Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/author/edkemmick/)
I was planning to ride off into the sunset today, but if I may appropriate an observation by Benjamin Franklin, it looks as though I might be heading in the direction of the rising sun. In the week since I announced that Last Best News would cease publication today, I have heard so many expressions of interest in reviving it in some shape or form, with or without my continued involvement, that it appears likely that this independent online newspaper will live on. (more…) Continue Reading →
When I imagined writing this column just a few days ago, before announcing the impending shutdown of Last Best News, I saw myself in a calm, cool frame of mind, making a short and rational case for keeping independent journalism alive in Billings. Well. The past two days have been such a whirlwind of emotions and have seen the dawn of so many new possibilities that I hardly know where to begin. (more…) Continue Reading →
One week from today, on July 1, Last Best News will be suspending operations. I plan to keep the site live on the web at least through Sept. 1, so people can use the archives and save any stories they may want to preserve, but as of July 1 we won’t be adding any new content to the site. (more…) Continue Reading →
More than a decade into the Bakken oil boom, the state of North Dakota, where the vast majority of the boom is concentrated, still does not have a single landfill licensed to accept radioactive oilfield waste. Montana does. Oaks Disposal operates a landfill 26 miles northwest of Glendive that has taken in nearly 350,000 tons of oilfield waste of all kinds since it opened in 2013. Two other landfills that could accept radioactive waste, one near Outlook and one near Culbertson, have been licensed by the state of Montana but have not yet opened. (more…) Continue Reading →
The building that once housed the old Western and Wheel bars, located side by side on the 2700 block of Minnesota Avenue, has been sold, and the new owners plan to convert it into residential apartments. Jack English and Jeff Payne, principals of Illuminations Systems Inc., an electrical construction business in Denver that has an office in Billings, closed on the property in December and hope to start demolition on the building this summer. (more…) Continue Reading →
John Kuglin, who retired in 2005 after a long career as a reporter and editor in Colorado, Wyoming, Washington and Montana, recently told the Montana Standard in Butte that he was thinking of writing a book called “When Journalism Was Fun.” (more…) Continue Reading →
As part of a project to expand and modernize the city’s wastewater treatment plant, failure to turn off several valves put the plant into noncompliance with state pollution-discharge limits for a short period in April. The city informed the state Department of Environmental Quality of the violations a few days later, and the DEQ’s environmental compliance inspector in Billings, Dan Freeland, said the city is unlikely to be penalized for the incident. (more…) Continue Reading →
A couple of years ago, when Joanne “Jo” Hoch was spending the summer with her parents in Livingston, she confided in a friend of hers, telling him she’d never had a boyfriend. They talked about that from time to time until one day he asked her, “Jo, why haven’t you had a boyfriend?” (more…) Continue Reading →
Supporters of refugee resettlement, for good reason, tend to focus on all the good things that we can do for people who come here from other countries. On Friday, as I listened to Wilmot Collins, who entered the United States as a Liberian refugee and is now the mayor of Helena, it occurred to me that we should also spend some time considering how good it is for us to have refugees in our midst. (more…) Continue Reading →
It’s hard to say how most Montanans feel about refugees, but at least one refugee is crazy about Montana. And why not? When Wilmot Collins first came here, landing at the Helena airport in February 1994, there was a “Welcome home, Wilmot” banner hanging in the terminal. That was an amazing moment — but so was seeing lightly dressed people at the airport despite an outside temperature of 32 degrees. (more…) Continue Reading →
