Serving Proudly As The Voice Of Valley County Since 1913
Serving Proudly As The Voice Of Valley County Since 1913
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The legislative leadership, especially Austin Knudsen, are bragging again that they imposed no new taxes on hard-working Montanans. That is a big lie. Please check your last year’s school tax on your property tax bill and compare it to this year’s. We send our local property taxes to Helena and get monies back through entitlements. The legislature simply did not fund the block grants to schools and passed on a tax increase to the counties. Mine went up 30 percent in one year in Daniels County and a similar amount in Valley County. And the leg...
I am wondering if any of you that enjoyed deviled eggs for your Thanksgiving holiday happened to remember the days when it was not uncommon to break open an egg and find it was a “double yolker?” This is something that we hardly ever see anymore. I am sure that chickens still lay an occasional egg or two that has two yolks (and for those that prefer yolks over the whites, it was always a nice surprise) but since the eggs that most of us eat anymore come from the shelf at the grocery store, those little surprises have been culled out. Back in th...
The special session of the Montana Legislature is behind us – yet another thing to be thankful for in this season. Taking center stage was concern for the most vulnerable populations in Montana. What avenues should be taken to address taking care of them? How can we do the most to avoid cuts to their services? The Governor seemed to suggest that the only way to avoid deeper cuts was to raise taxes, and the Republicans were having nothing to do with that. It’s an unfortunate reality that our state’s budget is such that the Governor has to make...
If you ran a multi-state business and had just over one billion dollars in sales in Montana, I bet you would expect to pay something in Montana corporate taxes. And, indeed you would; you would have to dig deep down into your corporate pocket to come up with the 50 bucks to cover your tax bill. Let me repeat those figures; one billion dollars in Montana sales and 50 bucks in taxes. Oh, and for five years in a row. We are not allowed to know its name, but this is a real company. This is a true story. In a time of record highs in the stock...
I remember being asked, “When do you stop worrying about your children?” My answer was, “Never. You start worrying about them from the time you know you are going to have a baby and the worry never stops.” I know of a seven-year-old boy who was diagnosed with cancer at the age of two. He has had multiple surgeries, chemotherapy in the form of pills and infusion, and radiation. Last week he told his mother, “Mom, the cancer is back. You better take me to the doctor.” She did. The diagnosis? The cancer has spread to his chest wall and heart. And...
I’m not entirely sure I should be the one to write on this topic. However, I am sure someone needs to say something about how they felt as they watched President Donald J. Trump during a ceremony at the White House Nov. 27. While honoring Navajo code talkers, Trump referred to Massachusetts' sitting senator Elizabeth Warren as "Pocahontas" - a term commonly understood to be derogatory towards Native Americans. Neither deserved nor likely wanted his comment at the ceremony. What President Trump fails to realize is that while his actions, w...
Thanksgiving is not a time for movies. It’s a day for football. And eating. Lots of eating. And getting together with family and friends, and then maybe watching some kind of variety show on the tube late at night. Yet the few Thanksgiving movies that exist actually tell more about the reality of the holiday than you’d expect. Probably the signature Thanksgiving movie of the small group of them made is Jodie Foster’s Home for the Holidays. It’s another entry in that turgid American tradition of the contrived family get-together, most often s...
While I was attending high school in Malta, two south county ranchers were shot to death in the men’s restroom of a local saloon. The wild, wild west was not of the past; it was in the here and now! During the same time frame, a north county farmer/mailman came up missing. His frozen body was found beneath a bridge north of Malta. It was a sad state of affairs, the victim of gunshot was a family man. Ever after that, the bridge was named after the dead man. Many years later, I asked a retired businessman if the authorities ever had a clue i...
According to the American Society of Addiction Medicine, the leading cause of accidental death in 2015 was drug overdose. The life toll from the drug epidemic has been consistently growing over the past couple of years with opiate addiction and overdose being one of the lead causes. Each year, more people use drugs for the first time and wind up addicted. Right now, the highest number of opiate overdoses are in the Northeast. The problem originally started with heroin as the main contributor. However, newer drugs have begun to escalate the...
When Congress cuts income taxes, they increase your inflation tax in secret. This is like taking money out of your left pocket rather than your right pocket. Either way, you pay. When it comes to taxes, ignore tax rates and focus on government spending. Your taxes only go down when spending goes down, not when income taxes go down. Income tax cuts combined with spending increases creates massive deficits. Since people don’t want to loan money to the federal government at two percent interest rates, the Federal Reserve electronically prints d...
I think that this memory might be area specific, but do you remember when the three meals of the day were breakfast, dinner and supper? I have been made aware over the years that terminology can be very confusing. It seems the more acceptable terms are breakfast, lunch and dinner. Wow, this can cause a lot of confusion, and I have tried just referring to meals as breakfast, the noon meal and the evening meal. With Thanksgiving upon us, this crazy thought crossed my mind. Why do we refer to our Thanksgiving meal as DINNER? Almost everyone that...
The month of November is set aside for giving thanks, spending time with friends and family, and helping others. The Glasgow Police Department would like to take time this month to thank all of our local business owners and community members. There are endless reasons to appreciate what your support does for our area. Please indulge us as we take a moment to acknowledge a few things we know about how local collaboration and service benefit our community. Your involvement contributes to our community’s unique identity. Truly, we would not be u...
The Fort Peck Fine Arts Council, a 501c3 organization, has been dedicated to the maintenance and preservation of the beautiful Fort Peck Theatre. To accomplish this goal, an Endowment Fund was created, and professionally managed through the Montana Community Foundation, to generate sustainable investment returns used to fund major restoration projects. Past gifts to this Endowment Fund have been crucial in keeping this building looking as wonderful as it did back in 1934. This year, the Fort Peck Fine Arts Council has added an additional fund,...
I disagree with Gov. Bullock’s proposal to eliminate Medicaid funding for many adult dental and other healthcare services. Elderly, disabled, and seriously mentally ill Montanans are our most vulnerable families and neighbors. They need this care to protect their health. The Governor would also reduce reimbursements to all healthcare providers who treat these patients. That severally limits their access to much-needed care. If these dental services are eliminated, elderly adults in nursing homes or living at home and disabled adults in group h... Full story
Friends and Neighbors, I’m asking for your help in curbing wasteful spending by the Montana Department of Transportation. MDT is once again proposing the construction of the Grass Range round-a-bout at the junction of Hwy. 200 and 87. Last spring, the estimated cost was $3.2 million and is now at $4 million. We assert that the safety issue at the junction can be addressed at under $250,000, the balance of the $4 million could be dedicated to addressing Hwy. 200 safety issues on either side of the junction. It’s time that “We the Peopl... Full story
Editor's Note: This story was originally told by Mary Ellen DePuydt to our very own Helen. Hidden in the shadows of modern farm buildings, rests a gray rotting log cabin, whispering its memories of the homestead days on the Montana prairie, northeast of Malta. My sister and I made many a journey through the crested wheat grass, winding through the caraganas and between the plump grain bins to the little cabin where we could turn the time clock back 60 years before our time. The cabin was kept shut by a weak, one-hinged screen door and what...
As a fourth generation Montanan and 22-year District Court Judge, I believe Montana deserves better. We deserve better from our public servants. We deserve government policies that do not stifle economic growth and stagnate wages. We deserve the ability to capture the American Dream by making our own decisions and succeeding or failing based on our own talents and hard work. As a lifelong Montanan, I understand that a hand up from a neighbor is much more effective than a handout from a government bureaucrat. As a father, I believe it is immoral...
The special session, called by the Governor, of the 65th Legislature will begin on Tuesday, November 14th. Our local papers will be printed after this letter was written. I trust we will be able to patch the revenue holes to our state budget. Five things are presently known: 1) Republicans do not want to raise taxes or revenue enhancements as they are being called; 2) Democrats do not want to reduce the bureaucracy of the government; 3) the Governor did not manage the costs of the bureaucracy; 4) Revenue is lower than estimated; 5) cost of the...
Following the scandalous sanctioning of the GHS volleyball team by MHSA (see MHSA Sanctions GHS Volleyball Program), it has become clear to me that sportsmanship – even at the highest level of competition – is declining. Specifically, it seems that people feel justified in being nasty because Glasgow was disciplined for a rules violation. Last week, I shared some thoughts about the violation. Let me reiterate and maybe expand on some of those thoughts, just so it’s clear where I stand. *In no way do I condone “cheating.” I’m not necessarily opp...
How many of you think of all the wonderful conveniences our present day vehicles provide us? The other day I had the opportunity (or necessity) to drive my older model pickup to work. Oh my, no heated seats or steering wheel, no back-up camera or phone connection, no information system telling me that my tire or oil pressure was low. Could I make it to town without all of this information? And it is a manual shift. (Since it was Halloween, it was fitting that I do know how to drive a stick. Just not sure I can park a broom stick as well as the...
An actor being interviewed about his medical diagnosis stated, “Acceptance isn’t resignation.” He was so right. When I was told in January 2010 I had a blood clot in my arm and could lose a finger because of it, my first feeling was one of fear. Fear that I could lose more than a finger. Fear that my arm and hand would never be the same. But I knew I had to accept the way things were and try to move forward. So I had the surgery and everything turned out fine. The neurosurgeon was able to remove what turned out to be two clots in my arm and sav...
I know it. Most Montanans know it. At its core, the strength of Montana’s economy and our way of life relies on the power of a strong public education system. Nowhere is that more clear than on a road trip in Montana. Here is my most recent road trip story. At Miles Community College, I heard story after story of students attending agriculture programs and then going back to the family farm to substantially increase the farm’s productivity through techniques learned in school. Young Montanans can earn a two-year degree by age 20 and then the...
The biggest sports news this week, for me, is that the Lady Scottie volleyball team lost their district title due to a violation of a Montana High School Association (MHSA) rule. Although I received the information in plenty of time to adjust the content of my section this week, I chose not to make any changes in what I had already prepared. The bottom line: The girls deserve recognition. MHSA is the entity that governs high school interscholastic activities in Montana. According to their website, their purpose is to ensure that...
In the past two weeks, two former Presidents, two current Republican Senators, and sleuth of commentators have railed against the “current state of political discourse.” I presently am doing the same thing here in this column, and that resounding chorus seems to fall on deaf ears. My question, as it were, is that following a remarkable few weeks culminating with the arrest of, not one, but three former campaign advisers to Donald Trump, one of which plead guilty already, will the Republican Party change in the coming months? Will the party of...
As Montanans, American Indians, and members of the Montana Legislature, we share the frustration of people all across Montana. As the potentially devastating effects of these cuts have become clear over the past few weeks, Montana’s elected leaders must continue working to ensure that critical government services remain available and effective, eliminate unnecessary spending, and discuss ways to increase revenue. We stand ready to join our colleagues from both parties to do our job. However, some of our colleagues in the Republican majority c...
