Welcome! Here are the topics for today’s column:
- Great Falls Utility Bill
- Most Religious States
- Mail-In Voting
- My Source News Opinion World
- One More Thing
GREAT FALLS UTILITY BILL:
I received my utility bill from the City of Great Falls, which was the first bill after the city commission raised the water utility rate by 27%. (Source) The vote to increase the water utility rate was 5-0. The city commission has also increased sanitation rates recently.
My bill increased by $41.70 from the previous month. Ridiculous.
Two members of the current commission are up for reelection this November. They are City Commissioner Joe McKenney and Mayor Cory Reeves. They will not be getting my vote.
The current commission is sticking it to us every time they meet. Due to their mismanagement, Great Falls is in terrible shape. We need new blood. We need people who can think outside the box and stop hurting the citizens of Great Falls.
MOST RELIGIOUS STATES:
The good folks at SmileHub have published the “Most Religious States in 2025.”
To highlight the states that care the most about religion and the ones where it is less important, SmileHub compared each of the 50 states based on 13 key metrics. The data set ranges from the number of faith & religious support charities per capita to the share of people who pray at least daily to the number of religion-related careers per capita.
I was surprised that Montana came in at #32. The most religious state was Virginia. New Hampshire came in last. Does that make them heathens?
Check out the report from SmileHub HERE. You can also find the Best Charities for Faith & Religious Support in 2025 at that link.
MAIL-IN VOTING:
Here we go again. The Republicans want to make it harder for people to vote, especially for voters who might not vote their way. They are also worried about losing the majority in the House and Senate during the midterm election.
The Associated Press (AP) reports that on Monday, Trump posted a falsehood-filled rant on social media pledging to lead a “movement” to outlaw voting machines and mail balloting, the latter of which has become a mainstay of Democratic voting since Trump pushed Republicans to avoid it in 2020 — before flipping on the issue ahead of last year’s presidential election.
The AP also reported that Trump, relying on false information and conspiracy theories that he’s regularly used to explain away his 2020 election loss, Trump has pledged on his social media site that he would do away with both mail voting — which remains popular and is used by about one-third of all voters — and voting machines — some form of which are used in almost all of the country’s thousands of election jurisdictions. These are the same systems that enabled Trump to win the 2024 election and Republicans to gain control of Congress.
Most educated people understand that elections are run by the states. Keeping power is everything to Trump, so we need to be on alert.
MY SOURCE NEWS OPINION WORLD:
In case you missed it, cable news channel MSNBC will be changing its name to MS NOW. That stands for “My Source News Opinion World.” They are also taking away the peacock logo. (Source) Ouch.
MSNBC was the second-ranked cable news network in July 2025. Fox News was first, and CNN was third. (Source)
Over the years, I have watched all three networks. Each has their slanted views and in the evenings, it’s opinions. When something big is happening in the news, I use the “quad box” to watch the three main cable news stations and the BBC.
ONE MORE THING:
My Therapist said I need to write letters to the people who have wronged me and then throw them in the fire.
I said OK, but what do I do with the letters?
## THE END ##
The Western Word 
I read that in order to save us some money they cut some Park & Rec positions. I wonder if they were from the roughly thirty full time folks or just cutting hours from the over one hundred part timers.
Most of them are back to school.
The cut of part time workers would give them a way to spin it to make them look good. There’s a lot of spin going on. -JmB
An increase of $41.70?
But according to the informational flyer the City sent us, and what the commissioners repeated/sold in the public hearing, the “typical” household was only supposed to see a total increase of $17.71 over 2024 rates as a result of the 27% rate increase!
Of course, they concocted this IMO intentionally BS estimate based on the “typical” GF household consuming just a low winter quantity of water every single month of the year.
Anyone with half a brain who owns a lawn or flowerbed knows that isn’t going to happen. The commissioners knew that ahead of time, too, but repeated just $17.71/mo. anyhow in the public hearing.
For this (IMO intentionally) deceptive sleight of hand, as well as failing to mention/glossing over the fact that fully 1/3 of the TRUE increase is dedicated to subsidizing development and developers without public discussion of that policy, neither one of the commissioners running for re-election deserve our vote. They have demonstrated they don’t feel it is necessary to be straight with us and will resort to dishonesty to further their agenda.
The Electric had a story about what they claimed the impact their 27% increase would have on our bills:
It seems the commission does a lot of “selling” when they are talking about raising rates but stretch the truth a bit too much. It’s a lot of snake oil. -JmB
Much like when they were trying to sell the public safety levy, and the state’s big hike in property valuations inflated the ask from $10 million to $13.3 million before we even voted. But here their city staff shills were on the sales roadshow trying to gaslight us anyhow with, “Nothing has changed! It is still only $280/yr. for a $200,000 home!”
Yeah right, nothing but the fact that the formerly $200,000 home was now $300,000. No one was fooled, they looked like dopes for even trying that, and trust in the city commission and staff was damaged.
Now they’ve hiked our utility bills far more than $280/yr. with this latest deceptive sales pitch, and they’re going to have to come back to us sometime soon for another safety levy and expect us to trust them. Good luck.
Exactly! They will have a hard time passing any levies in the near future. No trust. -JmB