Bitterroot Politics

National forest crews working the Downing Mountain fire told county commissioners they saw excellent and clear communication between the various entities responding to the blaze.

“I think you’ve got something to be proud of,” said liaison officer Larry Simms.

“I think we’ve had too much practice,” said Commissioner Greg Chilcott.

The Montana Department of Transportation.

This morning I was reviewing a plan for work to Eastside Highway at Black and Bass lanes and came across this statement:

“The limited sight distance on the crest vertical curve just north of the junction is considered to be a contributing factor to the crashes.”

I called Dave Ohnstad over at the county roads department: “vertical curve?”

“Oh,” he said. “They mean a hill.”

The National Forest now has … bobblehead dolls.

The dolls, featuring a bobbleheaded likeness of a 1910 firefighter, are in commemoration of the century anniversary of the fires of 1910. Also out is a book on the subject, “When the Mountains Roared.”

The dolls were giveaways at a recent Osprey game, and on Monday when Forest personnel updated the county commission on valley fires, forest manager Julie King handed a doll to Greg Chilcott.

Chilcott unwrapped the gift right away, and I have to say I was mildly envious. It was a good looking bobblehead.

Not everyone is so enamored with it though, said King. Like real life firefighters.

“They think it’s someone who can’t make up their mind,” she said. “Like a politician.”

Commissioners are back at it this week in detailed budget deliberations. We last left this scene back in June after about two weeks of breathless interviews with department leaders and a long list of hot-button issues to be addressed later. Well, now is “later.”

It is probably, I’ll admit, not the best use of my time to spend six or so hours listening to commissioners debate whether or not the mileage reimbursement request for, say, the environmental health department, is too high. That said, I’m still following an elder editor’s belief that the second a reporter leaves the county commission unguarded they will vote quickly to raise taxes/buy new SUVs/join forces with the United Nations. So, yes, I put in my time, and I did manage to score two donuts out of the deal from the commission’s stash.* (*Note to self: two donuts is too many at 11 a.m. Headache ensued …)

OK, so it is boring, and at times verges on dreadful. However, if you’re interested in county government, you do learn some interesting things, like:

*The number of suicides and deaths among veterans is rising. The county chips in up to $320 per veteran burial and headstone, meaning the rise in deaths and suicides last year cost the county $38,250.

*Although many departments have vehicles for employees to use on official business, if those cars are in bad shape (and believe me, a lot of them are) employees will simply drive their own vehicles, then charge the mileage to the county.

*Some employees may be technically part of one department yet perform work in not only that department but several others. Often, that employee’s pay comes, then, from several different departments and the county has to determine where the work is being done and what percentages different departments should chip in for it. What a headache!

So I’ve spent weeks now watching commissioners hack budgets. Most of what the county does they have to do — that is, state law mandates that certain services and protections be provided, and that the county not only do those duties but pay for them from tax collections. There are a handful of things the county does which are not required, but they’re few and far between — parks is one, and county extension is another, and there may be one or two more, but that’s about it.

I’ve said this before and it’s worth saying again … but it would be nice if some of the commission candidates who hope for a seat on the board, as well as other hopefuls to elected office, were taking a more active interest in what was going on. A lot of people like to complain about government; I wonder if they might see things differently if they knew better how it actually functioned.

Commissioners spent part of their weekend at Saturday’s Creamery Picnic in Stevensville. One commissioner got there a little later than planned, however.

J.R. Iman passed Woodside with a quarter-tank of gas but ran out short of Stevi.

Iman often kids Kathleen Driscoll for what he calls her “pedal car” — a Toyota hybrid.

But Driscoll, apparently unaware of who was pulled off on the highway shoulder, zipped on past Iman.

“I had to call a friend to come bring me five gallons of gas,” Iman said. “The worst part was 15 of my friends drove past me without stopping.”

So to fill in on the things that were not only not big enough to report on but were not big enough to blog on. Except unless I cull them all together into …

1. Commissioners on Wednesday voted to spent about $500 on some communication framework to the fair’s First Interstate building so it can be used as an alternative emergency operations center. After the meeting I caught the emergency director, Ron Nicholas, and told him I could not remember when commissioners voted to designate the building as the official alternative EOC site. “Well,” he said, turning to the commissioners, who wandered over.

Turns out no official designation was ever made. While standing, with notebooks and coffee mugs in hand, commissioners quickly voted 4-0 for the designation.

2. I found a nice crowed at Thursday’s “new” tea party rally — until I asked a guy about his shirt.

The shirt said “Viva los 1070″ and was worn by a man who said he’d taken part in several years’ worth of Minute Man border patrols. “1070″ was the number of Arizona’s new immigration bill. I asked him if the shirt shouldn’t say “Viva la 1070.” He said he didn’t know Spanish and even if he did he would never speak it. Well, that sort of stalled the conservation so I said goodbye to him and then he said behind my back — no kidding — “Why don’t you start telling the truth for a change.” A small round of back-and-forth revealed he’d never even read the Ravalli Republic and wasn’t sure exactly what truth it was I should be telling. But when he launched into the “Well where did you go to journalism school” routine I took that as my cue to walk away. Nothing fruitful ever comes of a question like that, muchachos.

3. One very alert reader wrote first thing Thursday to wonder what this coffee clatch business was all about. The “clatch,” I reported, was to be a monthly informal meeting — over coffee, which Jim Rokosch promised to buy (it is election season, after all) — between commissioners and anyone who wants to show up and chat.

Only “clatch,” the reader informed me, was not a friendly meeting but instead “a soft or sloppy lump or mass” or “anything put together or made in a careless or slipshod way.”

Klatch, turns out, is what I meant. If you got the print edition you now have a collector’s keepsake. If you read the story online, you’ll find the correct spelling.

Newsrooms are receiving stations for all manners of information and communication. The good stuff winds up in the morning paper. The weird stuff winds up on a special wall behind Sepp’s desk.

Undoubtedly the best weird stuff that’s arrived since I’ve been here is a long series of faxes sent to me concerning a story I wrote. The gist of the story was a man and his son in the Darby area got in a tiff and the son shot a nearby horse. The ex-wife of the man/mother of the son began sending me very long and difficult to understand faxes/letters/diatribes that she wanted both printed on the front page of the paper and forwarded along to the district attorney.

To wit:

and:

(Will, who thinks there is local bias against wolves, crayoned in the remark at the bottom.)

About a month ago I got a long email from a man living in Darby. (Darby again? Just a coincidence.) Despite my college degree and pechant for South American mysticism literature, I had a hard time following just what was going on, but it seemed the man had drafted something looking like a lawsuit filing alleging his roommate was a prostitute and quite bad at housekeeping and somehow the county government was at least partly to blame. I wrote the guy and told him this is probably the sort of thing we would cover down the road, but good luck anyway. He wrote to say he was looking for an attorney. I wrote to say I was not one. We went back and forth like rather aimlessly for a while until the emails stopped.

Until this morning. I’ll pass on the following email unedited except to delete the names.

Sheriff:

demand is hereby tendered for general damages in the amount of $5 million for violation of civil rights, gender and age based discrimination, defamation, and willful infliction of personal injury and emotional distress. And conspiracy!

Despite (an officer’s) denial to me that he had told (a second party) that I faked my heart episode, he told me, and he has told others he was “certain without a doubt” that I had faked the heart episode. I suppose he knows more than a battery of doctors and the records of my dobutamine stress, and my agioplasty and stents.! I sufferred a heart attack in your jail.

I doubt that (the officer) wants to bet his career that I don’t have video of my placing (someone’s) trash at the top of the stairs in the evening, and taking back up and setting it at the top of the stairs in the morning with my directive that (the person) haul (the) trash and keep it out of the kitchen. I doubt that he will be his career that I don’t have video of the shrew flying down the stairs in a rage and throwing the trash bag and yelling.

I did not make the admission (the officer) falsely states I did about the trash bag and disturbing the peace charge. I didn’t do it. And can prove it. and prove (the officer) lied, also.

So. (officer’s name).com is available. So is RavalliCounty.net.

I assume you will forward this to the county attorney, and now the county attorney has a real clear conflict of interest and will move forthewith for the appointment of a special prosecutor.

You know how they say in texas hold-em. I’m all in.

Kind Regards,

(plaintiff)

I’ve been trying all day to think of a catchy way to present this but everything I come up with is either hopelessly complicated or needlessly oblique. So I’ll just lay it down simply:

1. Last Wednesday the commission board room was the scene of a fairly intense/alarmingly annoying meeting on an update to subdivision rules. I’m sure I don’t need to do much to set the scene. Let’s just say there was cussing and many an unhappy person.
2. The room was filled to capacity, it was hot, and the microphones weren’t working.
3. One rather upset member of the audience left the room to tell the county’s admin assistant about three problems: the room was hot, the microphones weren’t working, and the wrong flag was being displayed.
4. A county employee entered the room to at least try to get the microphones working and as she turned them on there was a pop. Microphones = SLAY3D!

“So that was the end of that,” said Glenda Wiles, the county’s admin assistant.

Commissioners Monday hinted they probably would not spend the estimated $9,000 to replace the system. Microphones are used very infrequently anyway, and the ones that broke were, apparently, originally intended for karaoke.

Now, to get on to the really important news: what about that darned flag?

The flag in the commission’s board room has gold fringe and tassels. Depending on who you ask, that either makes it pretty or an omen of … well, I’ll let the American Patriot Friends Network explain it:

“The flags displayed in State courts and courts of the United States have gold or yellow fringes. That is your WARNING that you are entering into a foreign enclave, the same as if you are stepping into a foreign embassy and you will be under the jurisdiction of that flag. The flag with the gold or yellow fringe has no constitution, no laws, and no rules of court, and is not recognized by any nation on the earth, and is foreign to you and the United States of America.”

So there you are.

“And these desks need to go because they are almost in the shape of a pentagram,” said one high-placed county official upon learning about the flag of death.

A second official concurred: “I’m going to spend the election season backpacking.”

Stay tuned.

OK, OK, how many friends you have on Facebook is likely not a primary indicator of your ability to win a political race. Several people have told me that since last week’s entry. But I still think it’s interesting to note who’s doing what.

Democratic county treasurer Jo Anne Johnson wrote (twice) to say she does indeed have a Facebook page and has numerous friends. While she does have a nice Web site I was unable to find her Facebook page until this afternoon. Johnson emailed to ask why I had not called her about finding this page. In fact I did not call a single person about their Facebook pages as that’s the whole point of the Internet: getting information about very important things without actually ever having to speak with a live human. For the record, Johnson has 31 friends.

Meanwhile, Commissioner Carlotta Grandstaff unveiled her new campaign slogan to me this morning: “Facebook free since 1954.”

While not every candidate is on Facebook, or even the Internet (”The Internet? Is that thing still around?” — Homer Simpson) at least no one has yet to do what one of my relatives-through-marriage has done — call it “Myface.”

There were precious few moments of lighthearted banter at yesterday’s planning board meeting. As has become standard, the two-hour discussion wavered between disciplined conscientious debate and yelling and cussing.

This morning I talked to a county official who said the debate on subdivision regulations was even more trying than those on zoning. Why? At least on zoning people commented on the specific provisions of the proposals. Critique on specificities on the subdivision regulations has been practically nonexistent.

That’s nothing new here or anywhere else, though. As a reporter I’ve probably been to hundreds of public meetings on plans like this and it’s very rare for anyone to ever comment on specific proposals. Usually it’s a very emotional all-or-nothing, and almost always it’s heavily in favor of nothing. What’s new to me here is how much broad condemnation of the plan is accompanied by personal attacks. The Constitution lays down the framework for our government; it’s unfortunate nothing was inserted to encourage people to be decent when defending it.

I was talking to a visiting journalist yesterday about the passions in the valley here and how that shapes reporting. Like other reporters I’m at fault often for devoting too much ink to people who make a big stink about things, and not enough often to people who make sense. That said, it’s hard not to think of a meeting like yesterday’s and not want to focus on the bizarre, the stupid, the cockamany or the just plain mean. The low point came when a resident said planning department employees must not have gone to a college where they learned about God and the Constitution. The second low point came when a speaker said the provisions included language from environmentalcommunists. Yes, it was one word.

There’s a bumper sticker you see sometimes; I think it’s used by people unhappy with both Bush and Obama. It says “If you aren’t outraged you aren’t paying attention.” That’s wrong. If you’re really outraged, you probably don’t understand what’s going on. It was enlightening yesterday to hear people berating the planning board for assaulting their property rights. Nevermind, I guess, that the main provision discussed yesterday was about how to support property rights. Nevermind, too, that it was not the planning board’s proposal, anyway. They’re just providing input. And nevermind that the board chairman had not even said what would be discussed before people started saying their rights were under attack.

Despite the bad taste the meeting left in my mouth, there were two bright spots:

Board member Perry Beilke on wetlands notification provisions: “You can’t make people do smart things.” Which was followed by member John Gibney saying, “And you can’t even make smart people do smart things.”