Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/tag/jeff-essmann/)
For the better part of the past decade, Montana Republicans have enjoyed comfortable majorities in the state Legislature. Despite those majorities (or maybe because of them), GOP caucuses in the House and Senate have spent much of the past 10 years engaged in a bitter, and oftentimes very public, intra-party feud. (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 →
Mayoral candidate Danny Sandefur emphasized attacking crime and public intoxication in remarks at the Democratic breakfast meeting on Wednesday. Sandefur is a real estate agent who also operates CDS the Edge Performing Arts Center on Montana Avenue with his wife, Samantha. He is one of six candidates for Billings mayor and one of two who failed to appear at an earlier Democratic dinner. (more…) Continue Reading →
After six months on the job, it’s about time Montana Secretary of State Corey Stapleton started doing his job. Among the duties of the secretary of state, surely one of the most important is to ensure that Montana elections are conducted fairly and that votes are counted accurately. A good secretary of state would do everything in his power to accomplish those goals. (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 →
