to be.
I make it up to Steamboat a couple of times a year, and my preparations for this trip got me wondering: what's the future of the Yampa River Valley?
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