Article published Nov 1, 2007

Elect new slate

I'm fed up with the way Mayor Donna Stebbins and Commissioner Diane Jovick-Kuntz have been running our government. They insist on doing business behind closed doors. They have already wasted so many of our tax dollars on the coal plant, $1,500,000 and counting — but that's the point, they won't let us count. They have been asked but answer with double talk. They refused us the right to vote on the coal plant yet expect to use our money. Arrogant? This type of closed door governing reminds me of how Dick Cheney does things; in fact it should have its own name, Cheneyesk Elitism.

They voted themselves a nice heath care policy on July 3 when everyone was heading out of town for the holiday weekend, yet now we can't find the money to take care of our needy neighbors at the County Heath Department.

I have studied the issues and followed the campaign as serious as anything I've ever done. New laws are right around the corner that will demand clean coal plants. Great Falls shouldn't be the last place one of these old style plants is built. In fact, Great Falls should be the last place one of these plants is built.

I'm voting for a new mayor. I hope and pray it will be Ed McKnight with Stuart Lewin and Mary Jolley as commissioners. It is clear to me, they, if elected, will get this city back on the right track. After all, don't we deserve it?

— Jerry LaPierre, Great Falls