Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/category/news/page/18/)
As state lawmakers laid the groundwork for a special legislative session to tackle Montana’s $227 million budget shortfall on Monday, the proposed GOP deal for how to plug the gap was coming into focus. (more…) Continue Reading →
HELENA—Home health-care workers and others on Monday endorsed a Bullock administration bill to temporarily raise the state taxes on accommodations and rental cars, while some business groups opposed it. (more…) Continue Reading →
HELENA — Business groups and others denounced one of Gov. Steve Bullock’s key revenue-raising proposals as risky and discriminatory at a hearing at the special legislative session on Monday. Bullock’s plan would temporarily require the workers’ compensation State Fund to pay a 3 percent management fee on its assets exceeding $1 billion that are invested by the State Board of Investments. The bill, if enacted, is projected to raise $30 million over the two-year period before the fee goes off the books in June 2019. (more…) Continue Reading →
HELENA—This will be the 33rd special legislative session in Montana history and the first called by Gov. Steve Bullock, who took office in 2013. The most recent special session was a one-day session in September 2007, called by Gov. Brian Schweitzer to replenish the state’s wildfire firefighting fund. Among the tasks of the session next week is to restore money to the firefighting fund. (See related story.) (more…) Continue Reading →
Editor’s note: Veteran state political reporter Chuck Johnson will be covering the special legislative session for Last Best News and Missoula Current. He will be covering his 19th special session out of the 33 special sessions in Montana history. (more…) Continue Reading →
In a few short years, Tyson Slocum says, advances in the efficiency of power-storage batteries will have reached the point of making renewable energy “grid-comparable.” That means the cost of installing and maintaining a small-scale energy generation and storage systems will be on par with the costs of buying energy from a utility company. (more…) Continue Reading →
Bill Cole won a decisive victory in his campaign to be Billings’ next mayor on Tuesday, winning 17,588 votes to Jeff Essmann’s 9,905. In final, unofficial results Tuesday night, Mike Yakawich and Shaun Brown held onto their City Council seats in Wards 1 and 5, respectively, while Frank Ewalt won in Ward 2, Denise Joy in Ward 3 and Penny Ronning in Ward 4, all by wide margins. (more…) Continue Reading →
We’re not saying that anyone reading Last Best News hasn’t voted in the Billings city election yet, but not quite half of the voters who received mail-in ballots had returned them as of Monday. The Yellowstone County Elections Office sent ballots to 54,436 voters in this election, and as of the end of the day Monday, 26,793 had been returned, for voter turnout so far of 49.2 percent. (more…) Continue Reading →
Montana Democrats who supported Bernie Sanders were left scratching their heads after a former national party insider said last week that the 2016 Democratic presidential primary was rigged for Hillary Clinton. In her new book, former Democratic National Committee chairwoman Donna Brazile said she found evidence that Clinton’s campaign rigged the party’s nomination process to favor Clinton over Sanders. (more…) Continue Reading →
Barely a month after the storied Log Cabin Bakery closed down, Rudeboys food truck operator Matt Melvin has moved in. His food truck, which included a mobile bakery, was comparatively large and well-designed, but in the old Log Cabin building at 2401 Second Ave. N., he’ll have 5,000 square feet between the basement and the ground floor, out of which he intends to operate a wholesale bakery, with a retail shop and cafe up front. (more…) Continue Reading →
