Michael Howell

Voters overwhelmingly rejected the bond and levy proposed for a remodel and addition to the Bitterroot Aquatic Center in Hamilton. In both cases 72% of the voters said no deal. The $5.8 million bond request was for upgrading and expanding the facility. It was voted down by a vote of 4,073 to 1,586.  The $350,000 […]

  The Town of Stevensville is considering the potential purchase of 26 acres of ground located adjacent to the town’s well fields next to the Twin Creeks Subdivision. The issue came up because the Town holds a Right of First Refusal on the property and the property owner has received an offer on the property […]

Employees of the Ravalli County Federal Credit Union and members of the Bitterroot Chamber of Commerce celebrated the opening of a new branch office in Florence last week. The doors to the new branch office actually opened on October 29.  “I’m thrilled to be opening a new branch in Florence,” said Branch Manager Paul Anderson. […]

  Local artist Bobbie McKibbin has returned from the second annual Yellowstone Plein Air Invitational with more honors. McKibbin’s work earned her an award for excellence in the 2018 inaugural Invitational. This time she was awarded the Best Body of Work award for the entirety of the work that she produced at the 2019 event. […]

  On October 30, the Opencut Mining Section at the Department of Environmental Quality issued a permit to mine gravel to Wade Moudy. The Moudy Pit Site covers 13.7 acres with 4.7 acres currently bonded for excavation purposes. The permit will allow up to 500,000 cubic yards of gravel to be removed across the 13.7 […]

Hayes Creek Road, located on the west side of the valley south of Hamilton in the Charlos Heights area, will remain open up to the Forest Service boundary where public vehicle traffic is restricted. At a meeting on October 23, the Ravalli County Commissioners took the position that Hayes Creek Road is a public road, […]

The October 24 Stevensville Town Council meeting was not live streamed due to technical difficulties, but an audio record of the meeting was made and is available on the town’s web site. Mayor Brandon Dewey was not in attendance and as a result, Council President Steve Gibson chaired the meeting. Although adopting the final budget […]

Ravalli County Attorney Bill Fulbright recently found former Stevensville Town Council member and current candidate for council seat Bob Michalson’s ethics complaint against Mayor Brandon Dewey to be invalid. Michalson’s allegation against the Mayor had to do with the additional compensation that the Town Council approved on May 23, 2019. Michalson alleges that in accepting […]

Former Stevensville Town Clerk Audrey Tribbensee has filed suit in Ravalli County District Court alleging bullying, harassment and poor treatment to such an extent that the she had no choice but to resign. In her complaint, she asks for a jury trial on charges of constructive discharge and requests damages for lost past and future […]

Stevensville Town Council member Dempsey Vick has filed an official complaint with the Commissioner of Political Practices against Mayor Brandon Dewey, claiming that Dewey has violated the law prohibiting a public employee “from soliciting support for or opposition to any political committee, the nomination or election of any person to public office, or the passage […]

Four scientists at Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Hamilton and several of their Italian colleagues from the Neurosciences Department, Biomedicine in Verona University, the Cellular Biology and Neurosciences Department of the National Institutes of Health in Rome, and the G.B. Rossi Hospital in Verona were all recipients of the 2019 Aspen Institute Italia Award for scientific […]

What the group of men say while sitting around drinking coffee at the Bitterroot Valley Elks Lodge in Hamilton first thing in the morning is for the most part unprintable. But what they accomplish in the community when not on coffee break is laudable, to say the least. The list of local community projects and […]