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 Ken Toole | Jul 9, 2024 | Taxes
In November of 2023, the Department of Revenue issued a paper warning legislators and others that Montana was facing dramatic increases in property taxes because of the increase in property values across the state. This was not the first time Montana had seen dramatic increases in property values. In the past, the legislature had avoided people’s bills going up by adjusting the state property tax rate multiplier in the residential property tax formula. It has been a simple fix. For more details follow this link https://dailymontanan.com/2023/07/26/big-corporations-get-tax-benefits-while-montana-resident-get-higher-property-taxes/
As legislators, both Lola Sheldon-Galloway and Steven Galloway were perfectly happy to let property taxes in Montana increase dramatically. But now it seems they were none too happy with the tax they were paying on their own property. Maybe it’s just that all of the public outcry following the last legislature got them thinking they might be able to play the same game large corporations, like Calumet, play in filing appeals then negotiating a “settlement” with the Department of Revenue behind closed doors. (See this editorial about property tax appeals:
https://dailymontanan.com/2024/06/26/there-is-a-way-for-montana-residential-property-taxes-to-go-down/ )
In case you didn’t know it, Galloway Investments owns the Dairy Queen located at 1651 Fox Farm Road. In late November of last year, the Galloways appealed their property taxes. Specifically, they challenged the Montana Department of Revenue’s appraisal of the value of the land the building sits on. After reviewing the appraised value at the request of the Galloways, the Department of Revenue stood by its valuation of the land value of $245,187, rejecting the Galloways’ estimate of the land being valued at $70,882. The Galloways then appealed the Department of Revenue’s valuation to the County Tax Appeals Board. The hearing on the Galloways’ appeal was held in early April. The County Tax Appeals Board denied the Galloways’ ’ appeal and left the valuation of the land at $245,187. On April 13th, WTF406 filed a public information request with the county requesting information on the Galloways’ appeal. The County Attorney’s office provided the information on June 13th.
Despite the fact that the Galloways have owned the property for at least 15 years and the property taxes have slowly increased overtime like many of the rest of us, suddenly they decided they just weren’t going to take it anymore and filed an appeal. And they proposed a dramatic reduction in the estimated value of the land, from $245,189 to $70,882, amounting to a reduction of more than 70 percent ($174,305). Wow!
Their justification in the appeal was that the land valuation is “Ridiculous.” They also argue that the Fox Farm Road Dairy Queen should be similar in value to the Dairy Queen on 9th Avenue, which they also own. According to their appeal, the value per square foot of the Fox Farm property is $17.87, while the 9th Avenue store is taxed at $5.16 per square foot.
The problem for the Galloways is that the Dairy Queen on 9th is not comparable. The Department of Revenue appraises land value of the 9th Street property at $116,250. The locations of the two properties are very different. Specifically, The Fox Farm location is just off 10th Avenue South and faces Fox Farm Rd, one of the busiest intersections in Great Falls. It is across the street from The Heritage Inn. The 9th Street Dairy Queen is tucked away in a mixed use neighborhood with far less traffic than the Fox Farm Road property. Many commercial properties have value based largely on the amount of traffic that can easily access the business.
After hearing the Galloways’ appeal, the local tax appeals board agreed with the Department of Revenue and denied their request for a tax break. They had thirty days from receipt of the local Tax Appeals Board decision to file an appeal with the State Tax Appeals Board. They apparently decided not to appeal.
It is ironic that both Galloways sat in legislative seats while the property tax crisis was tumbling through the 2024 legislature and did nothing. Lola Sheldon-Galloway sat on the House Taxation Committee for two sessions of the legislature, and Steven Galloway sat on the House Business and Labor Committee. They both had an opportunity to address Montana’s increase in property taxes. They chose to ignore it.
by Ken Toole | Jul 2, 2024 | E-City Beat Watch
E-City Beat✔ Whining Again
I don’t read E-City Beat✓ much. But it has come to my attention that Phil Faccenda, one of the writers for that blog, took offense to a recent post I wrote about some guy with a huge “Fuck Biden and Fuck you for voting for him” banner on the front of his pickup at a crowded public campground on the Missouri River. https://wtf406.com/2024/06/nice-afternoon-with-my-grandson/
At first I thought that Phil’s problem would be the fact that we had posted a photo of the offensive banner with the word “fuck” on it. A reasonable assumption given E-City Beat✓’s consistent support for censorship at the library. But it turned out that wasn’t the problem at all. Phil said he thought the posting was hypocritical, because our blog had used the word “fuck” in some of our postings.
So, apparently, in Phil’s mind, placing a large banner saying “Fuck Joe Biden and Fuck you for voting for him” in a public campground with lots of people around (including little kids) who have no choice but to look at it, is somehow the same as using the word “fuck” in an on-line blog which readers have to seek out and is privately owned. Seems like quite a stretch to me but, as I read the whole posting he wrote, it became apparent that his real problem is Jasmine Taylor and Helena Lovick. They are two young women who also write for our blog and have a long history of challenging Phil Facecnda and Rick Tryon, the editors of E-City Beat✓.
To bolster the circular logic of his argument, Phil provided a list of posts written by Jasmine and Helena. He obviously spent a lot of time going through our blog. Fine with us. It just gives us more exposure.
But the whole episode leaves me wondering. Does Phil have no objection at all to this kind of public display? What if a bunch of Trumpers decided to park their banners at Gibson Park or The City Water Park? How about in the 4th of July Parade? In his effort to take a shot at the WTF406 Blog, he left common sense and logic far behind.
by Guest Writer | Jun 22, 2024 | City
After the previous safety levy for the City of Great Falls failed in the last election by a wide margin, 9,095 no to 5,620 yes, the city went back to the drawing board, beginning by appointing another advisory group to study the issue. We decided to put out a few thoughts as this advisory begins its work.
Don’t waste a lot of money on polling and/or promotion- People in the city are already talking about commissioning a poll to find out what people think. Truth is people have just been hit with large property tax increases. We don’t need polling and messaging to tell us passing any kind of property tax increase will not be popular. Make clear what is being proposed and trust people to make their own conclusions.
Quit Playing Politics with an “Advisory Committee”- It is hard to figure out the logic for the appointments made for this committee. Apparently there was no application process for citizens who might have been interested in participating. And no process for deciding what qualifications the City wanted for members. Worse yet, it appears that political consideration rather than knowledge of related issues was a major driver. The members of the committee are: Sandra Guynn, Mike Parcel, Wendy McKamey, Jeni Dodd, George Nikolakakos, Aaron Weissman, Tony Rosales, Thad Reiste, Joe McKenney and Shannon Wilson.
Separate Fire and EMT funding from Police and Crime- Fire and emergency medical services are fundamentally different from policing. Wrapping them together in a levy forces voters to take or leave the whole thing. Very few people have a negative view of the services provided by fire and emergency personnel. Like it or not the same can not be said of police.
Make Clear Economic Arguments to Justify Increased Taxes- Rick Tryon’s crime task force back in 2021 didn’t do anybody any favors. It ended up producing a laundry list of expensive items which many citizens did not understand or support. To the extent the city wants to put an increase in the budgets of the police and local courts, it should emphasize things that save money like jail diversion programs, drug treatment and use of un-armed personnel wherever possible. In the area of fire protection, people should understand that their home and business insurance rates are directly ties to the safety rating of the local fire department.
by WTF 406 Staff | Jun 14, 2024 | Elections
CALLING ALL LIBRARY LOVERS TO ACTION
The city commission will be selecting a library board member at their 7:00 pm commission meeting on Tuesday, June 18. Unfortunately, there is an effort to re-appoint anti-library levy activist, Noelle Johnson, to the library board for a full five-year term. In a political maneuver last year, former city commissioner, Eric Heinbach, nominated Johnson to finish the remaining term of a departing library board member. Johnson’s position is now up for a full five-year term appointment by the current city commission.
Not surprising, the anti-levy folks and book banners have bombarded city commissioners with emails in support of Johnson’s re-appointment. If you’ve attended a library board meeting in the last seven months, you must have noticed Johnson’s disruptive behavior and obvious disdain for the library operations. Library board meetings have become so contentious that they have been known to drag on for three hours.
YOU CAN HELP REPLACE THIS ANTI-LIBRARY BOARD MEMBER WITH SOMEONE WHO LOVES OUR LIBRARY AND WILL HELP CONTINUE THE GOOD WORK STARTED SINCE THE LEVY’S PASSING.
PLEASE send an email to all of the city commissioners supporting Bob Kelly, Sandor Hopkins, and Ashlynn Maczko. This approach gives the commission several qualified candidates to choose from.
Email the entire commission at:
[email protected] OR individually to:
Mayor Cory Reeves [email protected]
Commissioner Susan Wolff [email protected]
Commissioner Shannon Wilson [email protected]
Commissioner Joe McKenney [email protected]
Commissioner Rick Tryon [email protected]
BETTER YET, attend Tuesday’s (June 18) city commission meeting at 7:00 pm and speak directly to the commission.
Please voice your support for these candidates IN YOUR OWN WORDS both in your email and/or public comments.
PLEASE SEND YOUR EMAIL TODAY. TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE.
Check out our TikTok call to action here: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTNJuB4Yr/
