by James Green

The Townsend Star

Last Saturday’s candidate forum for the municipal and primary elections offered a sneak peak into some of the opinions of local candidates. The crowd for the event was approximately 50 people.
The event was kicked off by Brian Patrick giving a brief presentation on the breakdown of the school funding and how the mill levy was needed to meet state funding requirements and indicated if the levy were not to pass the only likely alternative would be to cut school employment costs.
Mr. Patrick was followed by a brief explanation by Sheriff Brenda Ludwig and Under Sheriff Knaff on their need for money from the mill levy for new equipment such as tasers and portable breath testers, vehicles, and wage increases to make Broadwater County Sheriff Department wages competitive with other area law enforcement agencies.
Other viable reasons for the need for the levy included the cost of losing the officers to other agencies once they have received their post training has a $21,000 price tag. She also made it known that the money has not been available to upgrade vehicles to ensure the safe operation of the vehicles which had exceeded the 100,000 mile limit set by state guidelines. She indicated without the gracious vehicle donations of two contractors (including Rolling Glen Subdivision) those requirements would not have been met.
Sheriff Ludwig also commented on the recent positions for the deputy and detention center job postings. It was interesting to note only one applicant of the 18 applicants was post certified and 25% of the applicants had a criminal background.
The forum then shifted focus to the candidates for the School Board. Joan Eliel, Claudet Hohn and James (Kevin) McDonnell were present for the School Board session. Mike Dexter was unable to attend. The main questions the candidates addressed were drug testing of student athletes and an open ended question on the budget policies. All answers were very similar and as to the drug testing all parties were in favor of it. Surprisingly only one candidate, Kevin McDonnell, commented on the issue of the decision to release coach Rauh and offered the position that he “did not agree” with the decision.
Moving on, Laura Obert and Tim Ravndal were present for District 1 commissioner, while Paul Tuemmler was present to represent his wife Melissa for that district. For District 2, Elaine Gravely was present, Laura Obert read a summation for Cal Janes and Mike Delger was not represented. The main issue candidates tackled for each district was the issue of whether or not they would impose Impact Fees on up and coming subdivisions, it was nearly a unanimous agreement that fees in some form should be imposed. Tim Ravndal however indicated “Impact fees are premature” and that in order to make any decision to look at such fees he would need to stay within the legal limits.
District 68 State House of Representatives incumbent Scott Sales squared off with candidates Bob Brastrup and Debora Brown in what would be the most heated segment of the night.
Scott Sales dominated the floor time giving a briefing on the past session, indicating the democratic party blocked all attempts to pass legislation. He also indicated Governor Schweitzer “was a bully” and was responsible for last year’s extended session. He indicated that, if they had been able to pass their legislation lowering property taxes, Montanans would have benefitted.
Bob Brastrup commented that lowering property taxes at the state level was a very small portion of the property taxes imposed, he instead offered the solution of reinstating or fighting for school funding at the state level which would have offered an even bigger tax relief in the form of a reduction of mill levies.