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A three-member arbitration panel recently rendered decisions in favor of Lake County on two of the three issues contested in a lawsuit brought against the Montana Department of Revenue (MDOR), by the County related to the Temporary Tribal Tax Exemption (TTTE), a statute enacted in 2012. The statute provides property tax exemptions for a maximum of five years for properties owned in fee by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, (CSKT) on the Flathead Reservation. The County took legal action against MDOR in 2018 after discovering what the County believed to be serious inadequacies in the Department’s handling of exemption applications and the annual certifications from the CSKT t...
Spring has sprung and we are gearing up for a busy March at the North Lake County Public Library. The book drop is always available as is our online catalog and Montana Library2Go with eBooks, audiobooks and magazines. The big news is the much anticipated Friends of the Library Book Sale happening ...
A year ago, we launched the Snowbird Fund to help families and friends of missing and murdered indigenous persons by offering immediate cash assistance (no questions asked) to search for their loved ones. Since then, the fund has not only survived but it has doubled its cash amount and increased its fundi...
A decade of carrying innovative education legislation resulted in my selection to the National Council of State Legislature’s International Education Study Group charged with studying the world’s highest performing education systems. For several years this group has systematically examined educat...
I’ve taken up a new hobby: painting. I don’t paint walls or houses. I keep it smaller - to canvases, coasters and such. It’s not painting like you might think. My new leisure pursuit involves no brushes or rollers. What it lacks in brushes, this technique makes up for in paint. I literal...
Picture this, you are like sitting with a group of like your friends and you start to pick up on like this pattern of saying like. But like why do we say like so much? Starting in the 1850s, the word “like” made its appearance more frequently in literature - a trend that continued steadi...
Montana has been discovered. We were the second-fastest-growing state in the country last year. Our rapidly increasing population presents many challenges and opportunities, and it’s also driving a lot of unease among many of us who’ve lived here for a long time. Whether you love it or h...
This is the year Montanans celebrate the 50th anniversary of our nation’s first citizen-initiated wilderness, the Scapegoat, and our first new constitution since 1889 statehood that guarantees each of us the right to a clean and healthful environment, a safeguard not explicitly provided for in the Unit...
In the last year, I’ve been working on appreciation. Appreciating the big things. Appreciating the small things. Appreciating what I have and what I am. As part of that, I’ve been practicing appreciation of one of the most basic, most taken for granted and one of the most awesome things we all...
Linoleum. What comes to mind? Old plastic-y flooring that lasts forever? The floors of schools, offices, airports? Perhaps you even “showcase” linoleum in your bathroom or kitchen. Many decades ago, this flooring was an extremely popular choice with colorful, bold designs. While linoleum or &ldqu...
