Tagged: city commission

Posted: December 3, 2012 at 12:15 pm

What’s the Matter with Bozeman?

The Bozeman Chronicle reported this week that a new national TEA Party astroturf group funded by the Koch brothers is starting up in Bozeman, just in time for the 2013 legislative session.

The group is called “American Majority in Montana.” It’s a part of the national TEA Party group out of Virginia called “American Majority.”

Jeremy Carpenter is the group’s local contact. He said the goal is to build up the TEA Party base “by teaching people how to be candidates, run campaigns, get out the vote or be activists.” The group will be working to put TEA partiers not just in the legislature and statewide offices, but in local offices like school boards, County Commissions, and City Councils.

As the Chronicle reports:

According to an Oct. 5, 2009, Dallas News article, American Majority co-founder Drew Ryun said 75 percent of the group’s funding comes from the Sam Adams Alliance, a tea party organization with connections to the Koch brothers, much like Americans for Prosperity.

Bozeman is already home to two TEA Party groups – Americans for Prosperity, run by former GOP legislator Joe Balyeat, and something called the “Political Economy Research Center” which is some kind of right-wing “think tank.”

Posted: November 17, 2011 at 7:12 pm

Political Quick Hits

Back in the National News

Rob Kailey at Left in the West this week highlights just what kind of wackos the fringe elements in Montana have attracted. It’s a must read, especially given the fact that Chuck Baldwin understands very well he his chances of becoming Governor. So is the latest piece by James Conner at the Flathead Memo. It’s a takedown of Baldwin’s introductory statements to Montana voters that the leaders of the old confederacy weren’t racists, and were people who Baldwin holds “in the highest regard.” In yesterday’s Daily Inter Lake,

Baldwin makes clear the Fanning-Baldwin political strategy in a field of nine gubernatorial candidates.

“The pie is going to be sliced mighty thin, and in Montana, there is no run-off in the primaries. That means, whoever gets the most votes — no matter what the percentage — wins,” Baldwin wrote. “It is very conceivable, therefore, that the winner will receive far less than 30 percent of the votes. Do you see the opportunity Bob and I have in this election?”

As a former presidential candidate, he poses a real threat to the candidates running for Governor, most of which have never run for statewide office before. Even those who have, such as Hill, or have some national media experience, such as Livingstone, face losing home turf to Baldwin, who is also from the Flathead.

This Is Embarrassing

Apparently flying a giant flag above a furniture store isn’t good enough for veterans to support Ken Miller.

After at least two months with a “Veterans for Miller” page up, (which can be seen here) he still only has one supporter. Maybe that’s because unlike Steve Bullock, who has a record of helping Veterans, Ken Miller has only ever flown a flag.

Sour Grapes

One angry loser in the recent Whitefish City elections was Rick Blake, who in an odd parting shot at the winning slate of candidates, hurled the tax and spend label, then bragged that he had spent an eye-popping $22,786 attempting to defeat the winners.

Posted: November 14, 2011 at 7:48 am

Return of the Jedi

In 2010, the Empire struck back, hard. The Dark Side destroyed the Democrats, the first piece of sizable revenge exacted by the GOP ever since their Death Star (which had dominated the galaxy for two decades) was destroyed in the span of four years by Schweitzer, Tester, Bullock, McCulloch, Lindeen and Juneau.

The 2010 elections were bought, not won. There were millions of dollars brought in illegally by the GOP’s wealthy friends. Much of it was funnelled in by shell groups from undisclosed sources, and mostly by one particular front group called Western Tradition Partnership. This group is currently being prosecuted civilly in the Montana courts for their dirty 2010 campaign activity. Of the estimated million they brought in, none of it was reported nor the sources disclosed. In other words, we still don’t know who, exactly, owns the GOP-controlled Montana Legislature.

I’m told that the same shady GOP Darth Vaders who operated in 2010 were back at work this cycle, trying to buy themselves victories in city races around the state. They came up empty-handed, humiliated. Like John Sinrud, backed by the Montana Realtors, who wants to build high-rise condos and strip malls on farm land in and around Whitefish. Or Chuck Denowh, who is Rick Hill’s chief advisor but apparently took a hiatus to try to work some of the city races in the Flathead and elsewhere.

They were working hard behind the scenes trying to get victories. It hasn’t been calculated yet how many hundreds of thousands of dollars these losers spent on city commission races around Montana, but not a single Tea party candidate won election in Bozeman, Whitefish, Kalispell, Great Falls, Helena, Billings or Missoula last week.

Posted: October 28, 2011 at 7:39 pm

The Montana TEA Party Hypocrite of the Week Award Goes To…

Great Falls City Commission candidate Cyndi Baker, who campaigned against school district spending, then turned around and sought a district paycheck.

But it’s worse then that, as the Great Falls Tribune reports, Baker tried to threaten the local government for taxpayer funded payola in the form of a position as “ombudsman” to the local TEA Party anti-government activists. Here’s how the threat worked. Baker had been complaining for some time that it was “illegal” for district employees to criticize her opposition to district funding. Baker said if she were hired, she’d keep the “illegal” activity quiet. She did not explain how the proposed ombudsman position would work with people who are divorced from reality.

As the Tribune reports, while the district’s criticism may not have been flattering to Baker, there was nothing illegal about it. What the Tribune didn’t report is that Baker is the leader and spokesperson for the Great Falls TEA Party. Apparently Ms. Statue of Liberty (Baker’s preferred costume when at TEA Party rallies) is engaged to TEA Party Republican legislator Cleve Loney (who prefers to dress as George Washington, among other things, as you can see from this KRTV video).

So there you have it folks. Another city commission candidate seeking your vote as a platform to spew right wing nonsense in public meetings, in the newspapers and on our airwaves.

Posted: October 7, 2011 at 7:57 pm

What You Won’t Read in the Tribune About the Great Falls City Commission Scandal

Here in Helena, we think our city commission is embarrassing because they want to ban both cell phones and hands-free devices. It turns out we may not have it so bad.

The city of Great Falls just paid a cool half million dollar settlement to a local woman who, a judge ruled, was assaulted, beaten, falsely imprisoned–and deprived of all her Constitutional rights to liberty, speech, and participation in government–all because she made some comments that were critical of the city over what she saw as shady handling of an animal shelter contract.

It’s big news, but the Great Falls Tribune for some reason decided not to tell you the whole story. (They had the opportunity, but perhaps they wanted to keep on the city commission’s good side. It would not do to miss the big scoops like when the next pothole repair schedule would be released or how many parking tickets had been issued lately.)

Sure, the Trib wrote about it. But the sheer size of the settlement payment alone should tell you that this is not a story about a woman who was “escorted” out of a city council meeting for speaking longer than three minutes.

The citizens of this town and Ms. Susan Overfield, a local dog trainer who spoke up for homeless pets, deserve to have the full story told. It sure looks like the City settled up quick because it faced serious risk in this case of a much higher verdict.

Here’s what you won’t find in today’s paper.

Ms. Overfield attended a city council meeting and made some comments that were critical of the city’s decision to take over the animal shelter and award a contract to manage it to a group called the Animal Foundation. Several city officers and employees were Animal Foundation leaders or board members. Susan pointed out her concerns about conflicts of interest. Susan also raised concern about meetings, decisions and deals the city made on the contract without public knowledge. But it gets better. The Animal Foundation is headed by Bob James. His firm represented the city against Susan in this case.

So anyway Susan goes to the city commission meeting and gets up to testify. The mayor decides she’s said enough citing a “three minute rule,” and has Susan grabbed and dragged out of the meeting.

It doesn’t end there. The city then decides to prosecute Susan for assault and disorderly conduct for fighting back against the guys who forcibly removed her. But, the Tribune reports, a judge throws Susan’s conviction out saying she had a right to defend herself because she did not know the men were police officers. They were dressed in plain clothes. The court also ruled that this whole “three minute rule” people keep throwing around did not even apply here. So it is not accurate to report that Susan violated any rule. Judge Irigoin ruled that she didn’t. The facts prove in this case show that she didn’t.

Get this. It then came to light that the city attorney had publicly stated that it was important to prosecute Susan to prevent further criticism of the city. It’s all a matter of public record. Here’s the PDF document with the statement.

“…had the City failed to prosecute the case, it is likely that the City’s ability to maintain order at Commission meetings would have been further compromised and the City’s operation of the Animal Shelter would still be a subject of increased speculation and criticism.”

Things got creepy. Susan’s lawyers report that city employees started monitoring Susan. One maintained “a file” on her. They admitted bad mouthing her to others on email, and the shelter manager took down all the fliers about her training services.

So there is quite a bit more to the story than what you read in the paper, and the taxpayers deserve to know the whole truth. The Tribune story has the current mayor pointing out that:

“the incident occurred before he or anyone else on the commission was elected.”

That may be true, but there are city employees, department heads, contract attorneys and judges who were involved and are still around.

UPDATE: It seems we’re not the only ones upset about how this story is being told. If you’re interested in reading more about this case and Ms. Overfield’s incredible ordeal, head over to the conservative blog Electric City Weblog for their take.