Hello Monday – Today’s independent commentary deals with these issues:

• Great Falls Public Safety Levy
• Sheriff Jesse Slaughter
• Montana Legislature
• Snow Removal

GREAT FALLS PUBLIC SAFETY LEVY:

After my Friday column about the Great Falls Public Safety Levy, Great Falls City Commissioner Joe McKenney responded on The Western Word Facebook *page* with the following comment:

“Hey Mike: Good to hear you are recuperating. Hope all goes well. If you are up to it, you might want to attend our next City Council work session. It is Tuesday 12/20, 4:30 pm at the Civic Center, Gibson room. We will be discussing a possible library levy and a possible public safety levy. You can learn first hand about our community challenges and difficult decisions. Hope to see you at the Council meeting. Wishing you well.”

I’ve known McKenney for years. He is a fellow veteran. I respect him. I won’t be attending any meetings, but I do watch them online often.

Like I said before, I could support a library levy because there are so many ignorant MAGA people roaming the city that anything (like reading) that would broaden their horizons would be good,

As for the public safety levy – Good, Better, and Best ideas are all too much for me. I am retired and on a fixed income. The commissioners should consider this when trying to stick it to us.

Check out another view about the Great Falls Public Safety Levy from a local blog, “What the Funk” HERE.

*The best place to comment about my columns is on The Western Word blog.

SHERIFF JESSE SLAUGHTER:

I happened to catch a story about Cascade County Sheriff Jesse Slaughter expressing “remorse this week over how he spoke about a Great Falls reverend during a radio interview in October when he criticized how the First United Methodist Church was handling unhoused people living on church property.”

Now that his reelection is over, Slaughter decided to apologize. Interesting.

I think Slaughter was just playing to the MAGA crowd to get votes when he uttered the following remarks:

“This preacher or whatever she is that runs this thing is completely irresponsible,” Slaughter said in the radio interview. “She is hurting our community. It is beyond disgusting. And now people are paying for it with their lives.”

Maybe the media can ask Slaughter what he meant by “This preacher or whatever she is…”

Meanwhile, the temperatures in Great Falls will be approaching 30 below zero this week and there are still homeless people living outside.

The whole homeless issue in Great Falls placed a black mark on the community and leaders, like Slaughter.

Read the complete article from the Daily Montanan HERE.

MONTANA LEGISLATURE:

On this Twitter feed, James Conner is keeping up with the proposed bills for the upcoming Montana Legislature. As of December 17, Conner reports:

This morning’s tally of bills for Montana’s 2023 legislative session:
Introduced, 271.
Requested, not introduced, 3,937.
Total, 4,208.
Short title contains “Generally revise,” 2,109.

They only have 90 days to handle these bills. One of the reasons I have a hard time respecting any state legislator is shit like this. They get elected and automatically think they are God’s gift to the citizens.

Several years ago, I said that somewhere down a dark hallway in the capitol is a fountain that when legislators drink from it, they become ignorant and do silly things. With the number of bills proposed, I think many have found that fountain during orientation.

I think Montanans should be afraid when the legislature meets in January. Very afraid.

SNOW REMOVAL:

The city of Great Falls posted its annual snow removal notice that in part reads:

“Per City code, snow and ice is required to be removed from sidewalks within 24 hours after the snowfall for residences and before 11:00 am each day for businesses.”

Here are my annual comments about snow removal in Great Falls.

The city should ticket the folks who do not clear the sidewalks, Maybe the city would not need to raise my taxes as much!

Although I scoop my sidewalks well within the rules of the city code, (I am a good boy) the city has not plowed my street in 30 years. A FedEx truck was stuck for about an hour on my street the other day. The delivery of my medicine has been delayed the last two times because of the shitty streets that are not plowed.

Great Falls gets an “F” for snow removal.

I once worked for a city and plowed snow. Although it was a smaller city, we plowed every street and even removed the snow from the downtown area.

## HAVE A GREAT WEEK ##