Government study commission members address concerns

Given the options on the ballot, running for local government study commission was a pretty nice play. When county candidates for positions like clerk and recorder were running themselves ragged campaigning, candidates for the study commission were able to keep a relatively low profile. But now that voters have spoken and five candidates have been elected to represent the county, some elected candidates are stating their causes for concern with the county.

“I’ve seen us go from being one of the top counties in the state to being one of the lowest in the state as far as jobs and opportunities,” Josh Letcher, 32, said. “I just love this county and want to see if there are ways for us to operate more efficiently on the county level.”

Letcher, a fifth-generation Montanan who lives on his family’s homestead, said he is a member of several community boards including the Tobacco Valley Community Development Council. He figured running for the study commission was just another chance to help Lincoln County.

A construction worker by day, Letcher said he is interested in understanding why it is that the north end of the county pays roughly half of all property taxes, but only has one-third of the total population. He also mentioned the dissolution of the Eureka Justice of the Peace and the county’s tax troubles as other hot topics that have sparked his civic involvement. 

“We are all one county and we need to work together,” Letcher said. 

Letcher was one of five people elected to the commission along with Rita Windom, Tracy McIntyre, Bobbie Stoken and Stephen Larry Curtiss. Letcher was the fifth-highest vote receiver of 13 named candidates on the ballot. Libby Mayor Doug Roll missed tying Letcher by four votes, 1,556-1,552.

Stoken, a retired schoolteacher and administrator with the Eureka Christian School, said she, too, is heavily involved in the community, including 31 years on the InterBel Cooperative Board. 

“I come into this with no agenda,” Stoken, 69, said. “My interest is that I live here.”

Stoken said she was involved in the fight to keep the Eureka Justice of the Peace office that will close at the end of this year after county commissioners decided to dissolve the 105-year-old annex in a cost saving measure. Stoken sees several problems with the dissolution.

“I think domestic violence is going to escalate because of it,” Stoken said. “There are women and men here being abused who have no vehicle to drive to the county annex and file charges as it is right now. They could hardly make the drive to Libby, so they will have to sit and struggle. I am very worried about that.”

Commissioners have sung praises about the capabilities of VisionNet, a system comparable to Skype that will be used while conducting elementary legal proceedings. This plan is not foolproof, Stoken points out, because rural Internet is never perfectly reliable. 

“Then there are the small businesses that will not need to make two trips to Libby to handle small business claims,” Stoken said. “Well, a lot of those people operate their business on their own.”

Stoken also said she is interested in seeing what changes can be made to logging. She bemoaned the absence of tax money from the logging industry once directed at schools.

Attempts to reach Windom, Curtiss and McIntyre were unsuccessful. The five-person commission will begin their involvement Dec. 8 when they travel to Bozeman for a two-day introductory seminar. The commission will ultimately have the option of presenting a recommendation to county voters on the 2016. If approved, those recommendations could fundamentally alter the format of Lincoln County government.