Get ’er done

By The Standard Staff - 05/09/2007

The special session of the Legislature starts Thursday, and if lawmakers know what’s good for them — that is, if they want to be re-elected — they’ll make every effort to get the job done by Saturday and with as little confrontation as possible.

Voters are already impatient about the need for the extra days, and a long drawn-out session would only make things worse, especially at $38,000 a day.

Supposedly the law precludes Gov. Brian Schweitzer from refusing to pay for the special session. As an alternative, legislators should consider pooling their pay for these extra days and donating it to a worthy cause — maybe one that won’t be getting as much state funding as it had hoped for this year. The gesture won’t erase all the anger over the failure to get the job done on time, but it would be a positive step that would help people as well.

We trust that Schweitzer wouldn’t have called for the session to start so soon if he wasn’t confident that all the outstanding issues — mainly the state budget and tax relief — could be handled quickly and efficiently. It would be a mistake to go back into session prematurely, so for the sake of Montanans’ reputation as competent, self-governing people, let’s hope these coming days exemplify how legislative bodies are supposed to function in consort with the executive branch. Fighting over how to deal with a deficit is one thing, but why so much animosity about how to deal with a surplus?

The proposed compromise outlined in Tuesday’s paper appears sound and balanced. School funding would be increased; homeowners, renters, and business-owners would enjoy tax relief, and state agency budgets would be trimmed by $50 million over what the Senate had approved, yet they’d still be well above current levels.

Schweitzer said it represents a middle-of-the-road approach supported by the majority of Montanans. We like the sound of that and look forward to putting the 2007 Legislature behind us very soon.

This past week has also brought some positive developments at the local level — most notably Butte-Silver Bow’s newfound common-sense approach to the Corette Memorial Pool and Butte Citizens for Preservation and Revitalization’s proactive response to recent thefts of historic wrought-iron gates.

Not wanting to waste money, the county’s public works department is holding off on major improvements to the pool itself until it verifies that the piping and treating systems are still in good shape. That only makes sense. Public works director John VanDaveer admitted the system “seemed to work adequately in the past” but they want to be sure it’s still fine before moving forward.

It’s curious that it took a lot of noise and pressure from a few committed citizens to get county officials to move even this far on investigating the pool’s condition, especially with money earmarked in this year’s budget for the pool. It’s also hard to understand the origin of the $70,000 pool repair estimate if officials don’t even know the condition of the piping system at this point.

That’s all water under the bridge, though, or, more accurately, water soon to be circulating through the pipes. We’ll be very interested to learn the prognosis for those pipes, knowing it could — and probably should — make or break the plan for outdoor swimming at Stodden Park this summer.

As for the antique gates, leave it to the creative members of Butte CPR to devise a plan to help stop these insidious thefts. The community owes them a big thank-you, and probably the best way to say thanks is for Uptown homeowners to accept nonprofit’s offer of chains and bolts to make these gates harder to steal.

Many of these ornate gates and fences were installed on the Butte Hill more than a century ago, and you’d think people would have the decency to leave them alone where they belong.

Since that doesn’t seem to be the case, anyone with a historic gate should at least make it as difficult as possible to remove. For help, call the good folks at CPR at 723-2174.

And finally, before the Montana Economic Development Summit fades too far into the background, we want to acknowledge all the hard work that went into hosting more than 2,500 people at Montana Tech. It posed many logistical challenges no doubt, and they were all handled very well.

Whether it be music and motorcycles, athletes and fans, or big-wigs and business-people, Butte people prove time and again that they know the very essence of hospitality. That’s a trait a community cannot buy, and we’re sure fortunate to have it in spades.