Friday, November 9

Agenda for Neighborhood Council 7 meeting on 11/12/2007 at Heisey Memorial

AGENDA 
NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL 
DISTRICT 7
Monday, November 12, 2007
Heisey Center, 313 7th Street North
6:30 p.m.


Please note: This agenda format allows citizens to speak on each issue prior to Council discussion.  We encourage your participation.  In the interest that all parties can be heard, please limit your comments.


CALL TO ORDER


OLD BUSINESS
Approval of October minutes
Pedestrian safety assemblies at Whittier and Longfellow Schools
Problem properties
512 & 516 6th Street North
916 3rd Avenue North
Others ?
Northside bicycle thefts
Replacement of Councilman Gaskell


NEW BUSINESS 
Animal Foundation update—Melanie Lattin
Code violations on her block—Gudrun Linden
December meeting location
Carlie Boland—Montana House of Representatives
Neighborhood Concerns

REPORTS
Police Advisory Board—Donna Sadler
Weed & Seed—Jayci Braaten
Downtown Task Force—Erin Tropila
Council of Councils—Aaron Weissman


ADJOURN
Next meeting December 10, 2007  

Wednesday, November 7

Thank you for your vote!

I was pleased to finally learn this afternoon that I had been re-elected to Neighborhood Council 7.  Thank you for your vote and support.

Great Falls First has Election Results; Congratulations Mayor Stebbins

These results come from Tim Austin's greatfallsfirst.com site.  100% of precincts reporting; it looks like most of the absentee votes broke to Susan Kahn.  Congratulations to Dona Stebbins, Mary Jolley and Bill Bronson.

Tim also bemoans the lack of any published Neighborhood Council results.  Why the dearth of news?

--

Great Falls, Montana - Election Results


Great Falls Tribune - Montana Election Results - VIDEO
KRTV - Great Falls, Montana - Montana Election Results
Beartooth NBC - Election Results - Montana Election Results
Fox News - Election Results
ABC News - Election Results

GREAT FALLS, MONTANA - ELECTION RESULTS

Includes votes cast at the ExpoPark: 10,344
About 100% of total votes counted.
Updated: 5:00 a.m. - November 7th, 2007

CITY OF GREAT FALLS, MAYOR: 
Dona Stebbins: 4,100 - with 40.7% of the votes
Ed McKnight: 3,824 - with 38.0% of the votes 
Susan Kahn: 1,404   - with 14.0% of the votes
Larry Steele: 704 - with 7.0% of the votes

CITY OF GREAT FALLS, CITY COMMISSIONER: 
Bill Bronson- 4,150 - with 21.3% of the votes
Mary Jolley- 5,148 - with 26.5% of the votes
Diane Jovick-Kuntz- 3,582 - with 18.4% of the votes  
Stuart Lewin- 3,445 - with 17.7% of the votes 
Elna Hensley- 2,069 - with 10.8% of the votes 

CITY OF GREAT FALLS, NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL: 
We are unable to find any information from any news source.
Hard to believe that elected council members cannot
find out who won in their Neighborhood council districts.
How do we change this???

Thank you for Voting - Great Falls

Why Not Publish Neighborhood Council Election Results?

My paper just arrived at my door.  I eagerly looked inside for the results on the Neighborhood Council races (there are six people running for the five spots on council 7).

For all the talk about Neighborhood Councils being a bright spot in our community, don't you think that they should rate some mention in our paper?  At least some results, buried and a font size of only four points?

I mean, c'mon ...

Initial Election Observations

As of the insanely early writing of this post (yes, I am an election junky), the Tribune is posting some early election results.  Right now, the following information is available;

7,164 votes have been cast, which represents about 79% of the total.  A little basic extrapolation, and we see that about 9,068 votes were cast in this election.

The votes for Mayor recorded thus far are as follows:
  • Dona Stebbins; 2,867 votes
  • Ed McKnight; 2,697 votes
  • Susan Kahn; 985 votes
  • Larry Steele; 455 votes
The votes for City Commission recorded thus far are as follows:
  • Mary Jolley; 3,561 votes
  • Bill Bronson; 2,981 votes
  • Diane Jovick-Kuntz; 2,427 votes
  • Stuart Lewin; 2,404 votes
  • Elna Hensley, 1,465 votes

Now, tempers ran hot in this race, and everyone seemed to have an opinion.  This number isn't so different from two years ago and two years before that.  I was expecting a higher number of votes cast, especially due to the wonderful weather yesterday.

Why is the vote so low?  I submit to you that a lot of that blame can be placed on the boneheaded decision of the Cascade County Clerk and Recorder to combine the voting locations at the Expo Park.  While it might have made her job easier to count the 4,000 votes made at the polls there, there could have been more votes to count if she had decided to do the job we elected her to perform.

So, I will fire the first shot for the 2008 elections; Lance Olson's job for county commissioner will be up for re-election next November.  My vote will go to a competent candidate that will vote to give me back my local polling place.  I hope that this becomes an issue in that race.

Now, of the 7,164 votes counted and published by the Tribune, the race for City Commission seems to be a pretty done deal.  There is a 500 vote gap between Bronson and Jovick-Kuntz; I don't think that Lewin or Jovick-Kuntz are going to be able to overcome that kind of vote gap with only 2,000 votes left to be counted.  I could be wrong, but I think that we can safely say that we have winners in that race, and they are Jolley and Bronson.  I don't think this result is a real surprise to anyone.

However, look to the 3,561 votes achieved by Jolley.  As the most level-headed coal plant opponent in this race, I think that those votes most cleanly represent the side of our electorate that want a change in our city government.  With that in mind, look to the mayoral race.

You can see that McKnight and Kahn, together, represent about 3,600 votes.  That voting block would have been enough to catapult any single candidate to the mayoral position.  However, as GeeGuy observed last week, as two candidates they split the vote.  McKnight is the clear choice of that bloc; and the 985 votes siphoned by Kahn make her the spoiler in this race if McKnight doesn't pull a rabbit out of his hat.

Don't get me wrong; this is still a horse race.    There are only 170 votes separating Stebbins and McKnight.  Let's see what news the morning brings.