Serving Proudly As The Voice Of Valley County Since 1913
Serving Proudly As The Voice Of Valley County Since 1913
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Editor’s Note: This story is excerpted from Capitolized, a weekly newsletter featuring expert reporting, analysis and insight from the reporters and editors of Montana Free Press. Montana’s two largest telephone cooperatives took a multimillion-dollar hit in 2019 when the federal government pulled the plug on Chinese tech company Huawei. Not-for-profit rural telephone providers had spent millions on Huawei’s bargain-priced tech to improve cell phone service in rural areas where for-profit companies invested little if anything. Co-ops inclu...
Reprinted with permission: https://montanafreepress.org/2024/12/04/irrigators-hopeful-lame-duck-congress-will-deliver-funding-for-milk-river-repairs/ That mythical December character bearing gifts, could it be the Congressional Lame Duck? Irrigators along Montana’s Milk River hope it’s so. With weeks left in the congressional term, farmers along the Milk River are hopeful federal lawmakers will deliver at least some of the more than $300 million promised earlier in the year for the Milk River Irrigation Project, which delivers water to 18,...
Montana Department of Revenue staff told a legislative committee on Nov. 18, that next year’s reappraisal cycle could produce a partial repeat of last year’s jarring tax spike as the state’s surging real estate market continues to translate into higher residential taxes. The department expects the market value of the average Montana residential property to be reappraised at 21 percent higher when it completes next year’s reappraisal cycle. A staff economist said Monday that if the Legislature doesn’t rebalance state tax statutes, the higher va...
Editor's Note: Mara Silvers was a resident reporter this past week at the Glasgow Courier and was able visit Valley View Home as well as meet with Commissioners and Administrator Wes Thompson while in town. When families, hospitals and other nursing homes call Wes Thompson to see if he can take new patients, his instinct is to try and help. The senior care home he runs in Glasgow, Valley View Home, is licensed for 96 beds and includes a secure unit for patients with dementia. The walls are...
The rivets were still popping from the seams of the St. Mary siphon when Jennifer Patrick started crunching the numbers for repairing the century-old system that 18,000 residents of Montana’s Hi-Line depend on for water. It would take 3,600 feet of pipe — two-thirds of a mile of pipe so big men can walk through it without bumping their heads — to get water flowing again to a 200-mile stretch of the Milk River Irrigation Project. They would need a new steel bridge across the St. Mary River and enough earth-moving equipment to restore a river...
A piece of infrastructure used to divert water from the St. Mary River to the North Fork of the Milk River has suffered a "catastrophic failure," according to Milk River Project personnel. The failure involves the St. Mary River Siphon, which is composed of a pair of 90-inch riveted steel barrels that traverse a 3,200-foot section of the St. Mary Valley to divert water to the North Fork of the Milk River. In a Facebook post, the Milk River Joint Board of Control said the failure occurred at...
Last year, during a dispute with Gov. Greg Gianforte over the state’s “95 mill” school equalization property tax, officials with 49 of Montana’s 56 counties chose to reduce their fall tax bills against the wishes of the Montana Department of Revenue. This month, after landing on the losing side of a November Montana Supreme Court ruling, those counties’ treasurers are left with the thankless task of sending supplemental property tax bills to hundreds of thousands of property owners across the state. The supplemental bills will increase...
A highly public child protection case involving a transgender teenager that has stirred up online conservative outrage, created blowback for Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte and sparked legal challenges at the Montana Supreme Court was dismissed on Feb. 20. The decision on Feb. 20 to dismiss the case by state district court Judge Yvonne Laird, a copy of which was reviewed by Montana Free Press, comes after the child’s placement earlier this month with their biological mother in Canada over the objection of their father and stepmother, Todd K...
Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte is defending the state health department’s actions in an active child protective case against a wave of online criticism from conservative groups, including some far-right, anti-LGBTQ social media accounts, an unusually public commentary from the state’s highest elected official about confidential child welfare proceedings. In a series of Monday afternoon, Jan. 29, posts on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, Gianforte responded to direct call-outs from prominent anti-transgender commenters who alleged tha...