Trego's Mountain Ear

"Serving North Lincoln County"

Tag: Lincoln County MT

  • Voting with a Single Candidate

    Not many years ago, if you were faced with a cluster of unacceptable clowns on your ballot, you could write a name in and cast a protest vote.  Hell, I guess you still can – the thing is, your write-in protest vote won’t be counted or reported.  With the elimination of subsection 7 last year, the last remaining method of voting against an unopposed, unacceptable candidate was taken away.

    Time was when we laughed about unopposed Soviet candidates being elected with no votes for the opponent.  We’re at that same stage now.  When the next primary comes out, we’ll be faced with a bunch of zero choice positions.

    P.J. O’Rourke wrote “Don’t Vote – It Only Encourages the Bastards.”  He may have been Prescient.  Our current system mandates that, in order to run for office, you must pay filing fees based on this schedule:

    From How to run for office in Montana – Ballotpedia

    Filing fees
    Office soughtHow the fee is determined
    For offices earning an annual salary of $2,500 or less and members of the state legislature$15
    For offices (except county-level) earning an annual salary of more than $2,5001% of salary
    For offices in which compensation is paid in fees$10

    By keeping the filing fee at $15 for state legislature, they – it’s more polite than O’Rourke’s tag (The Bastards) state representatives and senators don’t have to face the fact that our filing fees keep a lot of people out of the running.

    Montana County Elected Official Salary Survey shows the salaries of elected officials in most Montana counties.  It’s a year old, but I don’t have any better source to cover the state.  In Lincoln County, you can get the current salaries here.

    Probably the most interest is for the County Commissioner at $64,232.94 – so the 1% filing fee is a bit higher than $642.  It’s the same for sheriff –  and the rest of the full-time elected positions are $62,232.94.  (This is the base salary, commissioners and sheriff get $2,000 more.

    We could go on to elected state positions – but that’s for a future issue.

    It’s expensive just to file for these positions.  Write-in votes are no longer counted . . . so it is no longer possible to vote against a single candidate that you find unacceptable.  If you vote for him or her, it only encourages the bastards.  Worse, it discourages the folks who might run against them.

    Since the bastards have made it impossible to vote against an unopposed and unacceptable candidate, they have made voting less effective.  Our elections are essentially the same as the Soviet system we once mocked.  Still, the bastards have left us an alternative, and it’s a simple exercise in Irish democracy:

    If a candidate is unopposed, don’t mark that part of the ballot.  The unopposed candidate is going to win the election – so make him or her or it win with the smallest number of votes possible.  It won’t be possible to make the courthouse clique candidates win with single digit numbers – I’ll get into the socially constructed reality of the courthouse and the annex later – but it would be a beautiful protest if the county treasurer or clerk won re-election with less than half of the ballots cast.  That would encourage the opposition.

    P.J. O’Rourke was right.  They have screwed with the elections so much that voting can only Encourage the Bastards.  He didn’t take it far enough – if enough of us leave the boxes next to the unopposed candidates unfilled, it will encourage opponents.  The first step in getting the vote back is remembering P.J. – Don’t Vote – It Only Encourages the Bastards.  But don’t forget to cast your ballot!

  • Taxation in Lincoln County

    The proposed library district has me looking at taxation again.  One of the great things about Lincoln County is that, with three high school districts, it’s easy to figure out which communities provide the funds that keep our county going.

    Market ValueTaxable ValuePercentage
    Libby$1,687,186,708$21,911,49936.42%
    Troy$831,354,553$10,966,32918.23%
    Eureka$1,974,407,031$27,280,98045.35%
    County Total $4,492,948,292$60,158,808
    Data taken from Montana Certified Values

    The Census offers these population estimates from the American Community Survey (the ACS is not my preferred source, but we are 4 years past the census)

    Zip CodePopulationCity
    599239,545Libby
    599175,001Eureka
    599353,505Troy
    59934763Trego
    59930697Rexford
    59918625Fortine
    5993321Stryker

    Since Eureka, Trego, Rexford, Fortine, and Stryker are all in High School District 13, the relative populations are:

    Libby 9545 (47%)             Troy   3,505 (17%)             LCHS 7,107  (35%)           

    Seeing that North County provides 45.35% of the county’s tax revenues, the first thought that comes to mind is that secession from Lincoln County would be a better option than voting for a county-wide library district.  County 57, with 45.35% of Lincoln County’s tax base, could afford to be a little less efficient and still provide better service.

    A library that served just the LCHS high school district, looking at the tax base (45%) and population (35%), could provide north county residents with a heck of a lot better service than the pittance historically provided to Eureka does.

    I like libraries – as an academic, I’ve spent a lot of time in them on one lit review or another.  Still, I don’t get much return on a library in Libby – and in the proposal for a countywide district, we’d cover nearly half the cost and probably get a sixth of the service.

    I want a library – but I’m tired of being taxed to provide jobs and services for Libby.  If I get an opportunity to vote for a better library, closer . . . well, perhaps the first stage of secession is a special library district that isn’t countywide.

  • Rendezvous Again

    Since it’s that time of the year again- it also seems time to revisit what we’ve said about the origins of the word.

    Origins of the Word Rendezvous

    One of the reasons that English is described as difficult to learn is the number of words- over 170,000! Of those, the majority are loan-words, words taken from other languages.

    The word Rendezvous is one such word. It was appropriated from the French, around 1600 (during a brief period in which Britain and France were not at war- as a result of competition with Spain). The original usage appears to be a verb: rendez vous meaning present yourselves. This then becomes the noun describing the place of meeting we are accustomed to.

    English has borrowed from different languages at different times. At the time Rendezvous joined the English vocabulary, a significant number of the new words were coming from French.

    About two centuries after Rendezvous was appropriated from the French, William Ashley held the first trappers’ Rendezvous. These lasted for only fifteen years. Some of them were so large as to create temporary towns. Other gatherings in the same time period are occasionally given the same name. Our local Rendezvous has outlasted the original.

  • Light Breeze . . . Vane sets to wind, sock begins to fill

    I’ve been asked several times to put the story of the 1988 member uprising that replaced the Lincoln Electric Board on paper.  I suppose it should be written down – few electric cooperatives have had successful member uprisings, and, of the most active members of CREAM (Concerned REA Members), only Craig Eaton and I are still around to tell the tale.  Kenny Gwynn, Al Luciano, Duke Baney have long since passed on, but this is their story just as well.

    And I am not going to identify the inside source.  Promised to keep the secret over 30 years ago, and the promise is still good.  Not going to tell you if our source – the other side used the word snitch – is male or female, alive or dead. 

    I wasn’t involved at the beginning.  We started watching the board meetings in June or July, when Craig had commented on nepotism in LEC hiring.  The June 27, 1988 issue of the Mountain Ear headlines “Lincoln Electric Has New Nepotism Policy.”  “The new policy prohibits hiring of relatives (of management and supervisory employees) of the third degree and closer.”  July 25 included, “The board discussed proposed policy #700.  Policy #700 will require the public to be on the agenda before being heard.  The policy seems to be in response to Craig Eaton’s appearance before the board last May.”  September 5 headlined “REA Manager to Retire” and described how the manager would stay in Eureka for two years after retirement, as a consultant, with no managerial responsibilities or duties, receiving his regular salary as fixed in June 11, 1989.

    In retrospect, it’s obvious things were heating up, and we were reporting them.  In the September 19 issue, I commented that I had 3 months off because of a broken back.  On September 26th we wrote:

    “We’ve been attending Lincoln Electric co-op meetings for about 3 months now–since Craig Eaton told of nepotism in REA hiring. 
    By and large, we hadn’t seen a need to cover these meetings before.  I turn the switch, and my lights, computer, whatever go on.  Trego has better electric service than anywhere else I’ve lived or worked–and considering the places I’ve packed a computer into as a consultant, that says a lot.
    Unfortunately, several of the trustees, along with Craig Eaton, have brought us to the realization that you can’t judge every aspect of your electric co-op by pulling a light switch in the morning.
    There’s a story to be told, and some accusations to be investigated.  We’ll be running a series of articles on the REA covering the accusations and making our own conclusions.  The Mountain Ear is too small a publication to cover all this in a single issue, and advertising is the tail that wags the dog–we can’t afford the single issue approach.
    Besides, with this much controversy, we’ll get even better readership during the next couple of months.   

  • Ballot Problems- Again

    It’s not every day that Lincoln County makes the news outside of our state. Our recent primary election did just that due to an error in ballot size, resulting in a hand-count that delayed results.

    Montana gained a new seat in the house of representatives- and the race to determine the republican nominee for that new seat was a tight one. Tight enough that Ryan Zinke and Al Olszewski had to wait until Lincoln County’s results were counted in order to know who had one (Zinke).

    This isn’t exactly the first time we’ve had trouble with the ballots in Lincoln County, though admittedly the last time didn’t leave such widespread headlines. Last year Trego residents incorrectly received ballots for the Eureka Elementary School Board Election, which complicated the counting a bit. Before that, during the last presidential election, an entire box of ballots was left in north county and not counted until days later (County Clerk Robin Benson, running unopposed for reappointment this November, described this as impeccable). Of course, we have been replacing our election administrator, so the trend belongs to the county and not the person. Still, this doesn’t exactly inspire faith for November.

    I’ve been complaining about the number of elections by acclamation in our county, but I think I have a new request. In addition to actually having an election, I’d like to have one where only the results made headlines. Hopefully November’s election runs more smoothly.

  • Fewer Democrats than Hinsdale County

    I’m looking at my primary ballots.  Montana has an extremely civilized method of conducting primary elections without forcing people to register with one questionable party or the other.  It’s nice – in South Dakota, the most fervent Democrat I knew had been registered as a Republican for 40 years, just so he could vote in the primaries.  Here, in the privacy of my own home, I can pick the party I want, send it in, and never have to publicly endorse either party.

    My Democratic Party ballot includes the names of only three democrats – Monica Tranel, Tom Winter, and Cora Neumann.  They are democrats – Tranel lives in Missoula, Winter in Polson, and Neumann in Bozo.  In short, there are no Lincoln County democrats on the ballot in Lincoln County.  And I don’t have any particular preference for the other 3 – though wikipedia says Monica was an Olympic rower.  I’m not sure that overcomes the achievement of becoming an attorney.  I can think of a couple good reasons to keep attorneys out of the places where laws are made.  Similar arguments go for the clergy.

    I’ve checked the telephone book, and found no evidence of Alferd Packer in Lincoln County – but if memory serves (and it does) the 1883 sentencing quote seems relevant: “Alferd Packer, stand up you son of a bitch.  There were seven democrats in Hinsdale County, and you, you voracious man-eating son of a bitch, you ate five of them.  I sentence you to be hanged by the neck until you are dead, dead, dead.  You republican cannibal.  I would sentence you to hell itself but the statutes do not permit it.”  (You can check Alferd Packer out on line – I’m writing from memory because I’d rather print the legend – the actual sentence may have been a bit milder)  Here’s Alferd’s picture:

    So I look at the empty democratic primary ballot, with the thought that it is difficult to have a two-party system if one party doesn’t show up.  What societal trends have occurred that the metaphysical ghost of Alferd Packer has his imprint on our ballots?  Heck – Alferd left 2 democrats in Hinsdale County – the closest democrat on our ballot is in Polson. 

    The ballots show only a single choice in partisan candidates for local political offices.  If I want to make that choice, I can vote for either Brian Teske or Stuart Crismore to fill the blank spot as county commissioner from Libby.  Doubtless, both fine men.  Have to be.  It’s the only spot on the ballot where we actually have an election.  The other candidates will move unopposed into the offices in November.

    We need to stop Alferd Packer’s ghost.  Encourage your local democrats to come out of the closet.  I can remember one brave democrat at the county fair, trying to sell me a raffle ticket, with the argument, “Your side has been in power and caused all these problems. You should at least kick a dollar into helping us.”  I asked “Who are the libertarians who have been in power?” and he left.  I’m thinking that I should have kicked a couple dollars in just to encourage the dems to come out into the open – that blank ballot does show the death of a two-party system . . . and history gives me plenty of examples of single party systems.

    Let’s be kind to our local democrats, and see if we can stop the ghost of Alferd Packer from roving around Lincoln County.