Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/category/news/page/55/)
A long-dormant proposal to develop a bicycle and pedestrian trail on a railroad corridor through downtown Billings will be the subject of a study later this year. The study, which will be commissioned by the Department of Planning and Community Services, will look at the possibility of making use of what is known as the Fifth Avenue North Corridor, stretching all the way from the YMCA at 402 N. 32nd St. to the entrance to MetraPark. (more…) Continue Reading →
If all goes well, Anytime Fitness will open its new downtown gym during the first week in February* in one of the biggest ground-floor spaces remaining on Montana Avenue. Anytime Fitness is moving into the 6,800-square-foot space of the building on the southeast corner of Montana Avenue and North Broadway, just across Montana from the Empire Parking Garage. (more…) Continue Reading →
A program that uses horses to help heal injured military veterans is getting closer to forming the partnerships it needs to start taking in large numbers of veterans. But even in the limited number of sessions it has offered veterans in its first year, the Horses Spirits Healing program at the Intermountain Equestrian Center north of Billings has seen some gratifying results. (more…) Continue Reading →
Editor’s note: The American Lands Council, a Utah-based group that supports the transfer of federal public lands in the West to willing states, was asked on Thursday to comment on the study that is the subject of this story. A statement from its board chairman came in too late for initial inclusion, but it has been added to the article. A new study estimates that there are as many as 100,000 abandoned mines on federal lands in 13 Western states, and that cleaning them up could cost as much as $21 billion. (more…) Continue Reading →
Driving around the South Side of Billings with Eric Basye, you can hardly go a block or two before he points out a project his organization has been involved in. Near South Park are three of its duplexes, all rental units. A few blocks away is a dilapidated house, recently purchased and ready for renovation. He points out a few more rental units, and then a house that was moved into the neighborhood from the medical corridor. (more…) Continue Reading →
Last Best News has learned of another lawsuit filed on behalf of a Montana man who died while inspecting oil storage tanks in the Bakken oilfield of North Dakota. The lawsuit was filed last February in District Court in Sidney by Nicole Buckles, of Glasgow, on behalf of her son, 20-year-old Zachary Buckles, who died on April 28, 2014, while manually gauging crude-oil production tanks near Alexander, N.D. (more…) Continue Reading →
The Montana Department of Justice has issued a sanction letter to the Billings Police Department in response to a police officer’s personal use of the state’s Criminal Justice Information Network. The letter to Police Chief Rich St. John from Jennifer Viets, CJIN program manager, gives the department 30 days to document what steps have been taken to ensure that there are no further CJIN violations. (more…) Continue Reading →
During her first session of teaching an acrylic painting class at the Community Crisis Center, Samantha Harris’ two students didn’t much like the first few ideas she had for what they might paint. After a little searching on the Internet, they found a subject more to their liking, and Harris, who works at In Good Glazes, was soon teaching them the basics of painting a night sky and some mountains. “As they got further into it,” Harris said, “they got really into it.” (more…) Continue Reading →
Billings police Officer Grant Morrison, who was reprimanded for being cited by Laurel police for keeping pot-bellied pigs at his home and who recently pleaded not guilty to a state charge of possessing unlawfully captured deer fawns, has also been reprimanded for wrongfully obtaining criminal justice information for his private use. A “corrective action form” issued to Morrison in September, and obtained by Last Best News in a public information request, said the officer was given a written reprimand after seeking information for private use from the Criminal Justice Information Network and the National Crime Information Center. (more…) Continue Reading →
A District Court jury has awarded a Billings man just over $2 million in his action against a bank that foreclosed on and sold a house that he and his wife had purchased outright for cash two years earlier. After a four-day trial in the court of Yellowstone County District Judge Ingrid Gustafson last week, the jury unanimously awarded Jason Norman $350,000 in lost profitability, $100,000 for emotional distress and $1.6 million in punitive damages against Deutsche Bank National Trust Co. (more…) Continue Reading →
