Bozeman Tennis Court Debacle

The city of Bozeman's decision to use stimulus funds to build tennis courts grabbed the attention of many conservative news outlets, including Fox News and the Drudge Report.

Thinking he may have an opportunity to get on the "fiscal conservative" side of this issue, Governor Schweitzer showed up to Bozeman City Council to express his displeasure with this poor use of funds. What he got was a mayor ready to stand up to him. Here is the exchange as reported by the Flathead Beacon:

Schweitzer: I didn’t come here to blame the city council. You absolutely have the right to do this. You have the green light through the Department of Commerce because they can’t turn anybody down. That was the legislation. It was not the intent of the dollars that came to Montana

Krauss: So if you’re perceived as being a person who has attacked the city of Bozeman. And maybe because you’ve been used by the media or you’ve used the media to do just that.

Schweitzer: Mayor, what were my words? Do you recall?

Krauss: It was a quote about how you did not approve of this. Didn’t approve of this. That this wasn’t appropriate and you didn’t approve of this.

Schweitzer: That’s correct and that’s what I’m saying today.

Krauss: Right. But we have a letter from your administration approving it.

Schweitzer: Sure.

Krauss: So you approved it before you disapproved it.

The report from the Chronicle also brought up how the council questioned the Governor's use of his airplane to fly down to the council meeting, and whether that was a good use of taxpayer dollars. Interesting stuff.

Comments

[Junior]

This is the way Senate Republicans wanted it. A system that lacked accountability to the taxpayers and what we got was 'rubber tiled' tennis courts.

Remember that it was reported on Dec. 28th and the Governor said this was not a good use of funds as reported on Dec. 29th. All session he battled with the Senate Republicans to have a line-itemized detailed list, but instead they put in some language that allowed city and county commissioners to act like kids at a candy story. That language required the Department of Commerce to spend the money on any project the fit into the Republican bill.

That is exactly the way Republicans wanted it as Story said, "he thinks lawmakers did it right by not doling out the money to specific city projects." “Also we were concerned that if the governor didn’t like someone’s projects, he would go through and line-item veto it.”http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/article_07d9d5f2-f4d6-11de-809d-001cc4c002e0.html

You can guarantee the Governor would have vetoed 'rubber-tiled' tennis courts just like he vetoed other stimulus money. But then again Senate President Story, Dan McGee, and Esp wanted to spend that money too. The best part of this op-ed is the second paragraph title 'Too much in savings account.' http://billingsgazette.com/news/opinion/guest/article_1534112f-cc88-58e5-bbe7-d8aa98633368.html

Just because you have a big chocolate cake in front of you, it doesn't mean you should eat all of it.

[jeff]

Way to echo the Governor's line, exactly, there, Junior.

The Governor approving the Bozeman projects, then disapproving them after they hit Drudge, and his issuing a press release to every news agency in the country, has nothing to do with Republicans. Governor Brian Schweitzer throwing Bozeman under the bus, while ignoring the tennis court repairs in Livingston,or the new baseball lights and outfield fence in Chinook, or the $500,000 park expenditures in Helena, which include acoustic tiles and a "wall and ceiling" mural, or the playground equipment in Missoula, or the ten or twelve other cities and towns like Dutton and Ryegate and Superior, all doing parks and recreation projects with stimulus money, has nothing to do with Republicans. That's all about the Governor and his behavior.

In fact, Monday night, the Governor, after blaming Republicans in the press just as junior quotes, above, denied that it had anything to do with partisan politics. "I don't even know which party you belong to" he told the commission. No Governor, you weren't aiming at the commission, but you were calling out Republicans, just as junior says.

So which is the truth? Republicans fault, or not about partisan politics at all?

He blamed Republicans before denying he talked about partisan politics. He approved the projects, in a letter with his face at the top and his name and title on the bottom, in October, before he disapproved them in December. And after lecturing Bozeman that "government has to tighten its belt", Monday night he advocated raising taxes. Oh yes, Monday night, when he was told, "the contract's signed", and "there's no room in the operating budget to shuffle money around, that's why we used one time money for one time projects", he advocated for raising taxes. He owns a house in Bozeman, he says, and "HE wouldn't mind paying a little more". Yep, never mind the Great Recession, Bozeman should just raise it's property taxes. Never mind the property tax caps, Bozeman should just raise property taxes. So which is it, tighten government belts, or move money around to spend it from some other fund, or raise taxes?

Wonder what the taxpayers of Bozeman, if they'd just had the legal two day notice from the Governor, would have said about his flying down at their expense to advocate raising their taxes?

I don't know what it is about these tennis and basketball courts, so badly deteriorated, that has captured the Governor and Fox News' fancy. Is it that they're "tennis and basketball courts"? Is it the surface, which costs $9000 more than asphalt, but is guaranteed for fifteen more years? Is it the local guys who are going to do the work, or the Minnesota seller, or the St Louis manufacturer that is just not deserving of the work?

But I can tell you this, no city who is successful in attracting new investment and entrepreneurs who could live anywhere, is NOT investing in parks and recreation. Show me a city or town not investing in parks and recreation, and I'll show you a dying city or town.

[JeffK]

http://missoulian.com/news/local/article_6fe6dd14-0199-11df-a6ab-001cc4c03286.html

Sorry to interrupt the crickets chirping, but attached is a link talking about Missoula spending "$380,000 in stimulus funds to replace three old playgrounds and build one new one." Well, if $50,000 of spending on Parks and Recreation is so bad, $380,000 on the same thing must be an unforgivable sin. It's clearly not part of the Governor's mantra of "clean water, safe streets, making buildings more efficient".

Bashing Bozeman to the nation worked for the Governor; he got bigtime quotes on Fox news, he got an editorial in the WSJ, and he got a call from Newt Gingrich.

If throwing Bozeman under the bus was so productive, imagine how successful the next dry gulching national press release, this time about Missoula, will be for the Governor!