Bozeman's rulebook goes to voters
Morning. It is a bright 73 today and dry clear through Wednesday, so the valley is officially forgiven for that soggy weekend. Today's big read is a rare one. Bozeman voters are about to decide how their own city government is built, wards and all, on the November ballot. Then a busy week at City Hall starting at noon, a judge exempts one PAC from Montana's deepfake-ad law, and the Gallatin comes back up. Coffee up.
Bozeman is about to vote on how Bozeman is run.
For the first time since 2006, voters will decide whether to replace the city charter, the document that sets how many people sit on the commission, how the mayor is chosen, and how much say residents get between elections. A five-member citizen study commission spent nearly two years drafting an amended version, and it lands on the Nov. 3 ballot.
The changes are big. The amended charter would give the mayor a straight four-year term instead of the current two-years-as-deputy-then-two-as-mayor ladder, and hand pay decisions to an independent compensation board rather than commissioners voting on their own salaries. As study commissioner Carson Taylor put it, the old way was "vote yourself a raise." A new section spells out how the city is supposed to keep residents in the loop.
The ballot itself does more work than usual. First you choose the 2006 charter or the new one. If the new one wins, three more questions ride along: whether to grow the commission from five members to seven, whether to carve the city into geographic wards, and if wards pass, whether each one picks its own commissioner or the whole city keeps voting on all of them. The mayor stays elected citywide no matter how those land. Ballots go out next month, so this is the reading to do before then.
City Hall has a busy week, and the gavel drops at noon today.
The commission holds a special session at 12 p.m. Monday with one job, adopting court-ordered findings of fact for a stalled development and subdivision after an August ruling in the Bridger Center v. City of Bozeman case. It is dry cleanup, and it is also how a lawsuit over what gets built ends up back on the public record.
The fuller plate comes Tuesday at 6 p.m., the meeting we flagged Friday. Commissioners take up a $609,250 gift from the library foundation to remake the children's room, a locked-in price for the Bogert Pool rebuild, a public hearing on stretching the South Bozeman Technology District's tax financing past the usual 15 years, and a joint sit-down with Belgrade. Public comment is open on all of it, that tax hearing included if you have thoughts on how the district gets paid for.
A federal judge just exempted one PAC from Montana's deepfake-ad law. The law bars AI-faked images of candidates in the 60 days before voting unless the ad carries a clear label, and Judge Susan Watters ruled last week that enforcing it against a former GOP lawmaker and his political action committee violated the First Amendment. The injunction covers just that pair for now; the law still stands for everyone else while the case plays out.
Montana's fruit trees had a brutal year. Growers blame a record-warm winter, a spring freeze, and summer drought for shriveled apple, pear, and berry crops; one Worden farmer went from picking 25 half-pints of raspberries a day to five or six a day this year. If your farmers-market haul looked thin this fall, that is why.
Missoula is building one answer to the rent problem. An $80 million project called Franklin Crossing will bring 211 income-restricted apartments and 33 townhomes to a former shelter site, aimed at households earning 30 to 70% of the area median. It is the subsidized scale Bozeman keeps talking about; groundbreaking is set for summer 2027.
Sunny and near 73 today, and the whole stretch stays dry, with a partly sunny 74 tomorrow before a clean sunny 75 on Wednesday. After a soggy weekend, the valley finally gets its September back. Go earn it.
Monday (Sept. 21):
Kick the week off at country dance night in the MSU SUB Ballroom, listed 7 to 10 p.m. with swing and line-dance lessons up front, free with a Cat Card or $5 at the door.
Monday (Sept. 21): Or catch Cannons at The ELM, listed 7 p.m. (tickets from about $46), tonight's one splurge.
Tuesday (Sept. 22): Walk Lindley Park with the Gallatin Watershed Council, listed 5:30 to 7 p.m. and free, a guided loop with the folks who read our creeks for a living.
Wednesday (Sept. 23): Size up the people asking for your vote at a Montana Supreme Court and county attorney candidate forum at MSU, listed 6:30 to 9 p.m. and free, a useful warm-up for that November ballot.
Wednesday (Sept. 23): Or let the Bridger Creek Boys pick bluegrass at Bridger Brewing, listed 5:30 to 8 p.m., pizza-and-a-pint easy.
The weekend rain gave the rivers a nudge. The Gallatin was running about 430 cfs near Gallatin Gateway as of Saturday afternoon, with the Logan gauge up near 552 and the East Gallatin around 85, all a step above last week. Fly shops say the Gallatin is fishing well, with cooler water pulling trout out of the fast riffles and into slower pools, and afternoons holding up now that the days have some bite. Bring fluorocarbon and small flies, and time it after the morning chill lifts.
MSU cranks up homecoming this week, and the town gets the fun part downtown. The pep rally lands Friday (Sept. 25) at 6 p.m. where Main meets Willson, the annual excuse to close a couple of blocks, holler at the band, and watch students who were strangers in August act like they built the place. Bobcat gold optional but encouraged.