As I write to meet the Beacon’s deadline, this year’s ballots have yet to be counted. As you read it, chances are, the results are in. Half of you are feeling much better about the direction of your city, county and country – the other half, not so much. And a few of you are […]

Jim Patrick’s tenure as Kalispell city manager came to an abrupt end earlier this month. The circumstances surrounding his firing remain murky, as Kalispell city councilors have instead chosen to explain his dismissal in the broadest terms possible, taking the high road, I suppose, in what was a likely bitter divorce. “We just determined it […]

At the beginning of October, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced California may need an emergency $7 billion-loan from the Federal Treasury because his state is running out of cash to pay for basic services. A week later, Montana’s Legislative Fiscal Division projected a budget surplus of nearly $1 billion through the middle of 2011 for our […]

Neither John McCain nor Barack Obama is a big hunter. Despite Halloween’s rapid approach, it appears the blaze orange vests will remain closeted. There are no plans by candidates to slog through the woods, rifles in hands, with photographers creeping a few dozen yards behind. And that’s a relief. In 2004, when Democratic presidential candidate […]

The accusations are damning, yet the accused aren’t likely to be held accountable for anything. As the lungs of Libby residents choked on asbestos, as 200 of them died, as 2,000 more fell ill, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sat on its bureaucratic hands. Documents and e-mails obtained from the EPA last week by U.S. […]

As the city of Kalispell has stared down unhappy unions, frustrated developers and a budget shortfall, its staff and council have appeared severely out of sync. There’s either a communication gap among these decision-makers, or they have opted to ignore each other. In late July, when city officials announced that Kalispell Fire Chief Randy Brodehl […]

When Beacon writer Dan Testa and I sat down last week to start prepping for the peak election season, we began by making a list of every local race in our coverage area. It was daunting, more than three-dozen candidates deep, filled with men and women who sell shoes, manage restaurants and ranch as their […]

The eyes of much of the country, especially party insiders, last week were fixed on the GOP convention, for the rollout of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and on John McCain’s acceptance speech. Yet just a few days earlier in the town next door, thousands booed Republicans as loud as Democrats. Ron Paul supporters gathered […]

On the second day of a Democratic convention that even party loyalists had panned as dull, a sweating Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer took the podium. He yelled, waved his arms and brought a previously unenthused audience to its feet. He slammed the Bush administration’s energy policy while tying it to that of presumptive Republican nominee […]

City budgets across the state are in such dire straits that those in the unenviable position of managing municipal money have joked amongst themselves about which one will go bankrupt first. While not funny “ha! ha!” it is, perhaps, a way to lighten the mood when staring down untenable numbers. Right now, it appears Billings […]

When a Beacon reporter called planners in other Montana counties to get their perspective on conservation easements and a November initiative to preserve land in the Flathead, some were taken aback. They were likely surprised it was approved for the ballot at all, assuming that preserving land is not a priority here and that the […]

The problem with Kalispell’s proposed parks district is the fact that it’s not really a proposal. The only way the public can stop it is if 50 percent of the property owners in the city protest its creation. The council would have done better not soliciting our input at all. Turnout in anything other than […]

The hammer that is the Whitefish sign ordinance is, once again, swinging wildly. This time, no real lives are in danger – just a rosy mural on the side of a local café – a sharp contrast to a previous kerfuffle involving the dubious law. Then, North Valley Hospital officials had to convince the city […]

The thorny issue of race recently surfaced on a national and local level. From a controversial national magazine cover to local assault accusations, it turns out there is little consensus on how to confront a topic that makes the media and its audience squirm. For this newspaper, the grappling began after we posted on our […]

Amid a creaky economy Congress has found a convenient scapegoat: foreign companies landing American contracts and scheming to take over our iconic brands. First, the Air Force awarded a deal to build refueling tankers to Airbus, a European company, instead of U.S.-based Boeing. And now foreigners are going after our beer. The prospect of Belgium’s […]