A shared roof for local nonprofits
Morning. It is a clean, mostly sunny 71 today and climbing toward a 78-degree Thursday, so whatever you have been putting off outside, this is the week for it. Up top, a plan to put the valley's nonprofits under one roof. Then your November voting timeline, Yellowstone's very literal money pit, and a homecoming weekend that takes over downtown. Coffee up.
Bozeman is building a shared home for the groups that hold it together.
Greater Gallatin United Way is leading a $4 million plan to turn a vacant building at Spanish Peaks Plaza into one address for the valley's nonprofits, working with Bozeman Health, which is handing over a former health care space near Main and 19th.
The pitch is simple math. Rent and operating costs have climbed for the small outfits that run after-school care, food assistance, mental health support, and shelter, the same squeeze everyone else in town feels. Put a dozen of them under one roof and they split the overhead. United Way president and CEO Kimberly Hall, whose group has worked the valley for more than 50 years, said the aim is "to create an opportunity for them to function in a very professional environment at a very deep discount."
No one has signed a lease yet, and the building still has to be paid for. Hall said the early candidates lean toward mental health and youth programming, with a target of opening the doors by next summer. Bozeman Health, whose CEO Kathryn Bertany is part of the deal, gets a purpose for a space that was sitting empty.
It is a quieter growth story than a 200-unit subdivision, and a revealing one. When the cost of staying here pinches the groups that catch people who fall, the local fix looks like sharing the rent.
The November ballot is real now, and the clock starts this week.
Gallatin County voter registration closes at 5 p.m. on Oct. 5, after which you can still register in person right through Election Day. Absentee ballots go in the mail Oct. 9, so the reading-and-deciding window is basically the first half of October.
Want to size up the names before they show up on your ballot? A Montana Supreme Court and Gallatin County Attorney candidate forum is listed for tonight, 6:30 to 9 at MSU, free and open to anyone.
And the county is trying to make getting on the rolls easier. For the first time since 2020, the elections office is bringing back its mobile registration unit, the trailer it first rolled out during the pandemic. Administrator Eric Semerad said the point is to reach people around the county with library and city-hall workshops, now that courthouse space runs tight every election season.
Yellowstone's hot springs double as a very expensive lost and found. Park geologists pulled more than 20,000 pieces of trash from hydrothermal areas this season, mostly dropped by accident, including 280-plus hats, piles of coins, and a couple of dental retainers. USGS scientist Michael Poland warned that even one visitor tossing a stick or pebble toward a spring adds up, since "enough people do that and it will change the appearance of the springs," which is how Morning Glory Pool lost its color decades ago.
Montanans are in a mood. A new Montana Free Press poll found 53% think the state is on the wrong track against 36% who say right direction, with Gov. Greg Gianforte split evenly at 46% approve, 46% disapprove. It is the same statewide survey behind this month's cost-of-living numbers, so read it as the backdrop to that November ballot.
Chasing a last warm-weekend paddle? Check Hebgen first. Gallatin County Health spent the late summer closing stretches of the reservoir over toxic algae blooms that can sicken people and pets, and the county's standing advice is to stay out of any water that looks or smells off.
Yellowstone's North Entrance is finally getting a permanent fix. The Park Service signed off on rebuilding the Gardiner-to-Mammoth road, the stretch washed out in the 2022 flood, with construction slated to start in 2027 and the temporary Old Gardiner Road becoming a trail.
Mostly sunny and near 71 today, and it only gets nicer, with a bright 78 Thursday and 80 Friday before Saturday settles back toward 64. Peak September. Go find some of it.
Thursday (Sept. 24):
Tinworks hosts Art! with Dr. Ike, a free 7 p.m. lecture on the Harlem Renaissance that treats art history like a good story instead of a syllabus.
Thursday (Sept. 24): Or head to Brick Breeden, where MSU volleyball hosts Idaho State at 7 p.m.
Friday (Sept. 25): Three Montana poets, Sean Hill, Melissa Kwasny, and Gabriel Furshong, read at Country Bookshelf at 6 p.m., free.
Friday (Sept. 25): Comedian Maria Bamford brings her act to The ELM at 7 p.m. (tickets $41 to $77), the week's one splurge.
Saturday (Sept. 26): The Bobcats host Northern Arizona for homecoming at 8:30 p.m., a late kickoff on ESPN2 under the lights at Bobcat Stadium.
The Gallatin is fishing like a proper fall river. Local shops report gin-clear water and low, settled canyon flows, with cooler temperatures nudging trout out of the summer riffles and into deeper, slower runs. The bite is best in the middle of the day now, on smaller nymphs and lighter fluorocarbon, once the morning chill burns off. With the water dropping and the weekend warm, it is a good stretch to wade before the season turns for real.
Homecoming turns downtown into a parade route Saturday.
MSU's Cat-Tastic Carnival homecoming runs all week and spills onto Main Street at 10 a.m. Saturday for the parade, so expect a few blocks closed and every third person you know waving from a float or a curb. It is the one morning a year the whole valley agrees to wear the same two colors. Bobcat gold optional, but you will feel underdressed without it.