News you can use
News you can use
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A feud between two neighbors that spilled onto the floor of the Montana House is now headed to the Supreme Court. Robert F. Cooper's lawsuit against Republican Rep. Bill Glaser of Huntley says Glaser called him a "kook" who had been imprisoned in Japan for threatening a military officer and institutionalized at the state mental hospi tal in Warm Springs. Glaser did not mention Cooper by name when he criticized him over a letter he arranged to have distributed in the House in March 5. Cooper's letter described his fa i l e d...
A judge who denied convicted murderer Barry Beach's petition for a hearing on what Beach calls new evidence in the case said he won't assign a new judge to the case. Beach, who is serving 100 years in prison for the 1979 murder of 17-yearold Kim Nees of Poplar, is seeking a new trial, arguing that testimony by others during a state board of Pardons and Parole hearing in 2007 connected a group of girls to the murder. However, the board called that testimony double and triple hearsay that would not have been admissible in...
The state Board of Regents is still searching for ways to trim the university system budget, but Chairman Stephen Barrett said tuition increases aren't being considered. "To no one's surprise here, it's going to be a more tight and difficult year than we expected," Barrett said Thursday, the first of two days the regents were meeting in Helena. Gov. Brian Schweitzer last week asked state agencies to find ways to cut their budgets by 5 percent in 2011, if necessary. That amounts to $7.5 million for a university system that is...
Montana's 54 state parks reported a record 2 million visits in 2009. State Parks Administrator Chas Van Genderen said water-based parks were the most popular, with more than a million visits, up 15 percent from 2008. Parks along Flathead Lake and Spring Meadow Lake State Park near Helena reported record-breaking seasons. Pictograph Cave near Billings and other parks with cultural features attracted more than 600,000 visits, a 12 percent increase while parks with outstanding natural features, such as Lewis & Clark Caverns...
Gov. Brian Schweitzer is asking state agency directors to prepare contingency plans for cuts of up to 5 percent by the end of the month because the state government budget is getting tight. He also told them Friday that they may have to reduce baseline spending for the next two-year budget period that starts in 2011. The governor has issued several notices of relatively small cuts in recent weeks. But the potentially biggest will come now that projected budget reserves are now essentially gone — giving him broad authority t...
Fourteen employees in the governor's budget office recently received pay raises, even as most state employees are in the midst of a two-year pay freeze. The budget director said he isn't filling a job. He reassigned that person's duties, and the move will save the state $45,000. "I have reorganized the entire office," Budget Director David Ewer said Tuesday. "People are being paid to do more." The raises, ranging from 2 percent to 19 percent, took effect Nov. 2. The Montana Public Employees Association and other unions...
