News you can use
News you can use
Sorted by date Results 783 - 807 of 1559
The Hill County and Blaine county Republican parties held their annual Lincoln-Reagan Dinner Sunday evening with candidates and political figures from the local, state and national levels speaking, along with a few candidate announcements. The event, held at the Duck Inn in Havre, sold out seats, with Hill County GOP Chair Andrew Brekke saying its good to be back after missing a year due to COVID-19. Among the local candidates is incumbent Hill County Commissioner Diane...
Sen. Jon Tester D-Mont. met with city and county officials at Bear Paw Development Corp. Friday where he talked with them about their concerns and what he can do to help. Havre Public Works Director Dave Peterson talked a lot about the city's roads and what needs to be done to improve them. Indeed, infrastructure was a massive subject of discussion Friday. Peterson said the city is doing the best with what they have, but the areas under Havre's streets are in serious need of...
Sen. Jon Teseter, D-Mont., talked about a variety of subjects in an interview Friday including the developing situation in Ukraine, infrastructure and upcoming bills in the Congress. The most pressing subject of the day was the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, which Tester unequivocally condemned as a blatant attempt by an authoritarian power to take over a neighboring democracy, something he said everyone should care about regardless of party or politics. “Anyone who’s concerned about democracy versus an authoritarian des...
Montana Actors' Theatre will soon open their newest play "The Harvest," starring some of their most veteran actors and written by MAT Executive Director Jay Pyette. The play, set on a small Montana wheat farm, revolves around the family dynamics of six adult children who come together from across the U.S. to help with the harvest after their father becomes too sick to run the farm. "It's about this family coming to grips with, not just their relationship with each other and th...
This month, Amtrak put new faster and more energy-efficient locomotives into service, including two on the Empire Builder route through Havre and the Hi-Line. Locomotives 301 and 302 which will be seen on the area's rails in the coming days are among the first of 75 ALC-42 locomotives to be put into use through 2024. The locomotives have been touted as being far more environmentally friendly than the 1990s locomotives they are replacing, mostly Amtrak P40 and P42 locomotives,...
Havre City Council canceled it's second town hall meeting Tuesday due to a lack of attendance. These town halls, the first of which was held last month, were intended to be less-formal gatherings of the Havre City Council to hear from the public about community issues, and for them to provide updates to the community on what the council is doing and why. "We've felt over the years that the city council meetings had become pretty formal and people were a little intimidated by...
After months of argument and delays, the Hill County Health Department was finally given access to American Rescue Plan Act funds the county commission voted to allocate them last September, funds the department has been asking for repeatedly since that vote. In a special meeting with Hill County Public Health Director Kim Berg Tuesday, the commission voted 2-0 to make up to $100,000 available to the department for their COVID-19 prevention efforts, with commissioners Mark Pet...
COVID-19 case numbers continue to plummet in this part of north-central Montana, much like for the rest of the U.S., as the omicron wave appears to be reaching its end, but experts caution that the pandemic is unlikely to end with this latest variant and it will leave plenty of problems in its wake that health care will need to address. While cases are still being confirmed every day, the number of new cases per day has dropped by around two-thirds nationwide in the last...
Havre City Council will be holding its second monthly town hall Tuesday at 7 p.m. at City Hall, where Havre Public Works Director Dave Peterson will talk about his department’s activities and the state of Havre’s roads as well as its water and sewer systems. Havre Mayor Doug Kaercher said Peterson will be providing an overview of his department’s work, their successes, their struggles and where he thinks the city is headed, which will hopefully give the public a better idea of what’s going on in Havre right now. Kaerche...
At an unusual meeting of the Hill County Commission Thursday, a resolution to give the county Health Department access to up to $100,000 in ARPA funds for COVID-19 prevention failed 0-3 when the meeting resumed later in the day. Most of Thursday's meeting took place at 10 a.m., the normally scheduled time for the commission's weekly business meeting, but after discussing a possible change to the resolution with county Public Health Director Kim Berg, Hill County Commissioners...
Bear Paw Development Corp. held its annual meeting Thursday at the Student Union Building of Montana State University Northern where Northern Provost R. Neil Moisey gave a presentation on the university's effect on the local economy and their ambitions for the future. Bear Paw Development Executive Director Paul Tuss said he's happy they're able to do this event in person again after last year, where they had to have a much smaller event remotely. Before Moisey's keynote Tuss...
Montana State University-Northern Chancellor Greg Kegel provided details at the Great Northern Fair Board's monthly meeting Tuesday night on the university's plan to build an equestrian center in town, a project members of the board seemed interested in helping with. Kegel said the structure, which is still in concept phases, has been in discussion at Northern for nine years, part of a larger effort to establish an equestrian program at the college. He said that, after doing...
Havre Public Schools is outfitting its buses with extended stop arms that stick out 6 feet into the oncoming lane when activated, a change mandated by Montana House Bill 267 which requires these new arms and increases the penalties for driving past buses while the arm is extended. Havre Public Schools Transportation Department Service Attendant and Trainer Allen "Woody" Woodwick said five buses have been retrofitted so far, but the requirement for extended stop arms doesn't ta...
The H. Earl Clack Memorial Museum Board discussed Monday evening the status of the museum's current location in the Holiday Village Mall, which is open only by appointment as its contents are gradually packed up to be moved to their new location in the former Griggs Printing Building on the 10 Block of Fifth Avenue. The museum has been closed to walk-in customers in recent weeks partially because its front door has been badly stuck and now only opens partially, a problem that...
While the rest of February will be fairly quiet, Montana Actors’ Theatre has a full docket in 2022, with play after play scheduled for production in addition to their annual activities and events. The first of these plays is “The Harvest,” written by MAT’s own Executive Director Jay Pyette. MAT Artistic Director Grant Olson said Pyette’s play, opening March 4, is the story of a family gone their separate ways in life, being brought together from across the U.S. to help run their father’s farm after he falls ill enough that...
In its weekly business meeting Thursday the Hill County Commission tabled discussion of providing the Hill County Health Department with American Rescue Plan Act funds at the request of Hill County Public Health Director Kim Berg. The commission voted to table the discussion because they wanted a chance to get more information from Berg about the wages of her contact tracers that the funds would pay for but hadn’t heard back. Hill County Commissioner Diane McLean said she suspects Berg didn’t have time as she was working on...
COVID-19 cases continue to drop in the area as experts remain hopeful that the omicron surge in the U.S. is waning. While health officials across the U.S. continue to urge caution and vigilance many have expressed hope that cases will continue to decline and that the omicron wave is nearing its end. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted in its latest update last week that cases are down more than 53 percent from their peak in mid January, but community...
District 4 Human Resources and Development Council has provided some details and clarifications on their efforts to create a new location for the Havre Food Bank in response to a conversation that took place at a Havre City Council hearing Monday evening. After their monthly meeting Havre City Council held a hearing on a request by Havre resident Jim Treperinas to change the zoning designation of a city block on Fifth Avenue between 14th and 16th streets to allow for a new location for the Havre Food Bank. Treperinas said he...
Editor's note: This version corrects misreporting that Ursula Brese is president of Friends of Beaver Creek Park. Brese no longer holds that position. In a contentious meeting Monday, the Hill County Park Board again heard discussion on a request from Debbie and Ray Kallenberger that they be given access to grazing land they allege was improperly given to area grazers when they were given no chance to apply to use it. In a meeting last month, Debbie Kallenberger said that,...
Editor's note: This version adds comment from the director of District 4 Human Resources Development Council. After their monthly meeting Monday Havre City Council held a hearing on a request by Havre resident Jim Treperinas to change the zoning designation of a city block on Fifth Avenue between 14th and 16th streets to allow for a new location for the Havre Food Bank. Havre Public Works Director Dave Peterson said the Zoning Board of Adjustments have looked at the issue and provided their recommendations to the council,...
The Montana Department of Environmental Quality released a final environmental assessment last week requiring additional analysis in an environmental impact statement for a proposed exploration project near the former Zortman Mine, which has been aggressively opposed by the nearby Fort Belknap. The new exploration project, proposed by Luke Ployhar, would be to look for mining opportunities in the Little Rockies, a sacred place to the people of Fort Belknap who almost...
Jon Tester, D-Mont., held a press call Thursday where he discussed a number of bills he's working on, as well as ongoing conflicts in Washington around new budgets and the results of the infrastructure bill's recent passage. Tester said it's already shaping up to be a busy year in Washington, and, right now, his attention is fixed on his Agriculture Right to Repair Bill, which will require agriculture equipment manufacturers to make the parts, tools and software necessary to...
The Great Northern Fair Board met with Acting State Fire Marshal Dirk Johnson and local representatives from the Montana Department of Labor and Industry to discuss fire codes and concluded that all typical events held on the Great Northern Fairgrounds, with the exception of indoor haunted houses, can proceed as normal, with a few caveats. The issue of fire code compliance on the fairgrounds became a local controversy when a number of Halloween events, including an escape...
AJ Etherington Billings Gazette Two sisters of a Rocky Boy man shot to death by police in Billings are unsatisfied with the findings of an inquest into their brother’s shooting. Following a daylong coroner’s inquest, a Yellowstone County jury found Billings police were justified in shooting Cole Stump to death in 2020. Stump was killed by police Oct. 12, 2020, after a confrontation in an apartment parking lot near the 2200 Block of Avenue C in central Billings. Despite the findings of the inquest, Stump’s sisters Tonya Stump...
In a Wednesday press conference U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced more than $1 billion in investments into the country's rural economy through a number of programs, many of which will help Montanans. All told, Vilsack said, the U.S. Department of agriculture is investing more than $1.4 billion in rural communities through 752 individual contributions to a number of programs. The announced investments include $200,000 in rural cooperative development grants for...
