Ravalli County commissioner to speak at wolf coordination meeting

Ravalli County Commissioner Matt Kanenwisher will be one of a handful of keynote speakers at a Trademark America Wolf Coordination Taskforce meeting.

And what exactly is the point of this meeting?

“Time for local governments to become empowered by information necessary to engage in the issues related to wolf management…

“This conference will provide local officials with the Tenth Amendment tools needed to engage in the coordination of wolf management as required by law…

“This conference will provide citizens with the knowledge they need to assist their local governments to engage in coordination in order to insure adequeate attention is given to protection of safety, health and economy of local communities;…of livestock and domestic animals;…of the big game herds that should be the primary focus of Fish and Game officials.”

The meeting is scheduled for Feb. 18 in Missoula. But it will cost a pretty penny to take part in the conference. $75 per person to be exact.

The agenda for the conference will include the following:

• The tenth amendment
• Data Quality Act
• Regulatory Flexibility Act
• Planning alternative regarding Agenda 21 and the Endangered Species Act
• Individual state statutes
• Disease
• Economic impact
• Rural Council executive orders
• How to get moving
• FAQ

Kanenwisher will be speaking on his “first hand perspective”, on “establsihing the economic impacts on local economies relative to the hunting and outfitting industries.”

Other speakers will be Norman MacLeod, president of Gaelic Wolf Consulting; Clayton Dethlefsen, director of Western Predator Control Association; Fred Grant, who served as chair for group that put together the Owyhee Initiative Agreement in Idaho.

Prior to this February meeting, there are sure to be more meetings on the Ravalli County commissioners’ schedule regarding wolves. This Tuesday, they will be giving a report on the public comment received thus far on their efforts to create a county policy for predator management.

 

Hamilton school board chair pens controversial vision statement

Ravalli Republic reporter David Erickson wrote this week about Hamilton School Board chairman David Bedey’s controversial vision statement he proposed at a recently school board meeting. It’s just a draft, he claims, one to start conversations. Uh, that’s an understatement. Some teachers in the district got pretty riled up upon hearing of the vision statement, according to David’s article. The draft statement includes some pretty interesting anti-government statements, as David reports:

Under the heading “Preparation to Participate in Self-Government,” Bedey wrote: “To make sense of the various positions put forward by ideologues across the political spectrum, our graduates must have a sound grasp of the political principles set forth by our Founders and of the free market system. Furthermore, increasing politicized scientific claims and counter-claims confuse the discussion of many crucial issues. Thus, to prepare our graduates to engage in self-government, it is also essential that they gain an understanding (of) the scope and the limits of science.”

Under the heading “Local Control,” Bedey wrote: “The Board of Trustees shall strive, within the limits of the law, to oppose further encroachments into the management of the District’s schools by the state and federal government and to restore those elements of local control that have been lost over the past decade.”

Bedey didn’t like his words being described as anti-government. He submitted a letter to the editor that will run on Thursday’s opinion page in the Ravalli Republic.

I’ll leave that up to you to decide. A citizen emailed us a copy of the vision statement in its entirety. Have a look-see for yourself.

 

New conservative newsletter making the rounds in the Bitterroot

Looks like the Ravalli Republic and the Bitterroot Star aren’t doing a good enough job in the eyes of some Ravalli County citizens (big surprise, I know). So a group has decided to start its own newsletter, dubbed the Ravalli Voice, to give light to issues the other “liberal” newspapers are turning their backs to. “Progressive scoundrels” beware!

I received an email chain last week, and here’s the first email explaining the newsletter.

Dear Citizens of Ravalli County and Montana and Beyond:

We now have a Newsletter that seems to be the only way we can communicate to each other since the newspapers in RC refuse to allow our letters in their papers.

I am grateful for those who started this newsletter, Keith and Eadie Kubista.

I thought of doing something similar long ago in order for us to keep in close contact as I figured the day may come when we HAVE TO communicate this way. Looks like that time has come.

It is pretty scary and such a shame that things have come this far.

However, when we all stand together and tell them “no more” and take charge ourselves, we can rest a bit easier and be proud that we are using our own powers and rights to make our own world a better place from our own corner of it.

Please consider signing up on your own as I would not just give out your info to anyone, even a trusted source.

Simply click on their email address at the bottom of their letter below.

Regards,

Cathy Kulonis,
Ravalli County Housewife

And here’s the second part of the email I received where the creators of the Ravalli Voice explain even further their reasoning for creating the newsletter.

Pass this on

Keith Kubista

As all Ravalli County citizens should be aware of by now, the Progressive Left has conducted a vicious campaign of accusation and misinformation directed against our duly elected County Commissioners. These extremists seek to drive our county commissioners from office by whatever means necessary, and replace them with their slate of leftwing extremists. Surprising to many, the State and Nation are closely watching Ravalli County to see whether such underhanded tactics succeed in the face of citizen opposition. You might say that “as Ravalli County goes, so goes the Nation”

Until recently, leftists have taken turns submitting daily diatribes to local newspapers criticizing our county government. Responsible spokesmen among us have attempted as best they can to respond with rebuttals in letters-to-the editors of the three local papers.

We are losing the battle to superior forces, however. The Missoulian and its subsidiary the Ravalli Republic will no longer publish any mudslinging letters, a good thing in a way, except that now the leftwing Bitterroot Star has the field to itself. Its current owner is former president of ‘Friends of the Bitterroot’, an environmental extremist and anti-business front organization. Michael Howell continues on as its publisher, and authors much of its opinionated material masquerading as ‘news’. Our letters have little chance of successfully countering leftist propaganda published in the Bitterroot Star.

We are left with few alternatives except a frontal barrage of truth against leftist lies and accusations. In that regard, we plan to carry our conservative message directly to the citizens of Ravalli County through other media, including distribution of a periodic newsletter by email.

Our new email newsletter is aptly named ‘Ravalli Voice”. It will convey our messages directly to the Bitterroot Valley’s citizens by email. At this time, we are seeking to establish a large subscriber base. We ask that upon receipt of this first installment, you forward it to as many Ravalli County residents as possible, copying us at Ravalli Voice so we can expand our email address file. Our ‘reply’ address is RavalliVoice@cybernet1.com. Remember, be sure to forward this email using ‘CC’ instead of “BCC’ so we can retrieve the forwarding addresses of your friends.

If we all diligently forward this message to a few friends, soon everyone in our county will know what these ‘Progressive’ scoundrels are up to.

Our first installment may provide a surprise for you. It may even come as an unpleasant shock to some of our local leftists. It was originally written as a letter-to-the-editors of local newspapers, but none would publish it. We believe this is information that the public has a right to know.

Also included in the email was the first edition of the newsletter, but as the above email points out, the Ravalli Republic strays from mudslinging and I am going to stick with that precedent and not include it in this blog post.

 

Commissioner editorial: StEP project about creating new jobs

It’s the second installment of the “commissioners’ corner”, as they call it, on the Ravalli Republic editorial page. This week, Kanenwisher chose to write the bimonthly column about the county’s strategic economic planning project the board has decided to undertake.

For background, here’s my story about the presentation Matt gave proposing the project and here’s my follow up about the commissioners opting to move forward with the proposal and create a steering committee.

In today’s column, Kanenwisher said the commission the strategic economic planning project is about looking for “long term solutions to our economic problems here in Ravalli County.” He pointed to looser regulations and natural resource development as keys to the project.

“It is my belief that the keys to economic growth in Ravalli County are the reduction of regulatory burdens, utilization of natural resources, gathering and sharing information with private industry, and focusing public infrastructure development.

The goal is to provide a business environment that is as attractive as our natural environment without sacrificing one for the other.”

The traditional government response, Kanenwisher said, is to make it look like you’re doing something, anything, now. But that doesn’t make for long term success, he argues.

Indeed, the local equivalent of writing a check to a “green energy” company or a public works project to build a bridge to nowhere provides a short term feather for our political caps but has proven to have little long term effect other than public debt.

While there are still more questions than answers at this point, Kanenwisher said he knows where he wants to look to to find those answers.

To answer these questions I intend to look toward economic leaders and successful entrepreneurs in the valley for ideas and feedback concerning this process.

 

Ravalli County commissioners and their timer

First it was wolves. Now it’s natural resources.

Ravalli County commissioners are hoping to use “coordination” – a process in which county government supposedly has the same seat at the negotiating table as the state and federal government.

A group of citizens, led in part by owners of R&R Conner Aviation Logging, came to the commissioners last week, begging them to get involved with creating a county policy for natural resource development.

Twenty five citizens took advantage of the public comment period, all speaking in favor of a county policy.

It was interesting to watch public comment during a meeting in which the commissioners completely agreed with the topic at hand and the citizens standing for public comment. The commissioners have a timer they start at the beginning of each public comment, limiting each participant, no matter what the side, to two minutes a person at the mic. And I have been to a lot of meetings where the commissioners follow that time to the second. If it goes off when someone is in the middle of the sentence, they quickly ask the speaker to wrap up what they’re saying, especially if it is someone criticizing the commission, giving a point of view they don’t quite align with or if it’s someone they just don’t like.

But not so much at this meeting.

Because it was an issue that the commissioners support and because nearly every speaker who stood up to talk gave the commissioners’ kudos in some form for possibly taking on this project, the commissioners were a bit more lax with their rules. The timer would go off and the speakers would keep speaking. There were times when people went almost twice the amount of time before Commission Chair J.R. Iman would politely ask them to wrap things up.

I know it’s hard to stop people in the middle of what they’re saying, but this all-Republican commission seems to do a good job of that when someone opposed to their point of view is at the mic, you’d think it wouldn’t be too hard to politely interrupt their proponents.

 

Ravalli County citizens give their two cents to the Missoula City Council…again

Last week, Ravalli County citizens came out in full force at a Missoula City Council meeting with accusations of communism.

The item on the agenda was paying annual dues to the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives amounting to $1,200.

Here’s what one Ravalli County citizen had to say,as Kim Briggeman reported:

ICLEI is a nongovernmental organization “circumventing Congress under the cover of environmental concern,” according to Niki Sardot, president of the Ravalli County Farm Bureau, who said she was speaking on behalf of the Montana Farm Bureau’s 17,700 ranchers and members.

“ICLEI gives our mayor the ‘cool mayor’ award. In exchange, the Bill of Rights, Montana state and U.S. constitutions are abandoned,” Sardot said. “You are selling us out.”

In today’s Missoulian, the city defended paying those dues, as Missoulian city government reporter Keila Szpaller writes:

In short, Missoula pays because it wants to save energy, said city communications director Ginny Merriam: “Energy conservation saves not only greenhouse gas emissions, it also saves money.”

 

Szpaller recently pointed out on Twitter, this isn’t the first hot topic that has brought Bitterrooters to the big city. Other issues Ravalli County residents have wanted a say on in the recent past include Missoula’s anti-discrimination ordinance and government bailouts.

I asked Keila, via Twitter, why Bitterrooters wanted to have a say in Missoula City Council affairs and she responded that the Ravalli County residents care about their neighbors to the north. And City Council member Lyn Hellegaard said that decisions made in Missoula affect people in neighboring counties as well.

 

 

Republican candidates for state offices making appearances in the Bitterroot

The North Valley Pachyderms will be hosting Secretary of State candidate Brad Johnson at its monthly meeting  on Friday, Dec. 2 at noon. The meeting is at the Frontier Cafe in Stevensville on Highway 93.

Also swinging down the Bitterroot are Republican gubernatorial Ken Miller and Neil Livingstone. Miller and Livingstone will be taking part in a question and answer session at a meeting of the Ravalli County Tea Party Patriots. The meeting is on Thursday, Dec. 8 at 6:30 p.m. at the Willow Court Apartments at 150 Skeel Ave. in Hamilton. (from Highway 93 turn east on Foxfield by Tire Rama, dead ends at Skeels, turn right, apartments on the left, park across the street.)

Ravalli County commissioner Ron Stoltz also told me that Miller will be speaking at luncheon at the Church of the Nazarene in Victor the following day (Friday, Dec. 9) at noon. I’ve gotten quite used to that venue. I’ve also seen U.S. House candidate Steve Daines and Montana governor candidate Rick Hill speak there in the last year.

Johnson, Miller and Livingstone’s running mate Ryan Zinke were in the Bitterroot most recently at the Ravalli County Republican Central Committee’s election kickoff fundraiser dinner, held on Oct. 29 in Hamilton.

*UPDATE* Thanks to commenter Tom McQuillan who pointed out that both Miller and Livingstone will be in Victor on Friday, Dec. 9. The two candidates are guests of a joint North and South Valley Pachyderm meeting that kicks off at 11:30 a.m. at the Church of the Nazarene.

 

Commissioners and MACo

Ravalli County commissioners will be heading out of the Bitterroot Valley next week to Helena for the Montana Association of Counties’ Elected Officials Training. According to MACo’s website, the training is “Phase II of the commissioners certification program”. And according to a draft agenda of the three-day session, seminars the commissioners will be sitting in on include:

• Managing County Finances
• Principals of Human Resource Management
• A Primer to Building the County Budget
• County Tax Policy
• County Special Boards Governance
• Effective Relations with Other Governments
• Hiring, Supervising and Motivating County Employees

Also on MACo’s website are this year’s MACo committee assignments. Ravalli County commissioners are on the following committees:

• Greg Chilcott: Justice and Public Safety, Natural Resource/Public Lands Litigation Fund, Public Lands and Tax, Budget and Finance
• Ron Stoltz: Agriculture
• Suzy Foss: Community, Economic and Labor
• Matt Kanenwisher: Health and Human Service
• J.R. Iman: Land Use and Development

*Update* According to the commissioners’ calendar, only the three freshmen commissioners – Foss, Kanenwisher and Stoltz – headed to Helena for the MACo training.

 

Meeting extras: County to investigate road supervisor

This week, Ravalli County Road and Bridge Department supervisor Dave Ohnstad waived his rights to privacy and allowed the public to sit in on a disciplinary hearing between him and the county commissioners.

Here is my story outlining the allegations against Ohnstad that have triggered an investigation. But it sure was hard to fit an intense meeting such as that into one story. Here are some of the meeting extras:

• The information that deputy county attorney Howard Recht provided commissioners was a sampling of the road department file regarding work done on Upper Woodchuck Road. But one thing that was added that Ohnstad and his attorney George Corn (former county attorney) said was new to them was a photo log of pictures taken by Pete Clarkson. “There was no notice of any of this stuff,” Corn said. And more importantly, “Who is Pete Clarkson?” Ohnstad asked the commissioners. Commissioner Greg Chilcott said that Clarkson is a special investigator for the county attorney’s office. He is retired from the sheriff’s department. The log includes 117 of his pictures that show the alleged damage to Upper Woodchuck Road.
• Ohnstad was angry with commissioners, saying that they are going to base a decision whether or not to investigate him on 30 minutes of review of a handful of documents and a photo log he claims he’s never seen. Commissioners Matt Kanenwisher and Suzy Foss both quickly denied that. Kanenwisher said the board has been on multiple site visits with Dave. “We’ve had several discussions on this,” Foss said. “You have to be aware.”
• This week’s meeting was one to decide whether or not to move forward with an investigation and to set a hearing in which commissioners may take disciplinary action against Ohnstad. Over and over again, Corn argued that the meeting lacked due notice for his client. Chilcott said that this process is similar to other investigations. “It’s consistent to the way other investigations are handled in the county attorney’s office,” Chilcott said. Corn countered by saying that, if Ohnstad had been aware of what information Recht was providing to commissioners at the meeting, he would have prepared a response and possibly persuaded the commissioners to not move forward with the investigation.
• Commission Chair J.R. Iman was very blunt in his understanding of the situation as a whole. “This is over my head,” Iman said. “I’ll be clear on that up front.” That’s not something I hear in that meeting room. Ever.

As most commissioner discussions tend to be, Monday’s was very circular with all sides repeating themselves…over and over again. I’m very interested what gets presented at the commissioners’ hearing with Ohnstad scheduled for Jan. 20.

 

Commissioners writing biweekly column in the Ravalli Republic

Today was the innaugural “commissioners’ corner” editorial in the Ravalli Republic.

Ravalli County commissioners will be taking turns writing a column every other week and Ron Stoltz kicked things off today with this editorial that focuses on this year’s budget process.

The freshman commissioner – one of three on the board – cites an article from the National Association of Counties entitled, “Survey: Budget shortfalls persist among counties”.

Stoltz mentions that the number of county employees has risen at twice the rate as the general population of the county as a justification for the cuts. However, he continues:

“That fact is no consolation to county employees who lost their jobs this last year and we sympathize with them, as well as the many, many families who have struggled through these last four years in the Bitterroot. Many of our friends and extended family members have been forced to move on to larger markets in order to make a living.”

Stoltz also defended the commissioners’ choice of plumping up what he deems critically low reserve funds – something the commissioners have adamantly defended throughout the entire budget process. The county has nine buildings worth millions of dollars, Stoltz said, and capital reserve funds need to be in place to maintain those.

“This doesn’t even consider things such as police cars and copiers. So this year, the commissioners started to save for facility costs which we know are on the horizon somewhere near the point in time when interest rates will no longer hover just above zero.”

As part of budget cuts, the county’s juvenile detention center was closed and the county signed contracts with facilities in Missoula and Galen to house the Bitterroot’s juvenile offenders. Stoltz wrapped up his column by also defending this move.

“By working toward a “functional merger” with Missoula County, the juvenile detention budget is currently on track to save half a million dollars over the next three years. By looking to the future and planning before in these bad economic times, the goal is to save jobs, make the county more fiscally responsible and efficient with less revenue.”

I will be very curious to read the topics each individual commissioner chooses to focus on with their respective columns. If I had to place bets, I’d say wolves or coordination will be gracing the “commissioners’ corner” here pretty soon.
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