by Ken Toole | Dec 30, 2024 | City
The last year has been a roller coaster ride for the Great Falls Library. In February 2023, the city commission voted unanimously to place a levy on the ballot to increase funding for the library. The proposed levy was to raise $1.5 million for needed facility updates and to expand hours and services. The levy passed after an acrimonious campaign with the right-wing censorship crowd vehemently opposing the levy.
Commissioners Ignore Public Support For The Library
Contrast the public support for the library to the resounding rejection of the proposed safety levy to fund police and fire protection. The safety levy was a pet project of Commissioner Rick Tryon. After the elections, which demonstrated public support for the library and rejection of the safety levy, it seems that Tryon, Commissioner Joe McKenney and Mayor Cory Reeves have it in for the library, playing games with board appointments and finally reducing funding for the library and giving that money to public safety. https://wtf406.com/2024/11/city-council-takes-money-from-library-after-the-public-voted-to-increase-funding/
Opponents of taking money from the library have pointed out repeatedly that the small amount of money taken from the library would do very little to meet the $30 million for projected needs for public safety in Great Falls. But it amounted to a cut of almost 27% of the library’s total budget. The majority of the commission (Tryon, McKenney, and Reeves) was undeterred and took the funding anyway.
$1 Million To Replace Seats at The Mansfield Center?
Given that history, many people were surprised to see that the city commission allocated almost $1 million , almost three times the amount taken from the library’s funding, to replace the seats in The Mansfield Center. Most of us understand that budgets for local government are complicated and involve different sources of funding. Some of the money the city administers can be moved around and some cannot. Replacing the seats is part of a larger project and funded in large part by the State-Local Infrastructure Partnership Act which the Montana Legislature approved in 2023. In addition, tax increment district financing is also part of the package. But even with those sources funding it was still short. The city staff recommended moving forward with the full project anyway, despite the overage of almost $360,000. That “overage,” for which no clear source of funding was identified, is more than the amount removed from the library’s budget.
But all the byzantine maneuvering of public funding aside, this simply demonstrates that the attack on the library by Tryon, McKenney and Reeves was more about their apparent problems with the library and pandering to a small pro-censorship minority in Great Falls than it was meeting public safety needs.
by Ken Toole | Sep 23, 2024 | E-City Beat Watch
Ken Toole| Sept 23, 2024| E-City Beat✔ Watch
City Commissioner Rick Tryon recently published a piece in E-City Beat ✔ under his name. (Usually they don’t give the author’s names). Since he is a local elected official and his piece takes a shot at anyone who dares to to be “progressive” and have an independent thought about corporate behavior, it deserves some response.
After referring to progressives as “anti-corporate blabbermouths,” he accuses them of being hypocrites if they criticize corporate behavior while using products produced by corporations. So you don’t have to go to his blog, here’s a quote which pretty much sums it up:
“Even right here in Great Falls it’s surprising how many times I hear and read local progressives implying, or just coming right out and saying, that corporations are at the root of all of our problems – even while those same folks continue buying, using, and consuming corporate goods and services 24/7/365.”
Tryon’s High School Humor
This is followed by high-school level cheeky examples of corporate products used by his imagined progressives including Starbucks, Subarus, Paul McCartney albums, Green Energy Corporation, and DreamWorks among others. It’s an attempt at sarcastic humor that falls flat on its face.
If Tryon wants to step into the role of apologist for corporate shenanigans, his constituents might want to ask him how he feels about the effect of Calumet’s repeated property tax appeals on city and local school budgets. Does he agree with Calumet’s assertion that the entire Montana Renewables plant (which produces biofuels for sale) should be classified as “pollution control equipment” and get a greatly reduced tax rate?
He Doesn’t Care About Your Residential Property Tax?
Residential taxpayers might want to ask him what he thinks about the dramatic increase in local residential property taxes while large centrally assessed (corporate) property taxes either went down or remained the same. Is Tryon happy that corporations have been granted the same status as individual citizens under the United States Constitution? How about allowing them to pour money into our political process? And maybe we should ask him who he represents, the citizens of Great Falls or the faceless legal structure we all call corporations.
Both WTF406 and E-City Beat✔ are organized as corporations. There are lots of corporations. Some are good and some bad and everything in between. Tryon’s idea that all progressives are anti-corporate is as stupid as saying all conservatives like crappy country music.
For more discussion of this issue, check out our recent editorial about inflation and profiteering
https://dailymontanan.com/2024/09/22/inflation-or-profiteering/
by Guest Writer | Jun 13, 2024 | E-City Beat Watch
By Jackie (Mike) Brown blogger for the Western Word
Apparently, someone got under Great Falls City Commissioner Rick Tryon’s skin again. He penned a column that was posted on the E-City Beat blog:
Tryon says:
In light of some of the recent chatter around town I thought this would be a good time to offer my own opinion on the character of my hometown.
I grew up in Great Falls in the 1960’s and 1970’s. I raised my own two daughters here and helped to get a couple of my grandkids started right here in the Electric City, so I take strong exception to some of the disparaging, insulting, and divisive comments which have made it into the local news recently about the kind of community this is and people who live here.
Despite what some of the loudest most obnoxious local voices would have you believe, the overwhelming majority of folks in this community are not bigots, homophobes, racists or haters.
He does ask the question, “Are there jackasses in this town?” He answers his question with, “Sure, just like in any other town.”
I think I know one…
If you haven’t done so already, check out The Western Word blog https://thewesternword.com/