Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Opinion & Editorial

by Clayton D. Floyd Jr., Ward 2 Councilor, Stevensville

Sadly, some in our Town are circulating that Stevensville clerical staff do not know their job and they are stealing funds from Town accounts. While Ms. Roni Kimp and Ms. Denise Philley are new to their respective positions of Town Clerk/Treasurer and Deputy Clerk, they have dedicated enormous energy to learning their jobs. Their job performance is exemplary. Through Ms. Kimp’s efforts, assisted by Craig Sheppard, the books of Town of Stevensville are now in excellent shape.

There is absolutely no basis for the allegation of theft. Community good is not served when malicious lies are spread and innocent hard working employees suffer unfairly. Freedom of speech is guarantee by our Constitution, but when allegations are made people need to be factual or it becomes liable or slander. I personally will encourage Town Council to prosecute anyone identified making untrue allegations, because this insanity needs to stop. If anyone within the community has concerns, I ask that you bring them forward so the facts may be provided.

In the past few months a number of concerns have been raised regarding the operation of the Town government. It is time to say that to the degree possible and within the legal constraints placed on the Town, we are providing the best service our limited money can buy. The Town has recently hired the third full time police officer and purchased a new police car. Town Council took these actions in direct response to expressed concerns on manpower available and the conditions of most of our police cars. Both the town water and sewer systems are aging. Upgrades to both will be required to meet State of Montana requirements for continued operation. How we accomplish these improvements is yet to be decided, but the Town is completing engineering reports for both. Funding sources have been identified and those options will be weighed in the near future. Neither of these upgrades are being undertaken to annex more development (another rumor out there). State of Montana allows operation of both the water and sewer systems under a permit. That permit comes with requirements that do change from time to time. It is not an option to do nothing.

We encourage your suggestions. I hope to provide future updates to keep our citizens informed.

Legislative pre-session activity

Dear Editor,

The election is over, finally, and activity leading up to the 2009 Session has begun.

Last week all elected legislators met in Helena on Wednesday to hold their party caucuses. Since the House is evenly split 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats, the Speaker of the House goes to the party of the Governor, who is a Democrat. They selected Bob Bergren of Havre as Speaker. They also selected Margaret Campbell of Poplar as their Floor Leader and Julie French of Scobey and Shannon Augare of Browning as Democrat Whips.

The Republicans elected former Speaker Scott Sales of Bozeman as Republican House Leader. Scott Mendenhall of Clancy was elected Floor Leader and Tom McGillvray of Billings was elected Assistant House Leader. They also elected four whips: Dee Brown of Columbia Falls, Chaz Vincent of Libby, Krayton Kerns of Laurel, and Llew Jones of Conrad. Four whips were elected instead of the traditional two, in order to increase leadership opportunities and communication within the caucus.

On the Senate side Republicans hold a 27-23 margin. They elected Bob Story of Park City as President of the Senate. Jim Peterson of Buffalo was elected Majority Leader while Dan McGee of Laurel and Greg Barkus of Kalispell were elected whips. The Democrats chose Carol Williams of Missoula as Minority Leader with Trudi Schmidt of Great Falls and Kim Gillan of Billings as whips.

Introduction of new legislators began Wednesday afternoon with signups for pay and expenses and tours of the Capitol, and an introduction to computer services, as well as the legislative staff available. The final event of the afternoon was a reception at the Governor’s mansion.

Thursday and Friday were filled from 8:00 am til 5:30 with classes in the fundamentals of bill requests, legislative rules, mock committee hearings, and mock floor sessions. There was also a session on the ethics of being a legislator. Veteran legislators also had classes in “advanced” budgeting, amendment drafting, and administrative rules. Learning the legislative process is an ongoing education.

This week, the leadership from both parties in both chambers will be meeting to figure out the committee assignments for each of their caucuses. They will then meet to iron out the differences and make final assignments. On December 15, the Rules Committee for each chamber will meet to hammer out the rules for the session which begins January 5, 2009. Meanwhile hundreds of bills are being drafted in preparation for the session.

While it may seem nothing happens between the election and the beginning of the session, there is actually quite a bit of preparation that doesn’t make the news.

Gary MacLaren, Representative HD 89
Victor

Thanks from kidney recipient

Dear Editor,

With Thanksgiving just days away, I have more than usual to be thankful for this year. Thanksgiving marks the first anniversary of my kidney transplant, and I want to share with you that everything is working well. My tests have been very good, and I am improving all the time. I again want to express my appreciation to the Stevensville community, to my church family, and to all the others who called, prayed, or stopped me on the street for all the support and caring that was shown to my husband and me before, during, and since the surgery. The prayers were so very important. I want to also especially thank the wonderful woman, Ellen Snoeyenbos, who gave me the generous gift of her kidney. What a treasure she is! Wishing you all a blessed Thanksgiving.

Mary (and Bill) Lyon
Stevensville

Abolish Airport Advisory Board

Dear Editor,

Now it is time to abolish the County Airport Advisors Board. The idea of the Board was born in the mid-90s when the FAA came to town with their edict that the County Airport will be expanded because they felt it was necessary and an important part of the FAA plan for modernization of the Missoula International Airport. The FAA Airports Division based in Helena brought with them the engineering and development contractor they had selected to be the interface for day-to-day operations with the County Commission. In turn the County Commission selected some advocates of expansion and named the group the Airport Advisory Board. The County Planner defined the function of the Board as designing and development of the new expanded County Airport in conjunction with the FAA Airports Office. Except for the relatively short time taken up by the weird and short life of the madcap Airport Authority, the Advisory Board has been meeting. Now is the time to shut down the Board. The new expanded airport has been designed and approved by the FAA and the County Commission. The FAA has the go ahead from the environmental impact “experts” (a foregone conclusion). All that remains is for the FAA to provide a grant of 10’s of millions of dollars and for the County Commission to sign on the line and mortgage the County taxpayers for decades in the future as long as the airport exists. As for the “big picture” the FAA will have their alternate landing site for weather-related and overcrowded conditions in Missoula and an excellent air freight forwarding airport linked by a four-lane highway to Missoula. The last time I looked the new county airport will include several very large warehouse/hangar freight forwarding buildings. This will provide much better facilities than those at the Stevensville city airport used in the past by air freight forwarders. The Commissioners should dump their creation, the Airport Advisory Board, and give the responsibility for operation of the airport to the Airport Manager reporting to the Commission and whatever he needs in the form of a staff.

Earl Pollard
Hamilton

Thanks from an artist

Dear Editor,

I want to take this opportunity to thank all those who helped make this past Sunday’s Talk Series at the Ravalli County Museum a success. From the staff who have worked very hard installing my sculpture and paintings, mailing, and just “making it work”, to the Ravalli Republic’s community notice which helped people learn of the exhibit.  It’s nice to be part of the community.

For those of you who missed the Sunday program and who may not have been to the museum recently, Tamar Stanley, the board, and staff recently began a program which brings artists and their art to the museum. My exhibit opened October 17, and will be on display through January. On Sunday afternoon, as part of the exhibit, I spoke to a great audience about my life as an artist and how some of my art came to be.  

What makes this exhibit unique is the makeup of the collection. Over the past thirty years as a professional artist I have been fortunate to create several large scale public sculptures for communities throughout the country. Although these are one of a kind works, I have created plaster castings of many of the busts from these monumental works, and these form the basis of the current exhibit. The plaster busts have been augmented with about a dozen “decorative” bronze sculptures and fifteen oil paintings. I have been told the exhibit is unique to the museum and quite interesting.

This exhibit is educational rather than commercial, meaning the primary purpose is not to sell art, but to share the experience. It is presented as an opportunity to share, through art, a small bit of history, and of course that is what museums are about. Thanks again for making it happen.

Arthur Norby, sculptor
Corvallis

©2008 Bitterroot Star
This site was Done By Dooney