Reflections on the Montana league of Cities and towns conference

This is my first stab at the Listserv and boy is it a long one. I attended the Montana League of Cities and Towns conference for the first time. It has been an educational experience and a chance to meet other elected and staff personal from throughout the state. While voluminous my notes probably scratch the surface and hope some of the other council members can add where I left off.

Thursday: The morning introduction went smooth and the major cities had a shouting contest to show who had the most presence. I know Missoula was well represented. The morning session brought Roger Wood the managing director of a growing investment bank. He also assisted the major cities attempt to buy Northwestern a few years back. Mr. Wood discussed the economic conditions and gave a glass half full, half empty approach. Most of the information was nothing too surprising if you read the Economist on any sort of regularity.

Afterwards there was a State Budget and challenges for cities and towns. State Senator Bob Story and Dave Lewis attended along with Representative Jon Sesso. There was a lot of discussion on the upcoming state general fund deficit. There was a lot of discussion about the “Big Bill” or the state bill which distributes state funds down to the cities. There is obvious concern that the upcoming legislature will try to alter the payout rates or lower them. The Senators and House representative were supportive of retaining the bill as is but consistently hinted nothing is off the table.

Representative Sesso brought up the importance of the Stimulus funds and the work that different Montana Cities have been able to use to build infrastructure. During question and answer Jason brought up the reduction of the Business equipment tax and asked if it really has been effective in bringing new business equipment to the state? Mr. Storey deflected stating the closure’s related to certain industries like timber and mining confounds real research on whether the tax cut worked.

Next there was a discussion about Tax increment financing (TIF). Mr. Chris Behan from the MRA Missoula gave a great presentation that really showed the great work the URD’s have completed in Missoula Downtown along with other cities from Butte and Billings. There were issues of concern related to TIF’s and the upcoming legislative session. The speaker from Billings summed it up best. By a 10 million public dollar investment from taxes they received 50 million dollars in private investment. Any legislative change that adversely effects the TIF’s could be disastrous for communities that wish to use URD’s.

Attorney General Steve Bullock followed the TIF meeting by opening up with his fight against the Citizen’s United ruling and the history of corporate donations in Montana and Butte. He stressed the importance of keeping corporations from being able to freely donate to candidates and used an example of how in a city council race where campaigns cost around $5000 dollars. If a corporation that didn’t like a zoning law could just give 15000 and outspend a candidate 3 to 1 and it could be a rounding error to a corporate balance.

Other items the Attorney General discussed: Helena’s pilot program of testing for alcohol twice a day for repeat DUI offenders. Also discussed was the importance of a regulatory framework for Medical Marijuana. He was pleased to see the interim legislative committee address some of the regulatory issues related to MM.

Medical Marijuana (MM): Greg Sullivan of Bozeman brought up their laws and regulations and brought up things like “compassion clubs” and a burrito bus selling MM.
Brent Brooks from billings brought up the gamut of the major cities different approaches. Missoula’s treating the facilities like businesses with licensing. Bozeman’s very restrictive MM ordinance and Billings hold the line until the legislative approach. (Billings has a Moratorium of issuing a business licenses. Mostly the discussion was similar to the constant press attention related to Medical Marijuana. I asked a couple questions on if there were any plans for the state to measure THC content and regulate claims made by some of the vendors. Sue O’Connell Legislative research analyst in Helena stated they did not have state testing methods to back claims. I also asked what makes Missoula different from other communities as we don’t seem to have a lot of the same concerns. (Apparently, the comments were good enough to make the papers in Butte.) I definitely agree that some regulatory measures to better regulate MM are good from the state level. On a local level, Missoula has done a pretty good job treating MM like the business it is allowed to be by state law.

Next I attended the Legislative redistricting meeting. A critical issue for Missoula is to make sure our citizens receive an equal share in the Montana Legislature. For some reason, probably because of how I take notes in class I copied most of the PowerPoint presentation and will reproduce it below instead of trying to sum it up.

Reapportionment asks how many people should be in each district.

Redistricting asks where should the lines between districts be drawn.

– 2010 estimated census population of Montana = 984,000.

– Ideal state house district = 9840

– Ideal state senate district = 19600 (two house districts together)

Why do we redistrict?

– Federal and state constitutions

– US supreme court rulings in 1960’s

o “One Person, one vote”. It requires an approximant equal value for voter

Who’s in charge of redistricting?

– Autonomous 5 member commission

– Four members appointed by majority and minority leaders of Montana House and Senate

– Fifth member and presiding officer selected by first four (or Supreme Court)

– Full authority for redistricting

o Legislature can review plan and suggest changes

o Commission has discretion to make amendments

When will redistricting occur?

– Commissioners appointed by 2009 legislative leaders

– Census data available on or before April 1, 2011

– 90 days for congressional plan

– Present legislative plan to 2010 legislature

– New legislative districts in effect for 2014

The puzzle and its special rules Montana legislative districts 2005-2014

The commission figures out the rules to cut up the pieces and can be rough

Mandatory rules

– Population equality, legislative districts should be nearly equal in population as practicable.

o July 2010 state population 983,932

– Commission decision plus or minus 3% from the ideal.

o 295 people above or below 9839

– Compact and contiguous districts

– Looks matter you know it when you see it

– Commission compactness

– Considerations include:

o General appearance

o Functional compactness

§ Travel and transportation

§ Communication

§ Geography

– Protect minority voting rights

o No district, plan, or proposal

Discretionary rules

– Follow existing political boundaries

o Counties, cities, school districts, reservations, neighborhoods

– Use geographic boundaries from census

o Blacks, block groups tracts

o Keep communities of interest intact

§ Reservations, urban/suburban/rural, occupations, trade areas

How local officials can help?

How is your community affected by mandatory and discretionary criteria?

http://www.leg.mt.gov/districting

[email protected]

Rachel Weiss (406)-444-5367

Joe Kolman (406)-444-9280

After redistricting there were a couple of meetings which some of the other council members attended related to water quality and upcoming EPA regulations and the new folk festival in Butte. After which there was a film about Butte called “The Original”. Instead of watching a film about the history of Butte I spent some time in history by visiting the Butte-Silverbow Archives. Voters in Butte approved a 7.5 million dollar bond to build the facility. The Archives contain all city documents up to 1965 which is great if you want to find family members or look up old minutes and ordinances. Several papers dating back to the late 1800’s are a great research tool. Lastly, the Archives are currently showing four paintings from the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. The artists include Pierre Renoir, J.M.W. Turner, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and John Constable. It was great to see the citizens of Butte protect their rich written history. (Just so you all know the Mansfield Library at UM currently holds the city of Missoula’s archives.)

On Friday the League held its business meeting discussing and approved the legislative packet. Our city attorney Jim Nugent is the Chairman of the Legislative committee. One issue that was discussed was making not wearing a seatbelt a primary offense as opposed to a secondary offense. Officers were elected Ed Childers was nominated and elected First Vice President (congrats).

The Montana Municipal Interlocal Authority (MMIA) meeting was next. The MMIA is the insurance arm for cities in Montana. They covered several issues related to work comp and liability. Havre was the lowest for Liability and work comp for the larger cities. Also there was a discussion on Employee Benefit programs and how they can lower insurance costs.

The MMIA also held a Risk Management for Health Benefits. They discussed some of the cost drivers in city insurance such as aging workforce, increased utilization of elective services, and increased catastrophic claims. How MMIA has reduced costs through pooling insurance pools, self-insurance, promote prevention and large case management. There was a simple chart that show if 10 employees have a $1,000 dollar claim they all pay more than if they pooled with 1000 employees. The administrative costs for the self-funded plan for MMIA has a 12% overhead where most insurance companies have 15%. Also MMIA does not advertise as much as private insurance which saves costs.

Next was a panel discussion related to special districts. Mayor Engen was one of the panelists. He brought up the importance of the special districts and recognizing the issues of declining revenue. He covered the 2 year 6% general fund budget reduction. Salary freezes from bargaining units and administration. He pointed out the increased dialogue the city had related to taxes. The mayor of Shelby brought up his cities use of Special districts in combination with their street maintenance districts. They went in with a private company and bought an asphalt machine and paved or repaired lot of their roads.

In Kalispell they are discussing a transaction fee; a .25 fee for a transaction at a time of sale. An example is Costco in Kalispell which pays 4600 dollars in road taxes. Versus at .25 a day you have a hundreds of transaction. They want to introduce a state legislative bill or attach it as an option of funding within special districts. The revenue generated would then be used to not only assist programs and offset the costs for street assessments of property taxes. Stacey Rye brought up her concerns about someone buying a candy bar and getting charged a quarter. The fee could be regressive taxation a quarter for diapers are very different than a quarter for a bottle of wine.

Next was Matt Jones, state director from the USDA Rural Development program. He spoke about four areas in housing (USDA does housing loans except for Missoula, Billings, Great Falls we are too big). Second are utilities. They do loans for utilities ranging from water treatment to energy. Business support and guaranteeing loans. Lastly, community development programs. Basically Mr. Jones said they want to help small communities. The USDA program has assisted in $40 million in investment.

Finally, Senator Tester spoke to the conference about the important work cities do and his commitment to small town Montana. It was great to see the Senator again and I was glad he made time to talk to local leaders after the conference.

The Missoula Delegation asked the most questions at the conference, went to all the meeting, affected policy decisions and generally was pro-active in ensuring Missoula’s place with the other first class cities in Montana. The Missoula community would be proud to see our delegation work to make a better Montana.

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In Solidarity

Roy Houseman

Missoula City Council

(406)-544-4940