Serving Proudly As The Voice Of Valley County Since 1913
Serving Proudly As The Voice Of Valley County Since 1913
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Longtime employees in the law enforcement dispatch center will be getting a raise as a reward for their long service, effective Oct. 7. The Valley County commissioners voted Tuesday to pay an extra 25 cents an hour to employees with 10 years’ service and 50 cents after 20 years. Also, those on the 11 to 7 night shift will receive a 25 cents boost. The raise will apply to part time as well as full time dispatchers. Three people will received the raises, for an annual cost of about $2,000. The commissioners committed $36,000 to the Long Run Fire...
Students and teachers alike suffered in the heat during the first two weeks of school, according to reports by the principals at the regular meeting of the Glasgow School Board on Sept. 11. The temperature in a high school hallway was 100 degrees one afternoon. With fans and lots of attention to hydration (at Irle School they got Popsicles), everyone carried on and they expect true fall weather soon. Superintendent Bob Connors said air conditioning is not normally used in Montana schools. It is an expensive item, and usually only needed during...
Garrett Godwin’s Eagle Scout project has brightened up the south side of Glasgow. He recruited volunteers to spread out Saturday and repaint fire hydrants. He heard at a City Council meeting that some faded hydrants were difficult for the Glasgow Fire Department to find, so it seemed like a worthy public service project to make them shine again. Godwin got a good response when he approached Glasgow Director of Public Works Bob Kompel with the idea. Kompel had the city donate the special paint ...
After a public hearing on Sept. 16, the Glasgow City Council proceeded with its proposed water rate increase of $5 per month, effective in November, with another $5 increase planned in six months. Two residents questioned the reasons for the rate increase, and called it a sudden move, especially for people on a fixed income. Council members said the rate has not been raised since 1999 and costs have gone up. Also, the water rate has to meet a minimum to be high enough to cover costs or else the city cannot qualify for state loans for major...
DTM Enterprises LLC filed what was titled a “brief and memorandum in support” in District Court on Tuesday against the board of the St. Marie Village Association and others. It outlines the complaint that DTM was disenfranchised at the annual membership meeting of the Village Association, at which DTM partner Terry Lee was not allowed to exercise 365 proxy votes because the units had unpaid fees. The brief claims to represent the property owners in the village of St. Marie and says the defendants were ousted by a majority vote of property own...
At their regular meeting on Tuesday, the Valley County commissioners passed a resolution that set the all school district levies as follows: • Glasgow, 256.69 mills. • Frazer, 353.98 mills. • Hinsdale, 145.73 mills. • Opheim, 149.49 mills. • Nashua, 220.74 mills. • Lustre, 242.09 mills. • District 5, 59.75 mills. • Total Valley County elementary, 40.41 mills. • Total Valley County high school, 62.78 mills. • Total Valley County transportation. 5.56 mills. Heavy spring rains hit Valley County roads and other infrastructure hard again this yea...
The Valley County commissioners adopted the recommendation of the County Compensation Board on Tuesday and voted a 5 percent pay increase for elected county officials. The commissioners also raised the salaries of all non-elected county employees who are eligible for health insurance by 86 cents an hour. According to Commissioner Dave Pippin, Valley County paid the lowest or next to the lowest salaries of similar counties in Montana. “We need to raise our salaries,” Pippin said. “We will try to pay as much as we can and not break the bank....
Valley County’s new justice of the peace, James Wixson, was appointed by the county commissioners last Wednesday and sworn into office Monday by Clerk and Recorder Lynne Nyquist. He came to Glasgow with the FBI in 1981 and was involved in investigating major crimes on the Fort Peck and Fort Belknap reservations. He retired here in 1997 after a long career as an agent. Wixson was chosen from among 10 applicants for the position. Valley County Commissioner Dave Pippin said Wixson had experienced e...
The annual College Fair held at Glasgow High School on Tuesday attracted more than 300 juniors and seniors from 10 high schools in northeastern Montana to learn about the opportunities for higher education. The yellow school buses came from Hi-Line towns from Brockton to Whitewater. Students cruised around the gym where more than 50 college and universities had displays. They represented nearly all the schools in Montana, plus ones from Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, Minnesota and North Dakota,...
Ruth Fossen Allman joined the exclusive centenarian club on Saturday, Aug. 31. She celebrated her 100th birthday with her family at her daughter’s house on Millionaire Mile in Fort Peck. She agreed to be interviewed the day before the big event. “To get 100 – which I never, never, never expected to do!” Born on a dryland wheat farm in Fingal, N.D., Allman came to Montana in 1918 when her parents proved up their homestead. They went back to North Dakota, then moved to a farm 36 miles north o...
Deb Young loves reading The Courier. Every week she gets a cup of coffee, settles into her comfortable chair, puts her computer keyboard on her lap and “reads” the paper. Young is blind. She uses a screen reading program that speaks the written words to her. Young lost her vision in 1993, but she has learned to use technology to keep her world alive. She listens to books on tape. Her fingers dance over the keypad of her smart phone, which is equipped with voice recognition and spoken cues. She...
An estimated 250 people crowded into Saco last weekend for the 50th observance of Saco Fun Days. Lots of people came for the All-Class Reunion and the numbers were helped by fine weather. The celebration offered street dances, a parade, kids’ games, a demolition derby, a pie social, a sock hop and many dinners, barbecues and feeds. Ron Hanson was one of the 15 members of the class of 1960. He retired from the ranch to Billings until he became a snowbird and now he travels in a motor home. With h...
The Glasgow City Council at its regular meeting on Tuesday held public hearings and passed resolutions levying assessments for street lights and garbage collection. They also had a public hearing and adopted a preliminary budget for fiscal year 2013-2014. Last Friday the Council decided to bill 320 mills. Taxes will go up, Mayor Dan Carney said, but they haven’t raised for a long time. For Glasgow Lighting Districts No. 1 through 29, the total assessment is $189,244.44. The amount levied against each lot or parcel is according to the square f...
It stood on U.S. 2 for perhaps 60 years, but now it’s gone. Tommy Rodgers’ turquoise and white Sinclair station, closed for a long time, was knocked down and taken away on Monday. Then a heavy Cat went to work on the concrete and asphalt pavement. Traffic was bumped over into one lane so big side-dump trucks could be filled with the rubble. The old gas station is a contaminated site being cleaned up by the Montana Department of Environmental Quality. The leaky underground system of five tan...
After being rebuffed in their attempt to vote a candidate onto the board of the St. Marie Village Association, a group of owners have declared themselves a majority of the property owners, voted to abolish covenants amended in 1992, terminated the current board and created a new temporary board pending an election. The group was denied participation rights at the annual meeting because according to the association records, they were in arrears with their fees. One of the group, Merrill Frantz, told The Courier that the association had told...
A man who escaped from the tribal jail in Poplar was apprehended in Park Grove by Valley County sheriff’s deputies on Friday night. According to Sheriff Glen Meier, Eric Bruce Fowler of Wolf Point was awaiting trial for a drug-related offense when he escaped about three weeks ago. The Valley County Sheriff’s Office received information that Fowler was in Park Grove with his girlfriend and her child. Meier said they took their time, watched him and planned. On Friday, the whole force went to the house in Park Grove. When Fowler left the hou...
A herd of Yellowstone bison from the Fort Peck Reservation was released on Fort Belknap last Thursday, finally fulfilling a plan by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks to quarantine brucellosis-free animals, prove they can remain disease-free, and transplant them to the two Indian reservations on the eastern plains. Thirty-four bison stepped out of trailers and trotted off to explore the 900-acre pasture. It was recently surrounded with a stout, new 8-foot fence. Sixty-one Yellowstone bison were moved to the Fort Peck Reservation in March 2012....
Five thousand dollars has been added to the Valley County drug forfeiture fund as a result of a meth seizure from a Corvette in July. Valley County Sheriff Glen Meier and Undersheriff Vernon Buerkle accepted a check on Aug. 14 for the black 2011 Chevy Corvette. The story began on July 6, when deputies responded to a domestic disturbance at the second dredge in Park Grove, where a Nashua woman said her ex-husband was shouting at her. He left, but was stopped on Highway 117 for having no plates...
Silver Airlines’ Essential Air Service contract for five eastern Montana cities will expire on Sept. 27, but residents will not be grounded while the new carrier, Cape Air, gets organized. “It’s not like the airline is going to up and leave on that specific date if there’s not another airline,” said Steve Bennett, a spokesman for Silver Airlines. “We are acting in good faith. We care about the community.” Bennett contacted The Courier on Tuesday after being informed about a Courier article published July 31, which announced the choice of Cap...
The vacant justice of the peace position has drawn an unusually high number of applicants. Several people filed just before the deadline last Thursday, bringing the number of applications to 10. They are Christine Gamas, David Gorton, Pam Heikens, Christina M. Hillman, David Kloker, Kara Moon, Linda Parks, Carol Ann Walton, James Wixson and Misty Womack. “We are really pleased with that much interest in that office,” said Valley County Commissioner Dave Pippin. “Many of the candidates are extremely qualified. These are definitely some tough...
With the construction season getting shorter every day, the architects and builders for the school project are eager to get started. At the Glasgow School Board meeting on Aug. 14, they decided on Monday, Sept. 23, at noon as the official ground breaking at East Side School. Eric Hulteng, the owner’s representative for the school district in its building project, said he had met with the design team of L’Heureux-Page-Werner and the Sletten Construction team the week before and gotten a good start on the communications, the budget and the sch...
A half-dozen experienced hunters attended the hunter scoping session in Glasgow on Aug. 13 to give their comments on the proposed hunting seasons for 2014-2015. Comments will go to the Fish, Wildlife and Parks commission meeting on Oct. 10. FWP will present its proposal on Dec. 12, hold more public meetings and issue the final rule in February. Hunters and FWP wildlife managers discussed the slow recovery of deer and antelope from the devastating winter of 2011 and the EHD that came along that summer. They agreed that eagles and coyotes are...
“The bottom line is, do you want $200,000 in taxes a year or not?” said Valley Commissioner Dave Reinhardt on Tuesday. At their regular meeting the commissioners were discussing the tax abatement requested by Compass Wind. The proposed wind farm south of Opheim is still in the negotiation stage with several pieces hanging in the air. The commissioners asked themselves if the project needed the abatement. At a public meeting held in Glasgow on July 30 to introduce the Compass Wind project, their development director, Kyle Paulson, said they nee...
As the deadline approaches, applications are coming in for Valley County justice of the peace. As of Tuesday, Job Service had six applications on file. The aspiring judges are Chris Gamas, Pam Heikens, Christina M. Hillman, Carol Ann Walton, James Wixson and Misty Womack. The position closes on Thursday, Aug. 15. The commissioners said they hope to make a rapid decision so the new judge can attend JP school in Helena in September. The appointment is temporary, until the end of the current term on Dec. 31, 2014. The position is then up for...
Some money remains in local CTEP funding and it has to be used by September, according to the Valley County commissioners. Glasgow acquired the sidewalk on Cemetery Road and on U.S. 2 to the Cottonwood and to the Valley Event Center through this program. Now $123,000 in Community Transportation Enhancement Program funds remains, and Commissioner Dave Reinhardt said they want to spend it in other communities. He said sidewalk problems have been identified in Nashua, Hinsdale and Opheim. Community input is required by the program. A community...
