Candidates talk issues at forum
The Libby Area Chamber of Commerce hosted a forum Tuesday for all candidates seeking election in Lincoln County. The forum was the second held this year and the first after June’s primary election.
Candidates were asked questions presented by Chamber President Wayde Block. Most candidates presented their platforms during opening and closing remarks, however some opened the floor for questions from a standing-room only audience at the K.W. Maki Theater.
A few candidates were unable to attend. Incumbent candidate for justice of the peace Stormy Langston was absent due to a prior commitment in Troy. County commissioner candidate Mark Peck was absent due to illness. Terence Gill, the Democratic candidate for Senate District 1, and Steven Benson, the Democratic candidate for House District 2, were also absent.
After reviewing candidate’s speeches, The Western News compiled the most informative quotes.
Lincoln County Sheriff
Sheriff Roby Bowe
• “I want to talk about the elephant in the room. And that’s the Bob Marshall and what I do in there and how much time it takes. I want to lay it out on the table now. Everyone has been questioning everyone but me, quite frankly.
• “I’ve been packing and working the Bob Marshall for 12 years now, mainly on my days off.”
• “When people work too much, it overburdens them. They get stressed out and end up leaving early.”
• “In 21 years, I have put in 10 sick days.”
• “Since the first of January, I have been in (the Bob Marshall) 20 days, at the most. Granted there will be some more time. The county has never been unattended.”
• “The $200,000 was not offered up like some people are putting out there.” — Discussing the $200,000 cut the sheriff’s office will take in the new countywide budget.
• “We could talk for days and try to figure out how to deal with the drug problem. But there is no easy answer.”
• “There’s been times without any kind of days off, for 36 days.”
• “I hate campaigning, I don’t ask for money.”
• “I like to promote the office, instead of myself.”
• “I can guarantee that I spent more than 2,080 hours (on the job) since the first of the year by a long shot.”
• “I’ll get kind of personal here, I’ve never been drunk in my life. I have always responded.”
Challenger Darren Short
• “I’m running a write-in campaign for Lincoln County Sheriff.”
• “I’m not a politician, so this is all kinda new to me. I didn’t know I was going to have to give opening remarks.”
• “One of the complaints I hear all the time is the light sentences that people get for major crimes.”
• “I would like to see a hammer put to the prosecutors.”
• “I’d like to see some better prosecution and some actual time in sentencing.”
• “(The budget) has been cut pretty tight.”
• “At the time I was working narcotics and drugs, meth labs were one of the big things we were hitting. We were hitting meth labs weekly. We were getting meth lab dumps all over the place.” — Discussing his experience as a narcotics officer. Short also described the changes in meth production that make the drug more difficult to track and pursue.
• “Methamphetamine is one of the biggest problems in this county.”
• “My level of commitment to this job would be full-time.”
• “I would love to see this place back to the way it was when we were kids.”
Challenger Bill Clark
• “The first thing I would have done is gone to the commissioners and make sure we have a hiring freeze on before we did $200,000 budget cut from the Sheriff’s Office. To cut patrol deputies and then hire other folks in the county seems like maybe a bad idea.”
• “I can’t really second-guess Sheriff Bowe, and why he decided to offer up $200,000.”
• “I think you folks need more patrol deputies.”
• “The drug war is second only to the war on poverty, and we’ve lost both. I don’t have a clue as to how to solve this drug problem.”
• “When I first started in law enforcement we would send people to state prison for just having one seed of marijuana. And now some states are legalizing it. I’m perplexed. What are we telling our kids, what are we telling our grandkids? Legalization of drugs is not the answer.”
• “A year’s work is 2,080 hours, so I would commit to 2,080 hours.”
• “I spent five years with no time off, no hope in sight. It literally drains everything out of you.” — Discussing his time as chief of police in Newport, Wash.
• “We’re headed for more difficult times than we’ve had. And if you are concerned as I am about the direction America is going, you are going to need someone with some experience.”
• “When I’ve been hired, I’ve been hired to solve problems.”
• “If you want to see a difference in the sheriff’s office, then elect me to sheriff and you will see a difference.”
Lincoln County Justice
of the Peace
Justice of the Peace
Stormy Langston
• “What I must do is apologize, and I guess I could say it’s a glitch. But I don’t have Stormy’s statement to read. She intended for me to have it, but it did not get to my computer. And I know she sent it.” — State Rep. Mike Cuffe, speaking in place of Justice of the Peace Stormy Langston, who was not in attendance due to a prior commitment in Troy.
Justice of the Peace
Jay Sheffield
• “The way it’s being run up there is completely unacceptable.” — Discussing Langston’s compliance with the closure of the Eureka Justice of the Peace Office.
• “I was extremely disappointed that my opponent was not going to be here tonight, because there are a tremendous amount of differences between her and myself as far as how this consolidation is going to go, and our conduct and qualifications as far as being justice of the peace in Lincoln County.”
• “I don’t want to rag that she’s not here, but she should have been here. The actions she has been taking regarding this closure are stonewalling the commissioners.” — Discussing the closure of the Eureka Justice of the Peace Office
• “It’s infuriating. Like I said, I am very disappointed she isn’t here.”
• “I’d love to hear her explain why she sued the county three times.”
• “A plea agreement is a great tool if it is used effectively and monitored by the court.”
• “You can talk to any police officer or deputy sheriff in this county, they will tell you I have a 15-minute response time every time I am needed on a weekend.”
• “I need someone to focus on and yell at.” — Speaking to State Rep. Mike Cuffe as he left the stage.
Lincoln County Clerk and Recorder
Clerk and Recorder Tammy Lauer
“I love my job, and I love Lincoln County.”
• “There is a large learning curve to this position.”
• “This past legislative session had nearly 20 bills that concerned the operations of clerk and recorder. By getting involved in these bills and the hearings for them, I have learned more about the workings of the Legislature and what needs to happen to change current laws for the betterment of our office.”
• “Lincoln County’s budget is much stronger than other counties.”
• “It was an arithmetic error on a spreadsheet, the wrong number was put in there.” — Discussing how an accounting error was made that cost county taxpayers $2.2 million during the last three years.
• “Twenty of those mills were paid back this year, and the intent is to pay back 20 the next two years.” — Discussing the county’s repayment plan for taxpayers.
• “I do need to take time to totally disagree with what Robin just said. We have 11 districts that receive taxes in this county … I met with eight of the 11 boards this summer. The others I had already met with.” — Discussing steps taken to avoid future errors.
• “A few counties had problems with their taxation, so we are all getting together and trying to be more prudent in checking each others’ work.”
• “There is some failing faith in the position because of the error.”
• “The average person is going to get $100-$175 back over three years.”
• “I feel that’s my job. Tell everybody what happened, how to fix it and get the faith back in our job.”
• “Lincoln County is looking at two new commissioners and the other with just two years in office.” — Stressing the importance of an experienced staff that can help with the transition of two new county commissioners.
• “I have nearly eight years experience as clerk and recorder. I feel this experience and my proven honesty and integrity will be a great asset to the office of clerk and recorder.”
Challenger
Robin Benson
“If I do get elected clerk and recorder…I would resign Libby City Council.”
• “I am running for clerk and recorder because it is my opinion that there has a failure to effectively communicate with district boards, commissioners and the public.”
• “I believe there has been a failure for accurate and fair taxation and not representing and being responsive to the people.”
• “The commissioners have publicly stated that they have not even looked at the district budgets in the past years. There are millions of dollars involved in district budgets. I find that incomprehensible.”
• “You need to understand the intent of a law, for example the floating mill law that was used to overtax districts. You need to understand the intent of a law before you determine how to apply it or even if to apply it.” — Addressing the law that inadvertently led to the overtaxation of taxpayers in Troy.
• “There is an overall communication problem, so that is where I would hit hard to make sure the budgets are understood.”
• “Budgets should be in the library so people can study at their leisure prior to the budget adoption.”
• “The problem is how the budgets are being prepared, this is not a district board member problem.”
Lincoln County Commissioner
Challenger
Russ Bache
• “The main reason (why I am running) is because I care deeply and I love this county and the people in it.”
• “If we had more jobs here, if there would be more economic development, that is so crucial to the building of the whole county. We need that desperately.”
• “As a golf pro, that was one of the jobs we did, the budgets.” — Responding to a question about his experience managing large budgets.
• “I can guarantee you that I will look at the budget very closely.”
• “I would not sign anything unless it looked right.”
• “As a golf pro, that was one of the jobs we did, the budgets.”
• “I can guarantee you that I will look at the budget very closely.”
• “I would not sign anything unless it looked right.”
• “I would make it mandatory to look at the district budgets also. There is no reason for the county commissioners to not look at that budget for I don’t know how many years.”
• “After high school I joined the military, actually, I was drafted. How many people remember those times?”
• “I’d like to form a task force, that comes from my military background. I’d like to get people together to find out what we can do to get jobs here. Because that is the problem we have here.”
• “I would like to get a marketing system going. Get a marketing group if we have to. Spend some money to make money. Get a marketing plan, because right now we don’t have one, to my knowledge. We need to aggressively get more jobs here.” — Discussing his plan to bring jobs to Lincoln County.
“We need to be proactive, not reactive. And right now we are not even being reactive. We’re just saying we have to cut budgets, we have to cut budgets. Well, if we had jobs here, we would not have to cut budgets.” — Discussing his plan to bring jobs to Lincoln County.
Senate Dist. 1
Sen. Chas Vincent
• “I don’t really see a single face in the audience that I don’t think I have met or talked about or has not heard me jack my jaw at them about something.”
• “We haven’t really had any questions from the audience tonight, so I’d like to throw some questions out to the audience and give you the opportunity to grill somebody currently serving in the Senate and is looking to run for another four years.”
• “I believe we are going to see some recommendations that are going to hopefully allow for this compact to be ratified next session. My fear, particularly for this area here, is that if we don’t get a compact this area and the Bitterroot are going to be the two areas that pay the most extensively for it.” — Addressing a question from the audience about the status of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes water compact.
House Dist. 1
Rep. Jerry Bennett
• “Nornally I go before Chas (Vincent). I usually only take up 30 or 40 seconds. That gives him an extra four minutes. I’ve always been of the understanding, why use a thousand words when one will do.”
• “I’ve served in the Legislature for six years. It has really been a priviledge to know folks voted for me.”
• “I’m not always sure negotiation is a good thing. I am a pretty conservative individual.”
• “I look forward to serving one more time.”
• “Is there a question someone is just burning to have answered? I’ll have Chas answer that for you.”
Challenger
Donald Coats
• “Most timber stands are greatly improved by the skillful removal of marketbale timber. Harvesting mature trees improves forest health, enhances wildlife habitat and reduces fire danger.”
• “I believe that women in Montana are intelligent and educated enough to make correct decisions concerning their own bodies and decide when and if they want to start or increase their families.”
• “There should be no law passed in Montana prohibiting or penalizing private development and use of renewable energy.”
• “I believe the phrase ‘Right to Work’ actually means ‘No rights at work.’”
House Dist. 2
Rep. Mike Cuffe
• “I work hard at my job, and as I told my wife earlier this session: In the first session people asked if it was fun. I said, well I wouldn’t call it fun but you enjoy it in the sense that you enjoy hard work.”
• “You feel a sense of responsibility. You really feel you are doing the people’s work.” — Discussing working in the Legislature.