Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/category/billings/page/32/)
Eight times a year, on average, the Billings Police Department deploys its Special Weapons and Tactics team, 12 officers wearing heavy armor and toting semiautomatic and automatic weapons. In almost all cases, they are executing high-risk search warrants at the homes of suspected drug dealers, and they roll up in the BEAR, the Yellowstone County Sheriff’s Department’s 35,000-pound Ballistic Engineered Armored Response vehicle. (more…) Continue Reading →
To mark the 75th anniversary of Billings Senior High School, a volunteer committee has launched a “Save Our Murals” campaign to restore and protect the iconic artwork adorning walls and stairwells around the school. “Just think of them not being on the walls anymore,” Kristeen Keup said. “That’s just not possible.” (more…) Continue Reading →
At a meeting Friday morning to talk about how to get students and teachers into and out of Broadwater Elementary School starting next week, Principal Joe Halligan cut to the chase. “The first couple days — it’s going to be crazy,” he said. (more…) Continue Reading →
Is it possible that Mayor Tom Hanel was right? I don’t mean right to cast the deciding vote against a nondiscrimination ordinance in Billings last week. I mean right that this town just isn’t ready for such an ordinance. (more…) Continue Reading →
The company that is proposing to build five oil refineries in Montana and North Dakota — projects that would require funding of $2.5 billion — appears to have very few assets itself. Bloomberg was reporting as of Wednesday afternoon that Quantum Energy Inc.’s market capitalization — the number of outstanding shares times the value of a share — was about $3.8 million. (more…) Continue Reading →
In 1986, when I was a junior at Richland High School in North Richland Hills, Texas, the local chapter of the NAACP came to my school with a request: It wanted us to drop the Confederate flag from our letterhead, our uniforms, the middle of our gym floor. (more…) Continue Reading →
Barely 48 hours after being chosen as the new Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate seat from Montana, Amanda Curtis stopped in Billings briefly to cheer on supporters of a nondiscrimination ordinance. Curtis, a Billings native and Butte schoolteacher serving her first term in the Montana House, spoke Monday evening on the steps of the First Congregational United Church of Christ. (more…) Continue Reading →
Glancing down any given residential street in Billings this summer, you might have thought a political campaign was in full swing. But those signs in what seems like every other yard are advertising roofing companies, not politicians. And that explains the sound you are likely to hear on any given street, too — the rat-a-tat-tat of nail guns attaching tarpaper and shingles to hail-damaged roofs. (more…) Continue Reading →
Jani McCall didn’t sleep much Tuesday. She is the Billings City Council member who first suggested, in December, that the city consider a nondiscrimination ordinance. Tuesday morning, the NDO went down on a 6-5 vote, with Mayor Tom Hanel casting the deciding vote shortly after 3 a.m. (more…) Continue Reading →
A few minutes after 3 a.m. Tuesday, Billings Mayor Tom Hanel cast the deciding vote against a proposed nondiscrimination ordinance, sending it to a 6-5 defeat by the City Council. Voting with the mayor to kill the NDO were Mike Yakawich, Denis Pitman, Angela Cimmino, Rich McFadden and Shaun Brown. Those in favor of the NDO were Brent Cromley, Becky Bird, Jani McCall, Al Swanson and Ken Crouch. (more…) Continue Reading →
