Welcome! Here are the topics for today’s column: 

• Great Falls City Commission
• U.S. Senator Tim Sheehy
• Sophie Cunningham
• One More Thing

GREAT FALLS CITY COMMISSION:

It is hard to watch the Great Falls City Commission pitch property tax hikes and utility fee increases to fix a budget shortfall while quietly looking to bump up their own stipends. But that’s what they did Tuesday night. 

Hardworking residents have to cut back when budgets get tight, and our city leadership should do the same.

According to reporting from the Montana Free Press (MTFP), the 6.59% property tax increase will amount to $1.4 million for the city’s general fund. Montana law allows cities to pass limited increases without voter approval to reflect inflation and health insurance costs. About $820,000 of the increase is explicitly reserved for staff health insurance. 

The MTFP also reported:

As part of Tuesday’s budget approval, the city commission passed increases to their annual stipend. The increases nearly triple the annual stipend for the mayor and more than double that for the four city commissioners.

The current annual stipend for the mayor is $2,100. That will increase to $6,000 for the year. City commissioners also currently receive a $2,100 annual stipend, and the 2027 increase will bring it to $4,700.

The stipends are in addition to annual base salaries of $5,616 for the mayor and $3,714 for each commissioner. City officials noted that the stipends hadn’t been updated since 1989.

At least the budget resolution vote wasn’t a unanimous vote to stick it to us this time. The budget resolution passed on a 3-2 vote, with Commissioners Joe McKenney and Casey Schreiner voting against it.  I applaud them for their votes. 

You can read the complete report from the MTFP HERE. 

U.S. SENATOR TIM SHEEHY:

I read a couple of things about Montana’s junior senator that I wanted to share my thoughts about.  

While I was away, I noticed U.S. Senator Tim Sheehy (R-MT) was sworn into the Naval Reserve by President Donald J. Trump. (Press Release)  

According to reports, Sheehy is assigned to SEAL Team 18 in Virginia Beach and has returned to service after an honorable discharge in 2019. Sheehy is 40 years old. As a sailor with the Navy Reserve, Sheehy will drill one weekend a month and attend two weeks of training each year. (Source)

For some reason, and maybe it’s Sheehy’s past, I don’t feel safe with Sheehy being in the Naval Reserve. 

I also saw that Sheehy introduced the Special Operations Forces Concealed Carry Act, extending nationwide carry privileges to elite special operations veterans similar to the privileges given to trained and vetted law enforcement officers under the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act of 2004. 

I don’t know if this Act, if passed, would allow Sheehy to conceal carry nationwide, but with his track record of supposedly shooting himself in Glacier National Park, it worries me. 

Two things I still won’t do: Fly in an airplane with Sheehy and visit a shooting range when he is there. 

SOPHIE CUNNINGHAM:

I have followed the career of Indiana Fever Guard Sophie Cunningham for many years, all the way back to 2015 when she played college basketball at the University of Missouri. Now she plays in the WNBA, and I try to catch all their games. 

Recently, Cunningham made some remarks in which she said she was against the participation of trans women in women’s sports. Here is the quote from the ESPN article:

She’ll weigh in on how to “protect women’s sports,” she says, because she’s in that world and feels qualified to speak to that world. “I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans. And I’m like, ‘I never once said that,'” she says. “I think that I am here to extend love. But I also think with that love is truth, being honest. And I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.” 

If we could all be a little more honest, the world would be a better place. 

ONE MORE THING:

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. And stupid. We should be scared shitless of stupid. 

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