A reminder of Republican Senator Jeremy Trebas’ dirty dealings in a commercial building in Great Falls.
Jeremy Buys a Building
In May of last year, Jeremy put up a Facebook post announcing that he bought the old Church of Christ Scientists at 1300 1st Ave N. in Great Falls through a shell company, Rearview Mirror LLC. The building was purchased at a significant discount, because an automatic sprinkler system had to be installed to bring the building up to code.
Jeremy Scams on Property Taxes
The building has been classified by the Montana Department of Revenue as “exempt” because it had been a church. Jeremy rented the building to The Break Forth Bible Church, likely thinking this would preserve the property tax exemption. Problem is it doesn’t. The exemption requires that the building be owned by a church. He paid just $267 in property taxes for the first half of 2022. This for a 9,000 foot commercial building close to downtown. The property is still misclassified by the Department of Revenue. (Don’t worry folks, we’ll contact them).
Jeremy Goes to Helena (Can You Say Self-Dealing?)
Jeremy introduced Senate Bill 195 in the Senate. The bill exempted his building from being required to have an automatic sprinkler system. The bill was opposed by Fire Marshalls across the state and was heavily amended, removing all of Trebas’ language exempting his own building.
Jeremy Puts the Building Up for Sale. . . at an Inflated Price
Now, Jeremy has put the building up for sale on Craig’s List. Sale price? $475,000!
So let’s break that number down a little. The appraised value of the building is $359,505. Keep in mind that appraisals generally assume that the building complies with building codes and other legal requirements. In other words, they do not discount for needed repairs. But the market does and WTF406 is confident that Trebas purchased the building below the appraised value. Now, after failing to change the law to benefit himself, Trebas has a financial albatross hanging around his neck. Will he find tenants for the building? Will he find someone to purchase the building at his inflated price? We think the answer will be “no” on both counts. Too bad for Jeremy.
To read about the whole story follow these links to our previous articles.
This just in . . .Casey Schreiner announces bid for Mayor. Also announced at this point are Jesse Slaughter’s former Undersheriff Cory Reeves and former Republican Legislator and current City Councilman, Joe McKenney Both are running from the right. Don’t we have enough of that in Cascade County?
Here’s the Cascade County Sheriff’s Office raising money by raffling off an AR 15 to raise money at the local Home and Garden show. Something is deeply wrong in our county and in our country.
“We are at the Home and Garden Show all this weekend.
Come quick, purchase your raffle tickets for:
Daniel Defense AR-15 with and ACOG 4X scope and a Marlin 45-70 Dark lever action rifle.
All proceeds go to the Sheriffs Legacy Foundation.”
What would it look like if Sandra Merchant just came clean about what she really is up to. Maybe something like this.
WTF406: Thank you for sitting down to talk with us Sandra.
Merchant: No problem. You know, I generally avoid the media, but it seems there is a lot of misunderstanding about what’s happening in my office that I would like to clear up.
WTF406: Well, why don’t you just charge right in?
Merchant: Okay and thank you. Let’s start at the beginning. Everyone knows that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. That’s the big reason I decided to run for Clerk and Recorder. I wanted to do something about that.
WTF406: You know that most people don’t believe that, and there is almost no evidence to support that claim.
Merchant: That’s what the woke media wants you to think. Truth is it was stolen using Dominion voting machines, which have secret transmitters in them which enables the Deep State to change votes. We need to get back to the way it used to be. Count them by hand.
WTF406: Wouldn’t that take a long time? What about human error with a system like that?
Merchant: That’s just not true. First of all everyone knows that people are better at math and counting than computers– faster too. Human error will be kept out of it, if we only allow patriotic, Christians to count the ballots. Everyone knows these people never make mistakes.
WTF406: So what do you think about mail-in ballots? People say that makes it more convenient for people to vote.
Merchant: Mail-in ballots have to go. They allow too many people to vote and a lot of them vote wrong. Donald Trump has been very clear that mail-in ballots were a huge problem in the 2020 election.
WTF406: But what about here in Montana? Republicans gained a lot of victories in mail-in elections.
Merchant: Just an elaborate cover. The Libs have made it look like that to give people a false sense of security about mail-in ballots. Give them time and they will use mail ballots to control people and implement their socialist agenda.
WTF406: What about the Library Mill levy election? It was all set and approved by the city commission to hold the election on June 6.
Merchant: Do you know what they have in that library? Books! Lots of them. And dirty ones too. And they have a lot of strange people in there. It just ought to be shut down.
WTF406: But is it your job to decide what and when things can be on the ballot?
Merchant: Well, elections matter. I ran for office with the support of a lot of people who know about the secret cabal running our country. I promised them I would reform the elections system to be just like the elections run by our founding fathers. No mail-in ballots and hand counting. We need to get back to the concept that only certain people can vote. Fact is too many people can vote in this country, and I aim to do something about it.
WTF406: Well! I guess that about says it all. Thanks for taking time to talk with us.
It didn’t take long. Less than three months after taking office, Merchant’s inability, or unwillingness, to administer elections is already creating chaos in Cascade County. There has been good, comprehensive news coverage in both the Electric and the Daily Montanan of what has been going on.
Obviously, Sandra Merchant has gotten herself into a hot seat. So far her response has been to say the problems at her office are a variety of factors beyond her control. She says the closure of IPS (a mailing company) is responsible. Staff shortages are the problem. Finding a printing company willing to print ballots is the problem. That her refusal to send ballots for the Library levy was a misunderstanding. And on it goes.
What she does not say is that she and her political supporters are election deniers who are fundamentally opposed to mail ballots. They want everyone to vote at a polling place and have ballots counted by hand. She doesn’t mention that her first hire in the Clerk and Recorder’s office is straight out of the election denier crowd here in Cascade County. Nor does she talk about her affiliation with Rae Grulkowski, our newly-elected County Commissioner and conspiracy theorist extraordinaire.
Maybe it doesn’t matter whether the current mess at the Clerk and Recorder’s office is the result of incompetence or Merchant’s belief in election denier mythology. What matters is that people organize to make sure she can’t impose her beliefs on the rest of us by denying free and fair elections.
