Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/tag/bill-cole/)
At a Billings City Council work session Monday night, Billings Mayor Bill Cole opened the meeting by reading a statement condemning recent acts of “deplorable, despicable, degrading” vandalism that carried racist and anti-gay messages. He said the hatred “has no place in Billings or any other community,” and he invited other council members to sign his statement, which will be posted on the city’s website. (more…) Continue Reading →
The Billings City Council hopes to offer interim City Administrator Bruce McCandless a short-term contract as official city administrator, and to find someone new for that position by next fall. The council made that decision Monday night, five weeks after the person offered the job withdrew from consideration because he and a council subcommittee could not agree on a contract. (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 →
When he announced that he was running for Billings mayor, Jeff Essmann said on Wednesday, “I had people telling me early on that I’d need to raise a hundred thousand bucks.”
He said he told those people that that was not realistic, that it would be impossible to raise that much money for a municipal election in Montana. (more…) Continue Reading →
On the afternoon of Wednesday, Oct. 11, Billings mayoral candidates Bill Cole and Jeff Essmann sat down in a conference room in the Billings Public Library to field questions from Last Best News partners Ed Kemmick and David Crisp. Ballots for the Nov. 7 municipal election were to have been sent out to registered voters starting on Wednesday, so some people could receive them as early as today, Oct. 20. Continue Reading →
Bill Cole and Jeff Essmann will square off in the general election after topping a field of seven candidates running for Billings mayor in the Tuesday primary. “I think the results say that Billings does not want to be Everywhere, U.S.A.,” Cole said after the polls closed at 8 p.m. and results were posted on the website of the Yellowstone County Elections office. (more…) Continue Reading →
The crowded mayoral race in Billings will be pared to just two candidates in the Sept. 12 primary election. Seven candidates filed to run for the position being vacated by Tom Hanel, who will be stepping down after two consecutive terms, the maximum allowed by the City Charter. (more…) Continue Reading →
Political races tend to get nastier as campaigns wear on, but the race for Billings mayor only seems to get more amicable. (more…) Continue Reading →
It took about an hour into a 90-minute public forum, but candidates for Billings mayor finally found things to disagree about on Tuesday. Four of six candidates for mayor appeared at the forum, which was sponsored by the Yellowstone Democratic Club. Angela Cimmino and Danny Sandefur were unable to attend, forum organizers said, and a seventh candidate, Paul Bledsoe, has dropped out of the race. (more…) Continue Reading →
Billings lawyer Bill Cole is now the third announced candidate hoping to replace Mayor Tom Hanel in the city election this fall. He joins architect Randy Hafer and state legislator Jeff Essmann, both of whom announced their candidacies in the past couple of weeks. Hanel is nearing the end of his second term as mayor, and under the City Charter, the mayor and City Council members are limited to two consecutive terms. (more…) Continue Reading →
