by Ken Toole | Jul 13, 2024 | Energy/Utilities
Public Service Commissioner Randy Pinocci has had a lien filed on his property by the Braden Tract Sewer Association and Braden Tract Water Fund for non-payment of bills in the amount of $1,720. In addition, the districts are claiming Pinocci is responsible for moving a fence which is encroaching on its property at an estimated cost of $5,500.
Perhaps the greatest irony in this chapter of the long, sad saga of Pinocci’s behavior in public office is that, as a Public Service Commissioner, Pinocci is responsible for regulating public utilities similar to these two small local utilities. One of the biggest problems these businesses face is deadbeats not paying their bills. When that happens, other ratepayers pick up the tab. Pinocci either doesn’t understand that or he doesn’t care. Probably a bit of both.
As the Public Service Commissioner representing PSC District #1, which includes Cascade County, Pinocci earns an annual salary of $111,179. That does not include benefits like state retirement and health insurance. His wife, Svetlana, works in the elections office. She gets a good salary and county benefits. In addition, Pinocci has real estate appraised at a total value of $1,006,303. You would think he can afford to pay his water and sewer bills. . . like the rest of us. But Randy isn’t like the rest of us.
Pinocci seems to want to play politics more than do his job with the PSC. In the last election, he ran for Lieutenant Governor drawing his big paycheck from you and me the whole time. Then there is the fact that he was prosecuted for intimidating witnesses in a dispute over one of his rental properties last October. https://wtf406.com/2023/10/more-republican-police-blotter-pinocci-arrested-again/
A few weeks before that, he was arrested on a warrant for failure to appear. When he is not being arrested or prosecuted, he is galavanting around the state promoting bizarre conspiracy theories.
Thanks, in part, to an organized effort to get Democrats to “cross over” and vote in the Republican Primary here in Cascade County, voters got rid of some of the far right leaders in their party. Legislators Steven Galloway and Lola Sheldon-Galloway lost. County Commissioner Rae Grulkowski also was turned away by the voters (though the rumor mill is predicting she will be hired by Clerk and Recorder Sandra Merchant). Both Pinocci and Merchant also lost their bids to be elected as Republican Party precinct people. Maybe there’s some hope for sanity in the local Republican Party.
Pinocci’s term on the Public Service Commission ends in 2026. Who knows what he will run for next. Whatever it is, we can only hope he is defeated.
by Jasmine Taylor | Jun 6, 2024 | Elections
Great Falls voted in the primary election, determining which candidates will go on to the general election in November, and it was a bad day for MAGA Republicans. As official results rolled in, far-right ringleaders started falling like dominoes. For the past two legislative sessions, Republicans have held a strong majority. They’ve used this muscle to attack reproductive rights and raise our property taxes through the roof. Montana is worse for all they have done.
The tides have turned! Despite protests from folks who prefer business as usual, many Democrats crossed over and voted in the Republican primary. The strategy? Eliminate the far-right leaders, and keep them off the ballot in November. Looking at the primary results, it pays to think outside of the box.
Enjoy this list of far-right losers who will not be appearing on the ballot in November.
Rae Grulkowski
Grulkowski was the puppeteer behind the chaos and dysfunction that plagued the elections office last year. She’s been finishing out a partial term as County Commissioner. Lucky for us, Grulkowski WILL NOT BE ON THE BALLOT THIS NOVEMBER.
Lola Sheldon-Galloway
Sheldon-Galloway is a long-time legislator whose bad hats and even worse beliefs have plagued Montana for years. Nobody’s spent more time trying to control your uterus than Lola. Best known for claiming that you can’t get pregnant from rape, Lola hoped to jump from the House to the Senate. However, she had a big loss last night and WILL NOT BE ON THE BALLOT THIS NOVEMBER.
Steven Galloway
Steven served his first term in the House last session, and he used every minute of it to try and make himself richer. He focused on laws targeting renters and benefiting landlords. Slack-jawed Steven rode his wife’s coattails into one win, but this year he pissed off fellow Republican George Nikolakakos. According to local gossip, George then recruited his wife to run, and run she has. While we’ll be working hard to defeat her in November, right now we’re going to celebrate that Steven Galloway WILL NOT BE ON THE BALLOT IN NOVEMBER.
Randy Pinocci
When he’s not trying to fist-fight voters or engaging in (alleged) felony witness tampering, Pinocci is making over $100,000 per year as our Public Service Commissioner. This cycle, Pinocci was on the ticket with Tanner Smith running for Governor, and Pinocci as Lieutenant Governor. Not only did the Smith/Tanner ticket lose big, Pinocci couldn’t even win the election for local precinct person. Love that for him. After two big losses, Pinocci WILL NOT BE ON THE BALLOT IN NOVEMBER.
Sandra Merchant
It’s a really bad time to be Sandra Merchant. Late last year, the County Commision voted to remove all election duties from Merchant (the current Clerk and Recorder) due to her gross incompetence. Now, Merchant will be without her bodyguard, Grulkowski. In an embarrassing turn of events, Merchant was also unable to win her election for local precinct person. Admittedly, precinct races don’t have much weight, but it’s mighty fun to watch this particular fall. Let’s hope that with Grulkowski on her way out, Merchant will finally find the sense to resign.
Now what?
Looking ahead to November, it’s clear that Democrats have a lot of work to do. The worst Republicans have been ousted, but we don’t want to elect the ones remaining either. Despite the tantrums of Republicans bemoaning the crossover votes, what we’ve seen is that Democrats are finally ready to fight back. Now let’s go kick some ass.
by Ken Toole | May 3, 2024 | Elections
It seems like all of the old rules went out the window with the election of Donald Trump in 2016. With the resources and energy of far-right groups like the Freedom Caucus, Moms for Liberty, American for Prosperity and others, the right flank of the Republican Party has taken over most of state and local government.
Here in Cascade County there is a long standing feud between far-right Republicans, known as the Freedom Caucus, led by legislators like Steven Galloway and Lola Sheldon-Galloway, and more traditional pro-corporate Republicans like Ed Buttrey and Steve Fitzpatrick. This election almost all legislative seats have contested Republican primaries pitting these two factions against each other. In addition, there is a hotly contested County Commission primary race between far-right incumbent Rae Grulkowski and local businessman Eric Hinebauch.
At the same time there is only one contested Democratic primary, the race for the Eastern Congressional District. The unfortunate fact is, no matter which Democratic candidate wins the primary, he will have virtually no chance of winning the seat in the general election. In short, there is not much reason to vote in the Democratic Primary here in Cascade County.
That brings us to the talk around town urging Democrats in Cascade County to vote in the Republican primary for the more reasonable of those candidates. Some folks are arguing that a few votes could make the difference between more nuts and more reasonable people in public office. They may be right, and the fact is that there is really nothing to lose given the lack of contested Democratic primaries here. Advocates of Democrats voting in the Republican primary, which is perfectly legal, say, “desperate times call for desperate measures|.”
The following is a list of the contested primaries and who are the more far-right candidates.
Cascade County Commission
Rea Grulkowski- Far Right
Eric Hinebauch
Senate District 13
Lola Sheldon-Galloway- Far Right
Josh Kassmier
House District 19
Hannah Trebas- Far Right
Darren Auger
House District 20
Steven Galloway- Far Right
Melisssa Nikolakkas
House District 21
Josh Osterman- Far Right
Ed Buttrey
House District 22
James Whitaker- Far Right
George Nikolakkas
House District 23
John Proud- Far Right
Pete Anderson- Far Right
Josh Denully
Eric Tillerman
by Ken Toole | Apr 12, 2024 | Schools
In a bid to promote his own campaign, School Board candidate Tony Rosales has been issuing a series of attacks on the administration of the Great Falls School District. While it probably takes Tony a few minutes to come up with his phony accusations, the district has clearly spent a lot of time and effort to set the record straight. And that’s too bad, because the staff has more important things to do than replying to weird accusations from a wanna-be politician.
Is This Really How We Want School Personnel Spending Their Time?
The Electric published a good story that takes Rosales’ accusations point by point and covers the district’s response. What becomes clear from this most recent story is that Rosales either doesn’t know what he is talking about or doesn’t care what the facts are, as long as he throws dirt on dedicated public employees to further his own political campaign. Probably a bit of both. For the complete story, follow this link to the Electric’s article. https://theelectricgf.com/2024/04/10/gfps-responds-to-concerns-from-board-candidate/
One of Rosales’ central accusations against the district is that a staff member, Lance Boyd, sits on the board of Peace Place, a local nonprofit dedicated to providing respite care for disabled children. Peace Place is a great program that gives parents time to do shopping and other tasks that can be very difficult for parents of kids with special needs. Rosales asserted that this was a conflict of interest since other providers of similar services in the community did not get that “business” from the district, with the implication being that funding was being channeled unfairly to Peace Place.
Hey Tony, Who’s Got a Conflict of Interest?
Responding to questions from the Electric, Rosales said that he discovered this “conflict of interest” at a local meeting on autism and decided to challenge the district. Rosales posted that it was a conflict of interest for Boyd to serve on the board, as the district refers students to Peace Place and pays for those services. He said that he heard about the situation from another provider who was at the meeting.”
The other provider, who was apparently complaining that he was not getting referrals from the district, is Kevin Leatherbarrow, the owner of Go and Grow. The district explained that it was not referring to them, because Leatherbarrow had previously told him they did not want to accept federal funding which the district receives.
Tony Rosales is the Chair of the local Libertarian Party. Leatherbarrow ran as a Libertarian for the Montana Superintendent of Public Instruction in 2020. Leatherbarrow has filed to run for the legislature in this election cycle, again as a Libertarian. Rosales also filed to run for the legislature as a Libertarian in this cycle but withdrew, apparently to run for school board. Tony Rosales is currently serving as Kevin Leatherbarrow’s campaign treasurer.
If you liked the controversy and paralysis which took over county government after electing aggressive anti-government conspiracy theorists Rae Grulkowski and Sandra Merchant, you might want to consider voting for Tony Rosales. But if you want the school district to remain focused on its job, educating our kids, vote for Marlee Sunchild.
by Ken Toole | Mar 27, 2024 | City, E-City Beat Watch, Elections
Cascade County’s far right was mad as hell when the County Commissioners removed election duties from Sandra Merchant’s control. Nevermind that Marchant had fouled up virtually everything she touched since taking office in January of 2023.
When the County Commission held a hearing on Ordinance 23-65, which removed election duties from Merchant’s Clerk and Recorder’s office to the County Commission office, the hearing lasted 7 hours. Cascade County was treated to a cavalcade of baseless allegations, bible quotes and challenges to Commissioner’s motivation and patriotism. It was quite a show. But in the end, Commissioner’s Joe Briggs and Jim Larson stood for competent election administration and placed election administration under the Commission office. Here’s a summary of that meeting: https://wtf406.com/2023/12/the-grinch-in-great-falls/
In response, these folks organized a petition drive to place the issue on the ballot and give people the opportunity to express their opinion supporting their point of view. But, alas, they failed. Not only did the imagined vast majority of supporters not get to vote, signature gatherers couldn’t even get the required 15% of eligible voters to sign the petition to place the measure on the ballot.
Read our prior coverage here: https://wtf406.com/2024/01/dont-sign-the-petition/
In order to place the measure before voters the organizers had to get approximately 5,500 signatures from registered voters in Cascade County. But after 90 days signature gatherers only managed to gather 1,242 verified signatures. Less than a quarter of the required number. So much for a wave of public support for the Merchant/Grulkowski crowd of conspiracy theorists.
Note: Since starting this blog we have learned that getting public information from Cascade County is incredibly difficult and frustrating. We found the new election administrator, Terry Thompson, to be an exception. Our request for information about the signature gathering effort was responded to in a timely manner with complete and accurate information.
