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01/12/2026
Library negotiation was toughest summer of term, Wolff says
Susan Wolff stepped down from the Great Falls City Commission at the end of 2025 after declining to run for another term. She served one term after being first elected in 2021.
In a December interview with Montana Free Press, Wolff said that she faced a bit of an adjustment period getting used to work as an elected official. But she had served nine years as CEO of Great Falls College MSU and has deep roots in Montana, both of which prepared her for the role. While getting up to speed on the city’s functions as a new commissioner in 2022, Wolff said that the public meeting criticism — sometimes sharp, other times unusual — was a new experience.
“Did I have people challenge me in higher ed?” Wolff said. “Oh, absolutely all the time. But it was not in that public venue.”
Wolff was in her second year as commissioner when the city of Great Falls lobbied voters to approve a large public safety levy and bond — a measure that ultimately failed in late 2023. Having spent time with public safety departments, Wolff said that the feeling within the city government’s circle was that the need was obvious.
“To us, we felt like it was so apparent that it was needed because we have that knowledge,” Wolff said. “And for those of us who spend time with the [public safety] departments, we see it and feel it.”
But as the fall of 2023 approached, property owners expected tax sticker shock as the state revenue department’s new appraisals drastically increased property values. An additional public safety levy would have been a “miracle” to pass by November, Wolff said.
That set the stage for the 2024 renegotiation of the Great Falls Public Library management agreement and just under $1 million in funding tied to that agreement. City officials vowed to claw back funds to support public safety needs.
Wolff said she had to fight to get her spot on the negotiation team over other commissioners. While the initial “final” proposal from the city cut all of that pot of funding by 2027, Wolff said she pushed for some of the money to remain with the library through 2029.
But she also said that the municipal court had clerk staffing shortages that were preventing cases from being completed. In the wake of the 2023 failed public safety levy and in anticipation of another levy request in the future, Wolff said that she felt the city needed to prioritize public safety in the library negotiations.
“I felt like we had to show the community if we were ever going to go out for another public safety levy, we had to show the community that it was always top of mind and that we were trying to address some of the issues,” Woff said. “It was difficult. And that summer was probably the most difficult time of my commission in my term.”
In November 2024, after months of fierce public debate, the city commission approved a new negotiated agreement that reduced the library budget by half from 2026 through 2029.
Wolff said that one impact that will outlast her term on the commission is a renewed effort in communications for the city. She said she wanted the city to showcase some of the daily work that city staff do.
“Almost every meeting I had with Greg [Doyon, city manager], which was twice a month, I would say we need to improve our communications externally, but also internally because the departments didn’t know what was happening in between,” Wolff said.
The result, Wolff said, was a staff position budgeted fully toward communications and a heavier emphasis among city departments on sharing their work.
The success of some of the commission’s other work will only be known over time, Wolff said. Like other officials, Wolff said that Great Falls has been trying to posture itself as friendly to developers to help grow the tax base. But she added that a conservative approach in policy that impacts development will remain part of Great Falls’ DNA.
“We do want that growth, but we don’t want it to take away the flavor because we really are kind of the last best place of what Montana was,” Wolff said.
She pointed to ongoing commercial and industrial developments in the east-end AgriTech Park and the Great Falls International Airport’s efforts to build a commercial corridor on the city’s west side as precursors for permanent, sustainable growth.
Great Falls city government will face significant decisions in the next year and beyond, including major revisions to the parking system, budget impacts from property tax changes and the potential for a new public safety levy campaign. Wolff said that the city government has its work cut out for it.
“They [city commissioners] really don’t have any time to waste with what I would call unnecessary, emotional things,” Wolff said. “The community deserves to have a city government that is very tuned in to it. That is smart enough to do the research and [that] the departments all work together to figure out how we can do it with the limited resources we have.”
Following Up
In December, MTFP reported on a lawsuit filed by 27 inmates at the Cascade County Detention Center over an incident of food contamination with blood.
The inmates said in their lawsuit that while a food preparer had a bloody nose that ran into the food, an employee of the Summit Correctional Services contractor ordered the contaminated food to remain in the line for inmates to eat.
The lawsuit also revealed that the preparer with the bloody nose was positive for hepatitis C and that at least three inmates tested positive for hepatitis C after the incident.
In social media comments and emails to MTFP, multiple readers expressed skepticism that the hepatitis C virus could be transmitted through the ingestion of contaminated blood.
The Cascade County City-County Health Department and the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services declined MTFP’s requests to speak with an expert in virus transmission about this case. DPHHS spokesperson Jon Ebelt sent a link to a Centers for Disease Control website that outlines transmission of hepatitis C, which is commonly through sharing contaminated needles or infection through breaks in the skin.
In a follow-up email, the inmates’ attorney stated that the alleged infection was not contracted through ingesting the blood.
“Some of our clients believe that they contracted Hep C from contact of the Hep C contaminated blood with open cuts and sores,” said Tim Bechtold, the attorney.
There are no additional updates in the lawsuit as of Jan. 9.
By The Numbers
The value of federal tax credits received by Calumet in 2025 through its Great Falls-based biofuels subsidiary, Montana Renewables. The company announced this figure in a Jan. 5 regulatory filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The federal government has incentivized the production of certain biofuels through tax credits. The most relevant to Montana Renewables is the 45Z clean fuel production credit, which is rooted in former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act and benefits producers of sustainable aviation fuel. The second Trump administration’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill” extended those credits through 2029.
The tax credits have proved crucial to the Great Falls refinery as it looks to further expand biofuels production. A quarterly earnings report from November showed that the Great Falls facility, both Montana Renewables and the legacy crude oil refinery, operated at a loss over the first nine months of 2025. Only after adding tax credits worth $61.2 million earned by that time of the year did Calumet’s Montana division reach positive territory.
Year-end figures specific to the Montana refinery had not been released as of January 9.
The Montana Renewables expansion is funded by another incentive with roots in the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act: a $1.6 billion loan guarantee through the U.S. Department of Energy. Montana Renewables’ “balance sheet was transformed” by the infusion, according to Calumet’s latest regulatory filing.
In addition to the federal tax credits, Calumet received various property tax breaks from the state of Montana, Cascade County and the city of Great Falls. The company also negotiated a $1.4 million reduction in property taxes from 2022 to 2024 to settle a tax protest with the Montana Department of Revenue.
Photo Op
Reader David Saslav shared this Jan. 1 photo, which he calls “waiting at the edge of the rink.”
Calling all photographers: Submit a photo for Great Falls This Week to [email protected].
5 Things to Know in Great Falls
The Great Falls Police Department received 16 fireworks complaints over the New Year holiday, which was the first test of the city’s new fireworks restriction ordinance. Deputy City Manager Jeremy Jones told city commissioners last week that out of those 16 calls, three people received warnings and no one received citations. Great Falls Fire Rescue had 12 calls for service over the holiday, including a house fire south of downtown that fire officials say was caused by fireworks.
A draft of the forthcoming Great Falls Growth Policy was released Monday by the city. The document will guide land use planning and development policies through 2045. Three open houses are scheduled for this week for public review and comment. They are Jan. 12 from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., Jan. 14 from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. and Jan. 15 from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. All events are in the Civic Center Gibson Room. The growth policy website and documents are here.
The Great Falls City Commission appointed Victoria Hunt and Valerie Scheevel to three-year terms on the Park and Recreation Advisory Board last week. The commission also appointed Liz Whiting and Debra Evans to the Airport Authority Board. Finally, the commission reappointed Amanda Brumwell to the Mansfield Center for the Performing Arts Advisory Board and appointed London Griffith to join that board.
The Great Falls City Commission approved the sale of the old Community Recreation Center to the child care business that had been leasing the space at 801 2nd Ave. N. Community Early Education Center is the current leasee and is registered to the same address as EduCare Preschool and Child Care, which is referenced as the purchaser. EduCare was the only bidder on the property at $800,000, which was the minimum sale price determined by the city’s appraisal.
A large consignment of western artwork, including many valuable works from Charles M. Russell, will go to auction in New York City later this month at Christie’s auction house. Many of the works have significant price estimates, including Russell’s “Dust” at $5 million to $7 million and “The Sun Worshippers” at $4 million to $6 million. The consignment came from William “Bill” Koch, the industrialist and prominent conservative supporter. The auction is expected to fetch around $50 million, which would double the previous record for any American western art auction, according to Christie’s.
Around Town
Registration is open for the 46th Annual Ice Breaker Road Race, scheduled for April 26. Participants can expect the same one-mile, three-mile and five-mile routes. Early-bird registration runs through March 31. Participants can sign up online here, and volunteers can sign up here.
Tickets go on sale Monday for The Russell 2026 art auction. In addition to Russell pieces, a press release for the event said that works by artists Troy Collins, Luke Frazier, Jennifer Johnson, Carol Hagen and Greg Kelsey will be among the items up for auction. The Russell is scheduled for March 19-21 in Great Falls.
A new film festival aimed at “storytellers, seekers and the seriously curious” is scheduled for Feb. 5-7 at the Mansfield Center. The festival features works related to the worlds of aliens, cryptids and the paranormal, and the event will include short-form and feature films, filmmaking workshops and meetings with people who produce the films. More information and schedules are here.