Tuesday’s Quick Hits

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Quote for the Day…

There are no traffic jams along the extra mile. – Roger Staubach

In today’s column, I take a quick look at these people/issues:

  • Burow vs Kelly
  • Great Falls Crime Task Force
  • The Rosendale Newsletter
  • One More Thing

BUROW VS KELLY:

The Great Falls Mayoral race between incumbent Bob Kelly and former city commissioner Fred Burow is very interesting to me.

The funny part is that both gentlemen received my vote in past elections. I’m an independent voter – I can do that!

For me, I think the deciding factor will be is if I can find out how the candidates voted in the last two presidential elections. It’s a simple question that they should answer. My email is western_word@yahoo.com.

Recently “The Electric” and other local media reported that City Commission meetings were going back to zoom meetings due to the rise in COVID cases. It was also reported that Mayor Kelly said, “I don’t feel safe, and “I don’t want to compromise my health and I don’t want to compromise yours.”

Burow said in a local blog that the motion to do remote meetings passed 4-1.

I guess others felt the same way since the motion passed. That darned democracy won again!

A day or two later the Burow supporters attacked Mayor Kelly for participating in an event with U.S. Senator Jon Tester (D-MT). Even Burow himself wrote about Kelly on a local blog:

Because I took Mayor Kelly at his word that he did not “feel safe” holding meetings in person, I was rather surprised to see him in public for a ribbon-cutting yesterday with Senator Jon Tester. The mayor was not wearing a mask.

The photo posted in Burow’s blog post showed Kelly outside without a mask, not inside where commission meetings are held. The photo appeared to show he was socially distancing.

These are some of the petty things that turn people off in politics, but petty things sometimes energize people with small minds. It seems that we’ll be seeing the mask issue played out in the Great Falls mayor race. Probably many others.

By the way, I wear a mask indoors, like when I am shopping.

If I had been a commissioner, when Kelly brought up holding meetings via zoom and not in person, I would have made a motion to hold the meetings outside. There’s the Gibson Park bandshell, local football fields with grandstands, the county fairgrounds with the grandstand – all with plenty of space and fresh Montana air.

That would have been a simple solution, but then we’d have no political jockeying.

GREAT FALLS CRIME TASK FORCE:

I was talking to a friend about the Great Falls Crime Task Force, and I said that I thought the results would be that they would need to raise taxes to fight crime.

I was right. They say they need more “personnel/resources” and, “Considering the City’s financial limitations’ effect on law enforcement, we recommend budget amendments and/or evaluate a public safety levy, identifying specific uses of funds if approved by electors.”

The Task Force did come up with a comprehensive list of recommendations.

If you are a resident of Great Falls, I highly suggest you read the recommendations and give the city your thoughts by September 13.

Click HERE for the recommendations.

The Great Falls Tribune covered the story HERE.

THE ROSENDALE NEWSLETTER:

Earlier this year I commended U.S. Representative Matt Rosendale (R-MT/AL) and his team for his professionally done newsletter. I said that Rosendale publishes a very good newsletter to let his constituents learn about his travels and the issues that he is working on. Congrats to his staff for their work on it.

I also said I subscribe to it not because I am a supporter, but because I am interested in the issues affecting Montana. Every Montanan should subscribe. Sure, it has some propaganda, but that is normal these days.

I happened to catch his latest newsletter and it contained some gems. Here are a few:

Due to the questionable actions taken in Afghanistan, I recently joined my House Freedom Caucus colleagues in calling for President Biden, Secretary of Defense Austin, and General Mark Milley to resign after their disastrous handling of the withdrawal.

I don’t think that will happen.

I also asked Speaker Pelosi to call Congress back into session to vote on articles of impeachment against Secretary Blinken. I am continuing to look at options to make sure those who put American civilian and military lives at stake are held accountable.

This won’t happen, either.

One thing I would like to point out to Team Rosendale – it might be a good idea to list your Great Falls office in your newsletter. 😉

Read the latest newsletter by clicking HERE.

ONE MORE THING:

Girls who love football aren’t weird. They are a rare gift from God and deserve bigger diamonds. -Unknown

## MASK UP MONTANA – GET VACCINATED ##

12 thoughts on “Tuesday’s Quick Hits”

    • FYI – today the Great Falls Public Schools announced they had 80 positive Covid cases as of Sept 3.

  2. They want no recreational marijuana sales in the City but they want to use the tax revenue from the sale of recreational marijuana to fund public safety. ? I’m probably misunderstanding something. I remember what Rick tweeted about the BLM protesters we had here last summer,” The only reason that little crew of Socialist agitators hasn’t used rowdy or violent tactics is because they know we have ZERO tolerance for that nonsense here.” I saw a different protest than he did. I don’t want that badge bunny involved with anything that affects me.

    • Bill don’t worry about that piddling marijuana tax money – Commissioner Tryon’s Task Force report is at its heart a tax-and-spend proposal, to the tune of over $1 million annually. Yet to be seen is whether or not the commissioner’s usual allies who show up at every commission meeting to protest any new spending at all will also come out in opposition to the levy proposal of this report.

      I too saw different BLM protests than our commissioner, who seems to find it necessary to try and convince people whose intelligence he obviously disdains that he’s single-handedly holding the lid on Watts or the south side of Chicago. But this is Great Falls, Montana. The reason there were no rowdy or violent tactics in Great Falls was because no one here was interested in violence in the first place. The protests here were friendly and peaceful.

      But you might need to get used to more of the heavy-handed right wing authoritarian attempts to dictate and/or police every aspect of your life in Great Falls. The commissioner’s conservative allies seem to be making a concerted and coordinated effort to seize control of the City Commission this November.

  4. When the crime task force was kicked off, you had one reader comment that the ultimate result would be a call for more taxes to support six new officers. So close. The real number turns out to be eight patrol officers plus four sergeants, including a permanent elementary SRO for the sheriff’s office (to go out and indoctrinate kids with his personal interpretation of the Constitution?), and a crime analyst, and a task force officer to deal with the crime problem in Indian country.

    However, no additonal taxes mentioned for more jail space to house all the criminals the task force wants locked up, including for minor crimes to teach them a lesson. Perhaps the long term plan is to ship more inmates down to Deer Lodge or up to Shelby, for other state taxpayers to foot the bill.

    Down towards the bottom there’s a recommendation for the City Commission to “state a position of no recreational marijuana” and take steps to prevent the establishment of sales outlets within the city to “prevent the coming proliferation of recreational marijuana shops in Great Falls”. So the task force’s stated position is to ignore the will of the voters of Great Falls and Cascade County. This is particularly interesting in that the “ex-officio” city commissioner member who initiated the task force, closely shepherded and drove proceedings throughout, and then wrote the recommendations is constantly carrying on about how local government ignores the people of Great Falls. But here we see the end product of his unelected task force apparently trying to game the process to backdoor I-190. Then again, perhaps it was the voters of Belt and Simms who put the recreational initiative over the top in Cascade County 55%-45%, and not the voters of Great Falls.

      • My bad, but I neglected to give kudos to the proposal for one-way bus tickets out of town for ne’er do wells. That’s some affordable out-of-the-box thinking right there. The one-way bus ticket solution is always the hallmark of a top shelf crime task force report.

    • And right on cue, constitutionalist sheriff Jesse don’t want no nosey feds pokin’ round these parts trying to stir up trouble! If we get the Bundy Boys up here causin’ trouble, or maybe some of Jesse’s militia pals, Jesse will put on his high noon hat and handle it himself, like a real old time sheriff! ‘Sides, if Jesse says they ain’t breakin’ no laws, well then, issue settled! For there is no law round these parts ‘cept what Jesse says! He’s gonna keep our women folk safe from antifa and BLM too. No good onery terrists!

      Sheriff Slaughter recommends the GFPD use extreme caution with federal partnerships:
      “We have many great federal partners; however, to solve many of the issues we are faced with, I would encourage local control. Many of the crimes we have discussed during our task force meetings do not rise to the level of federal prosecution. If the GFPD can maintain local control but receive the benefits of our federal partners, then I would recommend those relationships”

  5. Rosendale is a man of substance, which consists of forty percent talking points, forty percent pandering, and twenty percent bluster. But he’s a damn fine Monday morning quarterback! Without any personal military experience, commander Rosie would have somehow improved upon one of the most brilliantly executed withdrawals in military history! Or so he says. In fact, he’s so good, he says that he could have prevented the “needles deaths” of our fine young American soldiers! At times, it’s difficult to discern exactly which orifice Rosie is speaking from!

    And now, Rosie wants to award our last fallen soldiers with a Congressal Gold Medal, of which only 173 have been given since the founding of our nation. Only someone as sleazy as Rosie would use the deaths of these fine young Americans for self aggrandizement. We mourn them and honor their sacrifice, but we should not allow Rosie to mar their memory with a medal they didn’t earn in order to pander to his MAGA base.

    Read for yourself and see if these young soldiers deserve to be in the same company of the other recipients, like Lindbergh, etc.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Gold_Medal

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