HIGH SPEED RAIL SERVICE FOR MONTANA?

Would the addition of a high-speed rail system bolster Montana’s economy as claimed by our Junior Senator? Or is this just more political pandering for us, the gullible and naïve voters? Curiously, Senator Tester has not made any pleas to President Obama for the expansion of the life-line of Montana which is Highway 2. Where are his pleas for the 4-lane project to be included in the stimulus budget? Currently infrastructure spending in the stimulus budget is only of miniscule proportions.

We don’t even have a safe highway to drive on and here we have our “representation” going for another “pie in the sky” waste of Money instead of something reality based. Isn’t requesting something this bizarre sort of like one of those wasteful earmarks Tester campaigned against?

HAVRE SCHOOL BOARD PUTS US ON THE MAP

The Havre School Board again added to the suspicions that some of Havre’s “leaders” have some sort of mental issues. Kim Skornogoski, reporter for the Great Falls Tribune, did a great job on the Mahon / Havre School Board mess where the taxpayers again get stuck with the bill. Http://www.greatfallstribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=20101310301
Will this story ever die down? According to the facts the board has discerned we are intelligent enough to understand, they have only pissed away less than 1% of the Havre School Budget of over 18 million. So why are we upset? It is hardly going to hurt the school budget because they can run a small (like $150,000 maybe?) mill levy request in the May election and everything will be back to normal. Our guess is that the board has their taxing bean counters running the numbers as we speak so the board can start formulating the same old ad campaign they run every year telling us tripe like “if you have a $100,000 house this mill levy will only cost you $4.75 per month to save a teachers job, save the students program s, save the whatever blah, blah, blah, do it for the kids) If Havre residents vote yes to any mill levy request from these nit-wits this spring it will prove that we are all idiots and deserve what we get.

It’s bad enough to know we are from and living in the town of the ignorant but this current school board has made us not only infamous statewide, but now school administration type publications are watching this story as it unfolds. Be sure and check out the story from the Yellowstone County News and do a Google search for Mahon / Havre, etc and you will find that we are listed as the ink spot on the map of stupidity.
http://www.montanastrailhead.com/2010/01/29/04/56/mysteries-of-superintendent-dave-mahon/#more-1167
http://www.huntleyproject.net/yellowstonecountynews.htm

A T-SHIRT FOR BEEROGRE?

Beerogre made us think. Maybe he does indeed warrant a free T-Shirt for his report on the Hi-Way 2 meeting. What do our readers think? We have been asking that people get involved, attend some of the many meetings that are held around town each day that affect our lives and our pocket books, and send us a report. Our presence is making a difference in how our local boards are dealing with the citizens of our fair City. For instance, the school board is concerned enough with our “reporting” to actually read the blog, even though they are bellyaching about it and trying to blame “certain” individuals as the authors of this blog. It has been reported to us that the City department heads read the blog and are intensely searching for the sob’s that write the less then flattering reports about their activities. We can see with our own eyes that the inept pain in the rear Councilman Bob Kaul has backed off his infernal yacking a notch or two at the council meetings. So we think we are making a difference.


What we need is for more people to take an active role in our local government and help us report on what happens at the countless meetings that the Corrector bloggers are unable to attend. If a few T-shirts will give motivation for people to help us with that we are willing to look into getting a few out to you. What do you think?

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HIGHWAY 2 CORRIDOR

TO DO OR NOT TO DO? THAT WAS THE QUESTION

We apologize for being late with this story. A couple of us attended the MDT meeting last night to hear Highway Director Jim Lynch give the community an update on the progress of our quest for a better Highway 2. The meeting drew 70 people or so that want to see our northern tier highway improved. The MDT has in place and ready to go a plan to improve about 10 miles of road east of Havre to what they call a “Super 2” which isn’t what the Highway 2 Association has been advocating for since 2001. Lynch said the “Super 2” project will be ready to go to bid by July of this year with the project to be completed in two phases with the first starting this fall. The Highway 2 Association is advocating that we reopen the EIS and “revisit” the findings to see if we can convince the highway commission to change the project to 4 lanes. The problem with that scenario is that it may take, according to Lynch, up to an additional 2 years to get back to where they are today with the planning of the Super 2 but the time could be as short as 6 months extra.

This was a long, drawn out meeting lasting over 2 ½ hours. All three Hill County Commissioners attended, as well as 2 of the three Blaine County Commissioners. Havre City Council members, Woodwick, Brekke, Kaftan, and our good buddy the ever talking Bob Kaul attended. Noticeably absent were council people Tretheway, Long, Hillary, Vies and newly elected Mayor Tim Solomon. Other notables attending were Senator Kim Hanson, Representative Wendy Warburton, and the Harlem Mayor. We found it encouraging that there was a broad show of support by people attending from all points between Fort Belknap and Havre, even former Mayor Rice showed up.

Basically the choices presented to the group were to go forward with the project that is funded and could be started this fall, the Super-2, or re-do the EIS as the Highway 2 Association desires and delay the project with no guarantee that it would be changed to 4-lane. Lynch did say that waiting and re-doing the EIS wouldn’t “make us go to the back of the line” but that he couldn’t speculate about what funds would be available in the future for a later project.

Association President Sivertson is fearful that if we accept this down-sized project as a Super 2 it will set the tone for all future projects on highway 2 which is over 660 miles long. Others are afraid that if we miss this opportunity we may miss out on the funding which is available now. Lynch wants the Corp of Engineers to come to Havre in the next couple of weeks to talk about our "chances" and "problems" associated with going for the 4-lane

What do our readers say? Do you want to take the “bird” you have in your hand and be satisfied? Or do you want to wait and see if we can grab the two “birds” that are in the bush? Comment please

One of our readers “beerogre” was also in attendance and had these observations.

beerogre
I attended. The Jim Lynch 'road show' no wonder this guy works in Helena he is full of hot air.
Summary:
1. Environmental Impact Studies (EIS) rule everything.
2. EIS (4 yrs ago) determined that an improved highway was the way to go.
3. 21 million dollar project right of ways already bought and design finished, 10 -12 miles directly east of Havre.
4. only 2 passing lanes 1.45 miles long - way better than old .75 mile passing lanes in other parts of state.
5. 8 foot shoulders with 6-1 slope ditches - way big improvement at least 15 references to how great this slope is
6. some left and right turning lanes plus bus turnouts especially at turn to new dump
7. In order to get 4 lanes we will have to reopen EIS and may not get Environmentalists to think we need 4 lane so might be waste of time and delay project
8. Highway project funding bill is in continuing resolution if we reopen EIS funding will go to other projects could delay and not have money for this project depending on "current spending climate" as you know is tough
9. Feds will come to meet with us so we can waste more time at overly crowded meeting
10. local government(leaders?) needs to tell MDT to go ahead or not- bids to be open in July.
11. THere is a reason why the MDT avoids doing projects in N central MT

Thanks beerogre, now comments from our readers?

OPEN MESSAGE TO OUR POLITICIANS

STATE OF THE UNION

The bloggers at the Corrector have been avoiding posting about President Obama’s first State of the Union address last night because we are having a hard time even deciding if he actually said anything in his hour plus speech to over 48 million viewers. Even our official “Banner carrying Democrat” blogger excused herself from responding with a blog about his speech.


The speech was polite though “Luke warm” in detail. He talked about the need to put “silly” arguments aside, spoke of human rights in Iran, and arm control but the “fact of the matter” is that we found the speech rather lackluster. Apparently American voters did also as evidenced by Obama’s dropping poll numbers today. President Obama spoke out as a Washington “outsider” not beholding to lobbyists, yet his administration is full of lobbyists. He mentioned a plan for future tax cuts yet his performance this past year is forcing tax increases, he talked about not leaving our children with a “mountain of debt” yet he has burdened America with the largest deficit spending in history. We failed to hear anything “new and promising.

On the positive side, we did not hear any reference to race or race relations so possibly we can tout that we are finally coming together as “One Nation”, with people of all kinds coming together to work towards a brighter future. In addition, Representative Joe Wilson was very well behaved, didn’t yell out “You Lie!” and actually stood and applauded on a couple of occasions.

The Corrector will leave the “comments” on this speech to our readers. What did you think of President Obama’s very first State of the Union speech?

Taxes, Taxes, Taxes!!!

Since many of you have asked just where your taxes go and the tax summaries your receive each fall are not all that broken down, one of our readers put together a spreadsheet you can use to see where they go.

It's not fool proof or meant to be 100% accurate but it is pretty close. One example of this is with the County Permissive Medical Levy. If you use our calculator and compate it to your 2009 tax statement the Permissive Medical Levy is included in our total listing and separated out on your tax statement. Also these lists are the tax levy distributions and does not include any special assessments such as refuse district, mosquito district, street lights, street maintenance, etc., just levies taxes.

It is pretty simple, just enter the Taxable Market Value figure listed on your tax notice in the yellow box and then click either the County Mills tab at the bottom if you are a County resident or the City Mills tab if you are a City resident and voila!



You can also click the Save as Excel link in the upper right-hand corner and save it to your own computer to use as well. Play around with it and see what you think and let us know.

HIGHWAY 2 MEETING TONIGHT

The Montana Department of Transportation will be at the Hill County Electric hospitality room tonight at 5:30 pm to update everyone on the latest for the Highway 2 project slated from Havre to 10 miles east. The MDT has the project on the schedule to be rebuilt to a Super 2. The Highway 2 Association is rallying their members to attend this meeting to “demand” the project be altered to encompass the start of the 4-lane highway across the northern route which is more than 660 miles. Go and give your opinion.

KEEPING AN EYE ON THE SCHOOL BOARD

When we at the Corrector look back through our posts we notice that the Havre School System has received the most blows from our comment section. If you are truly interested in making some changes the Corrector would like to remind you that the Havre School Board is meeting today at 12:15 to talk about the Mahon replacement issue. This would be the time to pack the house and voice your disgust. Also if you go early you may notice the tax-funded lunch spread out for the School Board’s working meeting members that they plan to again rudely eat in front of the audience. The Corrector encourages you, since you paid for it with your taxes and you are a tax-payer, go ahead and gobble it up along with them, don’t be shy. :-)


Also for those that have been thinking of filing to run for the School Board, the filing deadline is March 25th for the May4th election. Let’s bring some sensibility and transparency back to the school board.
Post your comments or e-mail us your "investigative tips" to havredailycorrector@bresnan.net

MAHON NEWS MARCHES ON

Isn’t it strange how this “Havre School Board versa Dave Mahon” story just keeps going and going? Could it be because it is actually newsworthy? Or could it be that the reporters also smell a rat and think they are on the verge of uncovering a boondoggle only equaled by Watergate? This was reported yesterday on KTVQ - Billings, and also on KPAX - Missoula