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3/02/2026

City reviewing warranty information at new rec center

During a city commission meeting Feb. 17, interim Park and Recreation Director Jessica Compton shared a slideshow that included a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis of the Scheels Aim High Big Sky recreation center.

Under “weaknesses” was the line, “mechanical and infrastructure instability (boilers, controllers, equipment).”

“We’ve had a lot of issues with our mechanical, and we’re working through that,” Compton said at the meeting.

The $20 million pool and recreation facility opened in 2024 and has faced startup struggles, including in membership and revenue. While the facility was meant to cover its own expenses, Aim High Big Sky has received nearly $1 million in subsidies from the city’s general fund since opening.

Now it appears that issues are ongoing with the Aim High Big Sky building itself, although the full extent of the problems isn’t publicly known. During that same city commission meeting, City Manager Greg Doyon said that the city’s legal department was reviewing a master list of all the facility issues.

Montana Free Press requested a copy of that master list through the city’s public information process. The city denied that request, reasoning that the document is privileged legal research material.

“The construction issue list is currently under review by the legal department to evaluate potential remedies and constitutes attorney work product and is protected by applicable privileges,” City Clerk Lisa Kunz wrote in an email denying the request.

In emailed statements, city communications specialist Meredith Dawson said the legal review involves warranties.

“Like many new facilities, the Scheels Aim High Big Sky Recreation Center has faced some growing pains as it continues to be used,” Dawson’s statement to MTFP said in part. “Some issues are simply cosmetic, while others are more important to get fixed. In addition, some issues are covered by contractors’ warranties. Issues that arise are triaged and addressed in order of importance.”

She said that some parts of the building that have already needed repairs include the elevator and the sauna. The boiler for the recreation room was repaired last year, and the city is “working with the contractor on the warranty process.”

Dawson added that the floor in the fitness classroom was “improved” after receiving user feedback. The cost for that improvement — and the only cost figure released by the city so far — was $3,000.

The Aim High Big Sky facility was funded in part by a Department of Defense grant, the Defense Community Infrastructure Program, which contributed $10 million to the project. The grant required a local match, and Great Falls officials decided to borrow its $10 million share and tap into the park maintenance district fund to repay the debt.

The park maintenance district fund, which raises $1.5 million each year, is a special tax on Great Falls property owners and was originally meant to address citywide park facility maintenance and repairs. The city allocates about $700,000 annually from that fund toward Aim High Big Sky debt repayment.

In August 2024, a month after opening, the pools at Aim High Big Sky were closed for a “mechanical update.” In November 2024, former parks director Steve Herrig told city commissioners that crews were repairing a recurring roof leak.

In 2025, the city announced pool closures for maintenance and mechanical issues on March 16, June 23, July 2, Aug. 29, Sept. 14, Oct. 29, Nov. 9 and Dec. 12.

At the city commission meeting this month, Compton also mentioned issues with ceiling beams, but didn’t go into detail. City officials have previously commented on the toll that an indoor pool can take on a building, as chlorinated humidity can be tough on structures.

Compton also reported at the meeting that Aim High Big Sky has two new coordinators who have reinvigorated the center’s programming and community relations efforts. For example, the facility saw a big increase in attendance for swim lessons, rising from 35% capacity to 95% more recently, she said. 

Read more about the development of Aim High Big Sky here.

Madison Food Park permit extensions denied in reversal 

The Cascade County Board of Commissioners denied permit extensions for Madison Food Park, which has proposed a liquor distillery, a cheese processing plant and a vitamin plant east of Great Falls. 

The decision reversed a prior decision by the county’s zoning board, which in December approved a third extension of special use permits for the project. The county first approved the permits in 2019, and the project originally included a controversial animal slaughterhouse. No construction has taken place.

A Great Falls resident, Stacey Hermiller, appealed the zoning board’s decision, noting that Madison Food Park was delinquent on property taxes at the time of approval. County zoning regulations state that a special use permit cannot be approved on properties that are delinquent on property taxes. Hermiller’s appeal led county commissioners to reconsider the permits during a special meeting held Friday.

Madison Food Park paid its delinquent taxes on Feb. 13, county records show. But county commissioners still denied the permit extensions and reversed the zoning board’s prior decision. The latest extension would have validated the special use permits through 2028, which Hermiller noted would be nine years since the initial approval.

Commissioners agreed that was too long for a stalled project.

“Your comments about nine years is too long is exactly spot on,” Commissioner Joe Briggs said. “If a developer can’t handle paying taxes on time, they’re not going to get a project moving forward.”

Madison Food Park and its Canadian owner, Edward Friesen, have numerous debts. They include $2.9 million in defaulted loans from Great Falls Development Alliance, which sued to recoup its money. 

University of Providence in early stages of addressing $8M budget gap

The University of Providence is not closing. That was one of the main points made by university President Caroline Goulet during an interview with MTFP last week.

The private, Catholic liberal arts college faces a significant budget cliff by 2028 as the Providence health system, an affiliated network of hospitals and clinics, plans to pull about $8 million in annual funding to the university. In December, the university’s board declared financial exigency, a measure that acknowledges a financial crisis and allows school administrators to act quickly to cut overhead, revise programs and make other changes.

“What’s important for folks to understand is that it was a bold move to ask the board to declare exigency,” Goulet said. “Some people would even say it put the cart before the horses. But it was a means to an end to really garner the attention that, hey, we know that how we’re doing things is not sustainable.”

Last fall, Goulet addressed university stakeholders and said that administrators had been complacent with their financial support from the Providence health system. Without that support, spending heavily outweighs revenue. Now, school leaders are in the early stages of a plan to boost revenue and cut spending.

One of the focus areas, fundraising, wasn’t an aggressive practice at the University of Providence previously, Goulet said. The school created a new role, chief advancement officer, and appointed Roy Lanham for the position. Lanham is currently the director of campus ministry.

“Roy will come here, and we’ll establish the processes and start a fundraising effort,” Goulet said. “It’s going to be around alumni. It’s going to be around regular giving. It’s going to be around legacy giving and all that. And setting the stage, hopefully soon, for a campaign.”

The university’s goal is to raise $16 million over four years.

Another strategic focus for the university is to leverage its real estate assets. Goulet said that Providence will lease parts of Donovan Hall to Touro College for its forthcoming law school in Great Falls. The arrangement is for at least three years. Representatives from Touro declined to comment on the upcoming law school but indicated that it’s undergoing an accreditation process that could conclude in the spring.

University of Providence administrators also hope to boost enrollment. Goulet said that she still wants to provide the classic campus experience while acknowledging that smaller institutions need to reach nontraditional students.

“We need to basically start from scratch [with] our enrollment strategies,” she said. “We cannot simply focus on the traditional 18-24 year olds.”

And cutbacks will be part of the process. Last fall, officials said seven people had been laid off and that 14 open positions would remain unfilled. There may be more personnel reductions, but Goulet said they’re reacting to the effects of several recent resignations.

“People make decisions that are the best for themselves, for their own futures and their families,” Goulet said. “So we’ve had natural attrition. Probably more than expected. But it had us re-look at reduction in force.”

She characterized the scrutiny of budget matters as an “everyday discussion” among administrators and the university board. For some programs with few students, the university has stopped accepting new enrollments while current students finish their studies.

The goal is to reach a balanced budget. Based on the current situation, that means closing an $8 million gap.

“We’re still very determined to make it work,” Goulet said. “We’re all in for our students. We’re all in for our faculty and staff. We’ll keep being honest to the core and transparent with our communication.”

5 Things to Know in Great Falls

The Montana Food Hub, a startup regional cooperative, announced its first members meeting will take place March 16. A press release from the organization called the inaugural meeting a milestone in its years-in-the-making progress. The membership meeting takes place at the Fresh Rescue Kitchen in Great Falls at 5:30 p.m. Read more about the Montana Food Hub here and about its collaboration with Fresh Rescue here.

On Tuesday, Great Falls City Commissioners will consider a contract with North Dakota-based SP&E Inc. to order new box seats for Centene Stadium. Commissioners previously rejected a contract with Great Falls-based LPW due to the appearance of a conflict of interest. The cost for the 616 box seats is $129,370, according to city documents.

Great Falls officials held an open house last week to provide details on the proposed strategic capital investment reserve (SCIR) fund, which aims to provide up to $6 million annually to improve city infrastructure in support of new developments. Private developers and the city’s public works department can nominate projects, which are subject to approval by the city commission. Officials hope to present a final funding proposal to the city commission by March 17 and put it up for a commission vote by April 7. If that timeline works, the first awards could be approved by July. Read about the SCIR proposal here.

March 21 marks the spring equinox, and Aim High Big Sky has announced a yoga stretch, a charcuterie tasting and a floating sound bowl class to mark the occasion. No swimsuit is needed, even for the float, but a yoga mat is recommended. Cost is $45. The event is from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Candidate filing ends March 4 for this year’s state and federal elections. A primary election will take place June 2, and the general election is Nov. 3. This is separate from the spring Great Falls Public Schools Board of Trustees election, which is an all-mail election taking place May 5. The Cascade County elections page has information on elections, and the Montana Secretary of State lists state and federal candidates here.

Programming Note

Great Falls This Week reporter Matt Hudson will be on parental leave through early May as he and his wife welcome their second child into the family.

MTFP reporter Zeke Lloyd will be covering Great Falls in the meantime. He can be reached at zlloyd@montanafreepress.org. Please give Zeke a warm welcome around town and online as he explores all that northcentral Montana has to offer.

As always, thank you so much for reading MTFP and the Great Falls This Week newsletter. This work is made possible by your readership, support and community connection.

The post Building issues persist at Aim High Big Sky appeared first on Montana Free Press.

Election-year news often highlights voters’ shifting party allegiances. But in Cascade County, it’s the candidates who are swapping parties more often than usual.

With about a week to go for local candidates to file for office, two former Libertarians and a former Democrat have filed to run as Republicans in 2026. The moves add to an increasingly crowded primary field for the GOP in races across Cascade County. So far, four House districts, one Senate district and a county commissioner race all have contested Republican primaries. There are no contested Democrat primaries so far in the county.

Two formerly active Libertarian Party members, Kevin Leatherbarrow and Tony Rosales, have filed to run for two legislative seats as Republicans. Incumbent Cascade County Attorney Josh Racki announced last year that he was changing alliances from Democrat to Republican, and he’s running for reelection under the GOP banner this year.

This slate of party-switchers comes as Great Falls, once a strong Democratic region, has shifted farther to the right over the years.

Leatherbarrow has previously campaigned for legislative positions and for the state superintendent of schools in 2020, when he received his best vote total, 4%.

On Monday, Leatherbarrow told Montana Free Press that “conservatism” has always been his outlook. It was more a matter of the party platform moving to meet his position.

“I was involved with the Tea Party before the Libertarian Party,” he said. “They just needed to clean some house for a little while. And I just think it’s time to get back into my roots and get back into the arena with true conservatives and start making a difference.”

Leatherbarrow, who runs a student tutoring service in Great Falls, said one example was school choice legislation. He said there was little traction with Republicans when he was in Helena advocating in 2016. But times have changed, and the 2023 legislative session saw two influential Republican-led school-choice bills become law. Leatherbarrow also supports education savings accounts, another Republican-led initiative that passed the Legislature in 2023 but is being challenged in court.

Rosales is a health care consultant who previously ran in nonpartisan races for the Great Falls Public Schools Board of Trustees. In 2022, he ran as a Libertarian candidate in House District 22.

He told MTFP Monday that there’s a smaller gap in the Libertarian-Republican switch than in a Democrat-Republican one. He said he’s focused on fiscal issues, property rights and limited government — messaging that would be familiar to Republican voters.

This year, Rosales said he felt that the best way to get a seat in the Legislature was to ditch the third-party label.

“Ultimately aligned with the Libertarian Party, but when it came to making progress and extending liberty to more people or to extend our own liberties, it made the most sense within the current structure of a two-party system,” he said.

Both candidates acknowledged the enduring schism in Montana’s Republican Party. Bad blood between more hard-line Republicans and a group of nine fellow party members (called the “Nasty Nine” by some of their Republican colleagues) dominated the 2025 session. The nine Republicans, some of whom represent northcentral Montana districts, supported more centrist legislation, including the property tax reform and Medicaid renewal.

George Nikolakakos, a Great Falls legislator who has historically been aligned with the more moderate faction of his party, is running for a state Senate seat and faces a primary challenger in PSC Commissioner Randy Pinocci. In a recent Facebook comment, he criticized Rosales and Leatherbarrow for running as Republicans.

“These guys aren’t Republicans,” he commented. “They are perennial candidate Libertarian crackpots who are tired of losing elections so they’re hypocritically playing games.”

The Cascade County Republican Party is waiting to see how the primary races shake out. Eric Hinebauch, chair of the GOP central committee and a county commissioner, told MTFP that some local party groups will start backing candidates before a primary. That hasn’t been standard practice in Cascade County.

“We’ve always, traditionally in Cascade County, stayed out of primaries,” Hinebauch said. “After the primary is over, we have a formal process to vet candidates and potentially make contributions to the campaign.”

Leatherbarrow and Rosales face contested primaries. In House District 22, Leatherbarrow is up against Jason Lorang, a local sports coach who runs a child care center with his wife. In House District 20, Rosales will face incumbent lawmaker Melissa Nikolakakos, who is seeking a second term (she is married to George Nikolakakos).

Late last summer, Cascade County Attorney Racki announced on Facebook that he felt the Democratic party had “changed its stance on law enforcement.” He said that he would become a Republican, a party that he said “puts the safety and freedom of law-abiding citizens first by standing with law enforcement.”

Racki has filed for reelection as a Republican. So far, he is running unopposed. Racki was first appointed to the position in 2017 and won elections as a Democrat in 2018 and 2022.

Racki wasn’t the first to make this move in Cascade County government. Sheriff Jesse Slaughter won his first election in 2018, running as a Democrat. In 2021, Slaughter said he was frustrated with the party and that he was making the switch to become a Republican. He won reelection in 2022 as a GOP candidate in an unopposed race. 

Slaughter is up for election in 2026 and has filed as a Republican. So far, he’s also running unopposed.

Tina Henry, the district court clerk, has won two uncontested elections. The first in 2020 was as a Democratic candidate. In 2024, she won reelection running as a Republican.

Over the past decade, the Libertarian candidate with the best election performance among Cascade County voters was George Anthony Schultz, who secured 15% of the vote in a 2020 loss to a Republican, then-state Rep. Wendy McKamey in House District 19. There was no Democratic candidate in that race.

Schultz, as it turned out, ran two years before as a Republican candidate for county commissioner.

In-depth, independent reporting on the stories impacting your community from reporters who know your town.

The post In Cascade County, 3 more candidates file under new party affiliation appeared first on Montana Free Press.

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02/23/2026

Eagles Manor to drop food service, 55+ designation

Karla Lippert’s kitchen inside her small studio apartment at the Eagles Manor Retirement Community includes a sink and little more than two feet of counter space. She likes to prepare treats to share with her neighbors during the holidays, but she has relied on the building’s food service for her regular meals.

But the new owners of Eagles Manor plan to cut the meal service, one of several disruptions that the 84 residents are facing. Lippert, 81, has a microwave and is now looking to purchase an electric skillet and a small crock pot to prepare food herself, though it’s tough to see where she might put them.

“I can make it work,” Lippert told Montana Free Press during a recent visit. “But it’s just the fact that I don’t have room for food.”

In January, the owners of Eagles Manor sold the building to Ness Management, a property management company based in Washington state. The company plans to cut meal service, which residents previously paid for, and remove the 55+ designation to open the building to any potential tenants.

Part of James Rickley’s job as president of the residents’ council has been to manage a growing rumor mill around the change in ownership. He said one resident started tearfully packing because they believed the new ownership would force them into new apartments.

Rickley, 77, is a former Poplar school superintendent, neighborhood council member and a church organist. He’s been at Eagles Manor for nine years and was drawn to living there in part due to the on-site meal service. And the arts community in Great Falls has suited him over the years.

“I enjoy the town,” he said. “I’m very happy in my home.”

Rickley had been working with the previous Eagles Manor management on routine issues, such as building maintenance, housekeeping and personnel. But the new ownership brought more frustrations. 

On Jan. 26, the previous owners sent letters to residents announcing a 5% rent increase. The letter cited labor, building maintenance, insurance and fuel costs as reasons for the increase. At the time, Rickley didn’t know the change in ownership was coming.

Just four days later, on Jan. 30, Ness Management sent letters announcing its ownership. The realization hit — the old owners had raised the rent while finalizing the purchase with Ness.

Attempts to reach Ness Management were unsuccessful. An inquiry made to the previous owners, Polson real estate developers Marlo and Michael Maddy, wasn’t returned. Property records show the new deed to Eagles Manor was recorded on Jan. 30 and that the Maddys have retained ownership of Golden Eagle Plaza, an assisted living facility next to Eagles Manor that’s linked by a skyway.

The food service at Eagles Manor, two meals daily, was prepared in a large kitchen on the building’s ground floor. A cafeteria is connected to the kitchen. Rickley said that the kitchen will be shuttered and the equipment within will be removed by the old Manor owners.

Not all residents rely on the building’s food service. Up on the fourth floor, 83-year-old Vernita Hoen was taking the news in stride. She has a “double studio,” which is two adjacent rooms linked by a doorway that Hoen shares with her partner. Her kitchen area is a bit larger and has a full-sized fridge. She’s been cooking for herself in her room.

“You just wait and see what happens,” Hoen said. “You deal with it.”

The other major shift at Eagles Manor will come as the building opens to all potential tenants. As a 55+ community, the building was tailored to senior living. Rickley said that if a resident missed a meal, there was always someone to check on them.

On the ground floor of Eagles Manor are several communal spaces. In addition to the cafeteria, there’s a bingo lounge, a small combination gym and chapel room and a large TV room. Those amenities are common for a senior living facility, but not as much in regular apartment buildings. 

Rickley wonders: What will become of his community?

“This is built on a social model, and in a social model, you need to interact,” Rickley said. “You’re a little bit more communal, and that has to be up front.”

Photo Op 

Record temperatures on Feb. 5 seemed like a distant memory last week as cold, blustery snow descended on northcentral Montana. A warming trend to more seasonal temperatures is expected this week, according to the National Weather Service.

Calling all photographers: Submit a photo for Great Falls This Week to mhudson@montanafreepress.org.

City, County at odds over TIF appointment

The Great Falls City Commission appointed former county commissioner and former state lawmaker Don Ryan to the new Super TIF Advisory Committee. Cascade County officials suggested longtime commissioner Joe Briggs join the committee to represent the county, but the city has said that the appointee must be a county employee, not an elected official.

Ryan is a part-time driver for Cascade County Aging Services, according to his application.

The new advisory committee will recommend funding projects for the city’s five tax increment financing (TIF) districts. The committee was required under a new state law that aimed to bring participation from all taxing jurisdictions, such as the county and school district, into TIF decisions. Read background on the committee here.

In October, Great Falls city commissioners approved the creation of the committee and in December appointed Great Falls Chamber CEO Ed Brown, Downtown Great Falls Director Kellie Pierce and Easterseals-Goodwill administrator Mitch Tropila to the committee. Great Falls Public Schools put forth Business Operations Director Luke Diekhans as its representative.

During the December meeting, Briggs was noted as the county’s designee, but city commissioners said at the time that they weren’t interested in appointing an elected official.

Cascade County maintains that an elected official must be the appointee. The Electric reported that a county official pointed to a law governing urban renewal districts, which Great Falls doesn’t have.

The law governing TIF advisory committees requires committees in the absence of an urban renewal district and requires membership to include “at least one representative” from the county. It doesn’t specify whether the person is elected, employed or lives in the county.

The committee requires a minimum of five members. The addition of Ryan brings the committee to that threshold.

5 Things to Know in Great Falls

Great Falls City Commissioners voted on Feb. 17 to terminate a contract with Great Falls firm L’Heureux Page Werner (LPW), which had been managing design and engineering work for upgrades to Voyagers Stadium. The termination is due to the appearance of a conflict of interest, as Tim Peterson, a principal architect at LPW, is also a director at Enbar, Inc., which owns and operates the Great Falls Voyagers. City Manager Greg Doyon said no payment had been made to LPW under the contract. A new professional services agreement must be approved before work on the stadium continues.

Downtown Great Falls saw the arrival of 34 new businesses in 2025, according to a presentation from Kellie Pierce, chair of the Downtown Development Partnership. The result was an estimated 100 jobs for the district, she added. Volunteers for downtown events and projects logged 26,895 hours over the past year.

Four Great Falls students are national qualifiers in speech and debate. Lydia Comstock, a junior at CMR, qualified in U.S. extemporaneous speaking and will make a third national appearance. Great Falls High senior Calissa Ward qualified in informative speaking for her first national appearance. Delaney Lautenschlager, a junior at Great Falls High, and Nolan Joyce, a sophomore at St. Patrick’s Academy, both qualified in congressional debate for their first national appearances. Six additional area students earned alternate spots.

Sydney Blair is stepping down as CEO of Many Rivers Whole Health after 15 years at the organization. “Our mission remains vital, and I am committed to supporting a seamless transition that positions Many Rivers Whole Health for continued success,” Blair said in a statement. Board Chair Cyndi Johnson added that the leadership transition will be “smooth and well-supported.”

A budget committee for Great Falls Public Schools has recommended that the district not seek a school funding levy from voters for the 2026-2027 school year, according to documents filed with the board of trustees. However, trustees will consider non-voted levy increases in certain special funds supporting buses, adult education, buildings and special education. Those increases would add an estimated $26.85 to the annual property tax of a $300,000 home and $53.10 for a $600,000 home. Trustees will consider a resolution for these increases during a meeting Monday evening. The agenda is here.

The post A senior home grapples with change appeared first on Montana Free Press.

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02/16/2026

Sun Prairie department plans to construct equipment building

Cascade County will grant a parcel of unused land to the Sun Prairie Volunteer Fire Department for an equipment storage building. While the commissioners support the proposal, transferring or allowing use of the land is not a straightforward move.

“It’s just amazing how complex the law can make a simple process,” County Commissioner Joe Briggs said during a meeting last week.

The volunteer fire department hopes to build a 70-foot-by-50-foot building next to its current facility off Grant Drive in Sun Prairie. The new structure would be a secure storage facility for fire engines and other equipment.

“Our board of trustees has set aside $230,000 for our building to be put up, put into place, utilities put in and to also maintain the property,” Sun Prairie Fire Chief Dereck Belz told commissioners.

The department requested use of a small parcel within a 9.2-acre county park, which is maintained by the public works department. The building wouldn’t affect the existing basketball court and picnic tables.

Counties have several options for transferring property to “political subdivisions,” which in this case is the fire department. They include a lease agreement, a title transfer or an easement. 

County planning staff said in a report that the lease option is more suited to a temporary land use, and the fire department intends to use the parcel indefinitely. A fee title transfer would require the county to follow subdivision rules, which would come with additional planning, surveys and other preparation at a cost of “considerable tax dollars,” the report said.

Planning staff said that the easement option is the most cost-effective. The county can define boundaries, use restrictions and other guardrails for the property and vest the land-use rights with the fire department. The arrangement is similar to the sewer and water district using easements to place wells in the park, according to the report.

County commissioners voted unanimously to give staff the green light to pursue the project. A resolution passed on Feb. 11 requires the planning department to create a site plan, define property boundaries, prepare a land-use agreement and conduct any required surveys or reviews. The resolution didn’t finalize the land transfer or easement agreement but set in motion the process.

Deputy County Attorney Carey Ann Haight advised commissioners to think far ahead for potential implications for that land. If the fire department builds a permanent structure on the parcel, it could complicate a future situation in which the county needs the parkland for another use.

“This is going to be a roughly $200,000-plus improvement that’s going to be sitting on the land,” Haight told commissioners. “And so in the event that there needs to be some action by future commission with regard to these improvements, it’s perhaps going to be a little difficult with a very large expensive improvement to remedy whatever problem there may be.”

Commissioners directed staff to prepare options for land transfer in addition to simply using the land.

“Now the real work starts,” Briggs said.

Malteurop water lease under review

The Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission has approved a six-month extension to a water supply lease used by Malteurop, a malting plant on Great Falls’ north side.

Malteurop sought a 10-year extension to its water lease, which has been in place since 2004 and was last renewed in 2015 for a decade. The lease was already on a six-month extension that expires at the end of February.

Malteurop pays $500,000 per year for 1,936 acre-feet per year of water from Giant Springs. The water is pumped through pipes below the Missouri and up the hill to Malteurop. The fee increases by 2.15% annually, according to commission documents.

During a meeting on Feb. 12, Commissioner K.C. Walsh said that $500,000 seemed low for the amount of water used. He said it’s tough to compare water leases across the state, but suggested more research into the fee and the lease term.

“We’re living in a dynamic state with water valuations,” Walsh said. “And 10 years seems like a heck of a lot of time on this.”

Joel Grosser, Malteurop’s director of operations for North America, said during the meeting that the company has worked well with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks over the years and is committed to working through this lease renewal.

An acre-foot is a unit of water volume that represents the amount of water needed to cover one acre with one foot of water. It’s about 325,851 gallons. The average household uses about 0.5 acre-feet of water per year.

Malteurop’s use of up to 1,936 acre-feet per year is non-consumptive. The plant sends the water through the city’s wastewater treatment facility for release back to the river, according to commission documents. Malteurop uses an additional 300 gallons per minute consumptively for its operations.

The fees from Malteurop’s water use go into a fisheries mitigation trust fund, which supports projects such as hatcheries, fish health initiatives, instream flow enhancement and other related projects.

This newsletter is here so you don’t have to follow every committee agenda to know what’s happening. If it helps you stay informed about Great Falls, consider becoming a monthly supporter.

5 Things to Know in Great Falls

The Great Falls Public Schools Foundation announced that Katelyn Marsik will be its next executive director. Former director Stephanie Becker is stepping down after five years. “We believe that as we enter this next chapter, the GFPS Foundation will continue to grow in meaningful ways that support students, educators, and our community,” foundation board chair Jamie Marshall’s statement said in part.

The Great Falls Public Library will hold a welcome event for new director Amy Dissmeyer Feb. 17 at 5 p.m. The event coincides with the conclusion of the Love Your Library Campaign, which solicited community love letters to the public library. The event will include desserts from local businesses and two storytime readings for children in honor of beloved community member Debbie Kuntz.

Great Falls College is seeking judges for upcoming regional science and engineering fairs. The high school and middle school fair is March 10, and the elementary school fair is March 12. Volunteers can sign up here by selecting “create account” and then “judge.” Scientific expertise is not necessary.

Interim Park and Recreation Director Jessica Compton will present a department update to city commissioners during a work session Feb. 17. The presentation will include discussions about the Aim High Big Sky recreation center and the ongoing fee study and department review. The work session begins at 5:30 p.m. on the second floor of the Civic Center.

A former U.S. Postal Service employee working in Bainville pleaded guilty to misappropriating postal funds by issuing herself more than 30 money orders worth more than $1,000. Court documents say that Danielle M. Harms also admitted to taking money from the post office till. She told authorities that she used the money for “things like rent.” Sentencing is set for June 18 in U.S. District Court in Great Falls.

The post Sun Prairie fire department seeks county land appeared first on Montana Free Press.

In 2020, a northcentral Montana hemp crop was harvested, beginning a trial run by two Montana companies to produce clothing without the material ever leaving the United States.

When the shirt finally went to market last year, it was proof of a concept that had long since moved overseas.

Hemp is often held up as a versatile crop with all sorts of applications: fabrics, home insulation, even edible seed oils, to name a few. But it was illegal to grow or distribute hemp in the U.S. for nearly a century until 2018 when Congress lifted federal restrictions on the marijuana-adjacent plant. So, when a Fort Benton hemp processor and a Great Falls-based apparel company sought to make a line of U.S.-made hemp shirts, they had to scrap together a supply chain to make it happen.

“Honestly, it was just: Can we do it? Because it hadn’t happened in, arguably, 100 years,” Morgan Tweet, co-founder and CEO of IND Hemp, told Montana Free Press. “No one had grown [hemp] fiber and been able to process it to a quality that they were able to spin with in the U.S.”

IND Hemp was formed in 2018 and started producing hemp seed oils from regionally grown crops for various food applications. But hemp-based textiles, known for their sturdiness, were on the company’s radar, and after two years of planning, IND started up its fiber production line in 2022.

It was around that time that Great Falls-based apparel company Smith and Rogue approached IND with a proposal. The brand is an offshoot of the North 40 Outfitters chain of farm and outdoors supply stores, which is also based in Great Falls and has 12 stores across the northwestern United States.

Smith and Rogue already had hemp-based clothing lines, but those were produced internationally. Brandon Kishpaugh, apparel merchandiser at Smith and Rogue, was interested in the possibility of a clothing line that didn’t leave American borders.

“We saw there was a demand for a more durable, more sustainable, higher quality fiber,” Kishpaugh said. “And now it’s how do we get it sourced in the U.S.?”

It was a stroke of luck that a hemp fiber processor opened up less than an hour away in Fort Benton. But that was just one early step in a long manufacturing chain.

FROM PROHIBITION TO PRODUCTION

Despite being illegal for much of the 20th century, hemp is intertwined with American history. Grown by founding fathers like Thomas Jefferson, it was seen not only as a reliable crop but also a source of domestic pride amid boycotts of British goods during the American Revolution.

Hemp is a sibling of marijuana, although modern hemp has tiny levels of the psychoactive chemical that’s sought in the recreational drug. But the two were the same in the eyes of Congress, which passed a prohibitive tax in 1937 that outlawed both plants. Aside from a brief U.S. government push for hemp-based rope, parachutes and water hoses during World War II, industrial hemp production shuttered in America for the rest of the century.

The Montana Legislature legalized the cultivation of industrial hemp in 2001, but it didn’t spark a green rush. It wasn’t until 2009 that the state issued its first industrial hemp license to a Bozeman medical marijuana business. 

Like medical marijuana, hemp remained federally prohibited and languished in jurisdictional purgatory. Montana’s hemp licenses included language that warned about the plant being federally illegal, and the DEA declined at first to recognize Montana’s industrial hemp law. Another licensed hemp farmer near Helena saw her crops die in 2017 because she couldn’t get access to federally controlled water.

Congress relaxed its stance in 2018 and lifted the restrictions on industrial hemp through that year’s farm bill, and Montana farmers harvested 2,400 acres of hemp in 2024, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That makes Montana a middling state for hemp production, beaten out by larger producers such as South Dakota, Texas and California.

The prohibition is gone (at least for now), but over the preceding decades, the institutional knowledge around hemp production largely disappeared in the United States. In addition, American textile manufacturing of all kinds witnessed precipitous declines around the turn of the century.

Sofi Thanhauser, author of the book “Worn: A People’s History of Clothing,” told MTFP that prolonged prohibition made it difficult for hemp to return to American clothing manufacturing. What was left of the industry centered mostly on cotton. Hemp was more like a niche material, sometimes more difficult to process, and U.S. companies weren’t equipped to handle it.

“Over time, that infrastructure has disappeared,” Thanhauser said. “And so it’s really hard for companies who want to do supply chains in the U.S., because a lot of the time the equipment and expertise is not here.”

IND’s main fiber-processing equipment was manufactured in France, where a stable European hemp industry has existed. The Fort Benton plant is dedicated to a process called decortication, which separates the outer fiber material, called bast, from the hemp straw’s woody core, called hurd. The machines are massive and can process five tons per hour.

After hemp cultivation became federally legal in 2018, Tweet said lots of people started growing the plant. Few were getting into fiber processing.

“We are still always optimizing our line,” Tweet said. “But there’s not a playbook. You can’t really call up a company and say, ‘We want to make hemp fiber for T-shirts’ and they say, ‘I’ve got you covered.'”

THE SHIRT

Smith and Rogue’s test run for an American-manufactured line of clothing was limited — initially, 239 men’s work shirts. Kishpaugh said he focused on a shirt for this experimental run because it was something his New York sewing contractors could work with.

“I wanted to go with something very heritage, very workwear,” he said. “I knew our factory could execute.”

The result was the Benton work shirt, a $150 piece of clothing made from a blend of IND’s Montana-grown hemp fibers and cotton grown in Arizona. The raw fibers traveled from Fort Benton and Arizona to North Carolina to be refined and blended. The material was then sent to another North Carolina company for spinning before heading to South Carolina for weaving. The fabric was finished in Georgia before being trucked to New York City for cutting and sewing.

The difficult part wasn’t finding the companies to work with, because there are few players in American textiles. The challenge was convincing some of the companies to fit a small run of hemp-based material into their schedules.

“We were able to piece this thing together, which made it very costly,” Tweet said. “The fiber moved probably 10 more times than it had to, and freight is your biggest enemy in all these things.”

More than 97% of clothing sold in the United States is made overseas. The efficiencies of overseas production lie in scale, labor costs and experience in making modern clothing. But there are many examples of exploitative or dangerous conditions for the workers who meet the demands of a quick-turn, affordable fashion industry.

While smaller operations are coming online in the United States, some parts of the process require highly specialized equipment that startups may not be able to afford.

“It’s things like the spinning mill that turns the fiber into thread that is hugely capital-intensive and involves huge, complicated machines,” author Thanhauser said. “And also the weaving, the spinning mills. You can’t, as a small business, just buy a couple of those.”

For the Benton shirt, nearly every step required a different company. That affected the cost of the final product, but it also cost time. When Kishpaugh received a prototype in the fall of 2024 that didn’t fit right, fixing the issue meant going back through multiple hands to refine the shirt.

The Benton shirt may have debuted early in 2025, but a shipment of finished fabric went missing en route to New York City. The roll of textiles — one of the first domestic hemp fabric runs since prohibition that was painstakingly coordinated across multiple states — vanished and hasn’t been found.

“So there’s 600 yards of this historic fabric that’s warehoused somewhere,” Tweet said.

The process was once again delayed, but thankfully, there was enough additional fabric to resume production.

Smith and Rogue debuted the shirt in December, both online and in its affiliated retail stores, along with a marketing plan to showcase the effort put into it.

“You can’t just put it on the rack,” Kishpaugh said. “If you don’t know what it is, it’s just going to look like another button-up shirt. And then you look at the price tag.”

The $150 price reflects the costs of the USA manufacturing chain, Kishpaugh said, adding that Smith and Rogue’s margin isn’t as strong on this shirt as some of the company’s other clothing made overseas. He said there is a segment of consumers who respond to marketing about a USA-made shirt, even at that price.

“That is hard for some people to come to grips with,” he said. “This is $150, and this is why. We have to pay for all those other touch points.”

LINKS IN THE SUPPLY CHAIN

The hemp for the Benton shirt run was grown in 2020 at a Meissner family farm north of Fort Benton. The fiber material was part of a crop primarily meant for other products IND was producing at the time. 

“What we probably didn’t appreciate then that we most certainly do now is how much agronomic impacts and the variables that happen in the field affect the finished quality,” Tweet said.

Those factors are numerous. The variety of hemp chosen, planting density, harvest timing, soil microbes and annual precipitation all influence the crop’s suitability for textile production. There are some quality factors that Tweet can control at the Fort Benton processing plant. But if a bad crop comes in, that’s what they have to work with.

It took years to refine that process to routinely receive higher-quality hemp fibers, Tweet said. The ability to use those early 2020 crops for a shirt that was released in late 2025 was a proof of concept. Today, IND has more consistent quality fibers for use in textiles.

“No one has at scale been able to decorticate and get fibers to a point that they can be spun,” Tweet said. “Maybe it’s a reach to make that claim, but I am hard pressed to find something else.”

Plans for the second-generation Benton shirt are underway, Kishpaugh said. He hopes to scale up the process to produce larger quantities and a wider range of clothing, including outerwear and pants. He said the experience gained from producing the Benton shirt could help bring costs down a bit, but Kishpaugh and Tweet said a hybrid model is also a good avenue for Montana hemp.

“We have good factories overseas that we work with,” Kishpaugh said. “And if we can get the hemp to them, they’re set up to do the bibs, jackets. Now we’re just using American-sourced hemp versus overseas hemp.”

The constraints of cost and scale still limit growth in domestic manufacturing.

“Will there always be these opportunities to promote a full domestic supply chain? Absolutely,” Tweet said. “But they’re never going to be able to serve the larger demand to get it into everyone’s closet.”

The post The American-made hemp shirt experiment appeared first on Montana Free Press.

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02/09/2026

The Great Falls Development Alliance has proposed extending the term of an industrial tax increment financing district and requested that the city of Great Falls issue bonds to help complete the district’s buildout.

GFDA has managed and developed the AgriTech Park on Great Falls’ east end, and in 2013, the city approved a tax increment financing (TIF) district to help develop the utilities and infrastructure to attract businesses. 

Great Falls has five TIF districts. They are mechanisms set up by the city to jump-start development as the TIF captures increases in tax revenue to pay off capital expenses and fund improvements, specifically for each district.

GFDA has spent a little over $4.5 million to develop infrastructure in the AgriTech Park, according to a presentation to city commissioners last week from GFDA CEO Brett Doney. Eight businesses have purchased lots and are operating in the park, including Pacific Steel, Ponderosa Solutions and a nearly completed building for Admiral Beverage.

The first business to build in the AgriTech Park, oilseed producer Montana Specialty Mills, started in 2017. Doney said that development in the heavy industrial park was slower than the organization had hoped. Growth in property tax values in the district is primarily used to pay off GFDA’s infrastructure investments. Because growth has been slow, the amount available to repay that debt has been less than expected. The organization still has about $1.6 million to pay off from the $4.5 million spent on development.

The TIF district is set to expire in 2028. If that happens, Doney said that GFDA doesn’t expect to recoup that remaining balance through routine TIF reimbursements.

At the same time, Doney said GFDA hopes to pursue another $1.6 million in new infrastructure improvements that will help make the vacant sites more marketable. There are still several sites for sale in the AgriTech Park, and GFDA is working on various prospects, Doney said.

“Having a park with as shovel-ready as possible sites makes you much more competitive,” he said. “And these days we’re getting requests for information through the state and through our own lead-generation resources several times per month.”

So, Doney proposed extending the TIF district and for the city to issue an estimated $3.2 million in bonds to pay off the balance from previous developments and to invest in the next phase of infrastructure — usually water, sewer and stormwater systems. The bond debt would be paid off over time from the extended TIF district, according to the proposal.

The city commission doesn’t yet have a formal proposal to consider. Some commissioners expressed skepticism about extending a TIF that keeps potential property tax revenue within the district rather than the city’s general fund. In general, TIF districts have set terms so that at the end of that term, a revitalized district can release a fresh wave of property tax revenue to local governments.

And when city officials are eyeing a potential new public safety levy, it’s understandable to look at the tax revenue that is being left on the table.

“It puts pressure on us to have a successful levy,” Commissioner Joe McKenney said. “So what can we do? When do we call it good? When do we say this TIF district is successful?”

The market value of all property in the AgriTech Park TIF has grown 9.3% since 2020, according to city data. Property in the downtown TIF has grown 24% in that time. The Great Falls International Airport, which is also developing light industrial lots, has seen its market value grow 81% since 2020.

Summer construction coming to Central Avenue

A stormwater improvement project was originally expected to take place in downtown alleys, but an updated plan means crews will tear up portions of Central Avenue this summer.

City engineers told Great Falls city commissioners Feb. 3 that the project will now replace storm drains on Central from Second Street to Fourth Street, as well as replacements to storm drains on adjacent Second Street, Fourth Street and Fifth Street. At the same time, crews will replace the water main on Central and reconstruct the affected roadways.

This is part of a long-term, multi-phase improvement plan. Last year’s work on First Avenue South and Third Street was the previous phase.

The original plans for the upcoming phase called for installing larger storm drains in the alleys on the north side of Central. But engineering studies showed that the alleys are clogged with a complex network of utility lines that could have made the work costly and difficult.

“The alleys are very congested,” Josh Sommer, a contract engineer with Great West, told commissioners.

So the project was revised and moved to Central Avenue, which already had a water main replacement scheduled for the future.

City officials said construction won’t interfere with Fourth of July events and that crews will work in half-block increments. Pedestrian access to businesses will remain open throughout the process, officials said. The work is expected to begin this summer and be done in the fall.

Photo Op 

Take a moment and pause on this calming Great Falls sunrise, taken from the reporter’s backyard on Dec. 31, 2025.

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New parking fees confined to Central Avenue

The Great Falls City Commission has approved increases to parking fees and fines, a change that’s meant as a temporary measure while a more permanent parking system is discussed.

The approved ordinance eliminates the city’s courtesy parking program, which offered free parking spots in front of businesses that paid a fee. 

A separate resolution also approved by commissioners increases the hourly parking fee from $1 to $1.50 on Central Avenue only. This differed from the original proposal, which was an increase to $1.50 throughout downtown, because the city found that the coin-operated parking meters couldn’t be upgraded to accommodate the new rate. Parking along Central is paid for via the Passport app or at curbside kiosks.

The resolution also increased fines and eliminated the free first ticket, replacing it with a $10 fine. Second-time violations went from $5 to $20. Third-time violations went from $10 to $40 and fourth and subsequent violations went from $20 to $75. The new fines impact parking anywhere in the downtown district.

The new fee and fine structure is estimated to raise around $14,620 monthly and shore up a growing deficit in the parking fund, which has been losing between $15,000 and $20,000 each month. As of January, the fund was at a deficit of about $93,000.

The vote on the fee adjustment resolution was 4-1, with Commissioner Casey Schreiner against. He said that he wanted to see a broader public benefit demonstrated in the fee changes. Ongoing meetings of a so-called “parking summit” have largely included downtown business owners and residents.

“I do think in general we’re using general tax dollars to conduct our business, so I think it’s a broader scope of folks who need to be part of the conversation,” Schreiner said at the Feb. 3 meeting.

Other commissioners voted in favor, albeit while holding their noses. Commissioner Rick Tryon said that this wouldn’t be his pick for a long-term parking fee structure and said that any system that runs at a deficit would be unacceptable.

A new plan for a permanent parking system is expected before an April 30 deadline.

Blood contamination lawsuit expanded

A lawsuit filed against a food service provider at the Cascade County Detention Center has expanded.

The case, originally filed in December, alleges that a food preparer had a bloody nose and contaminated food with blood. That preparer was positive for hepatitis C, according to the lawsuit. When the contamination was found in the kitchen, supervisors from Summit Correctional Services ordered the food to go out for service, saying that inmates could “scoop around” the blood, the lawsuit alleges.

At least three inmates have since tested positive for hepatitis C for the first time. 

The lawsuit originally had 27 plaintiffs. They were inmates who were served the contaminated food. The lawsuit has now expanded to 92 inmates, according to an amended complaint filed Jan. 30.

The lawsuit now also names two supervisors from the food service contractor. It alleges that Tasha Cummins prohibited food line workers from disposing of the contaminated food and that Joy Smith, who supervised Cummins, learned of the contamination but failed to take action.

Neither Smith nor Cummins was the person with the bloody nose who caused the contamination.

Cummins and Smith were added as defendants in the lawsuit alongside Summit Correctional Service (also known as Summit Food Service). Cascade County and the sheriff’s office are not defendants at this time. Summit has not filed a response in the lawsuit, which is being heard in U.S. District Court in Great Falls.

Hepatitis C is more commonly transmitted through breaks in the skin or sharing needles, not through eating a contaminated item. 

An attorney in the case told MTFP in January that the inmates believe they contracted hepatitis C through “open cuts and sores” rather than ingesting the food.

5 Things to Know in Great Falls

The Great Falls City Commission declined to vote on ordering box seats for the Voyagers baseball stadium due to the appearance of a conflict of interest. Great Falls firm LPW Architecture was contracted for design work and coordinated the seat order. Tim Peterson, a principal architect at LPW, is also a director at Enbar, Inc., which owns and operates the Great Falls Voyagers. The issue was first raised by Commissioner Rick Tryon, and no vote was taken on the seat order during the Feb. 3 meeting.

A Great Falls team has won a Congressional App Challenge for school students. Lily Kirkaldie, Charlie Kotthoff and Danica Sabo of the team Great Falls Starbase won in Montana’s second congressional district with their app, “Cursive Create.” The app helps teach cursive writing, according to a press release. The winners participate in 

Girls Code United, the organization that announced the awards.

The Montana School for the Deaf and the Blind Foundation received a $250,000 gift from the Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation and Modern Machinery. The money will refresh campus housing through the “Cottage Refresh Project,” according to an announcement. The living quarters haven’t been updated since 1983.

The season-bucking temperature of 70 in Great Falls on Feb. 5 tied the all-time high record, which has been hit three times since 1891, according to KRTV meteorologist Erik Johnson. The Feb. 4 high temperature of 63 was a record for that date. The National Weather Service predicts more seasonable weather this week.

The family, friends and community of Juanita Lacanilao Rosales celebrated her 100th birthday this past weekend. According to Tony Rosales, who announced the milestone, Juanita has lived in Great Falls for 70 years, worked as a nurse and has been an active member of the church. Happy birthday!

The post GFDA: AgriTech Park requires cash infusion to build out appeared first on Montana Free Press.

Community members urged Great Falls officials to take action in response to federal immigration enforcement during a Tuesday evening meeting of the city commission, which has not indicated any plans to take up the topic.

Most of the commenters expressed concern about the tactics of federal authorities, particularly in Minnesota, where agents shot and killed two residents during demonstrations.

“What we are seeing both nationally and right here at home is a system that fails to protect people from real harm while aggressively punishing people who pose no threat at all,” said Valynda Holland of Great Falls.

Others called on city leaders to take steps that would restrict local authorities from assisting federal immigration enforcement or from entering into formal agreements with those agencies.

Marci Wolff, another Great Falls resident who said she was a veteran and identified as a person of color, spoke about the fear that nonwhite people have experienced, no matter their documentation status. Numerous reports have documented federal agents detaining U.S. citizens during public demonstrations and in raids of private homes.

“I hope that this city would protect me and everybody, no matter what race you are,” Wolff said.

Many commenters referred to a resolution passed by the Helena City Council, which last week approved a measure saying the city would not enter into any formal agreement with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Those agreements, known as 287(g), are currently in place between federal agencies and the Montana Department of Justice, as well as sheriff’s offices in Flathead, Gallatin and Garfield counties. They allow local authorities to conduct or assist with limited immigration enforcement. 

The Helena resolution also affirmed that local police wouldn’t stop someone based on their suspected immigration status and that the city wouldn’t disclose a person’s place of birth unless required by a court order. Missoula officials are reportedly considering a similar resolution.

While most speakers decried current immigration actions, some community members approached the podium Tuesday in support of federal enforcement.

“The people we are talking about with this are people who broke the law when they crossed the border,” said Rose Stone of Great Falls. “That’s a law. People who are concerned about ICE, just stay out of their way.”

The stream of public comments was orderly, though some anticipated a disruptive atmosphere after a social media dust-up in the days before the meeting. On Jan. 31, Great Falls Mayor Cory Reeves posted on Facebook after he learned that a group was preparing to comment on immigration enforcement at the upcoming meeting.

“The commission has zero control over federal immigration enforcement or incidents that happen in other cities or states. We cannot direct, influence, or change those actions,” Reeves’ post said in part. “Public comment at commission meetings is not a free-for-all to hijack a meeting for unrelated political protests.”

The preemptive reprimand about how residents could comment at a public meeting drew a social media rebuke from another commissioner, Casey Schreiner.

“In America you get to tell your government your thoughts, ideas, and concerns,” Schreiner posted on Feb. 1. “I support everyone’s right to come to the city commission and speak your mind regarding our local government’s current or potential future actions.”

Mayor Reeves’ Facebook post included a screenshot of an email sent by Gerry Jennings, a longtime local activist. Jennings sent an email to friends and supporters urging them to “express their displeasure” with federal enforcement. The screenshot posted by Reeves included Jennings’ personal phone number.

Jennings was among the speakers at Tuesday’s commission meeting. She said it’s within the city’s jurisdiction to outline how it might or might not participate in federal enforcement. She also spoke briefly about her phone number being publicly posted by the mayor.

“That is available for anyone to see and anyone to use,” Jennings said. “Is this legal? I can’t answer that question. Is this ethical? Absolutely not.”

Local jurisdictions, like cities and states, have grappled with their roles of authority as the Trump administration has pursued aggressive immigration enforcement priorities. This has been acutely felt in Minneapolis, where local authorities are pushing for involvement in investigations over the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti and looking to maintain public safety amid the turmoil.

Local legislative bodies have reacted in many ways, from an immigrants’ rights resolution in Edmonds, Washington, to an official statement of solidarity with Minneapolis approved in Prairie Village, Kansas.

In Minnesota on Tuesday, the Minneapolis City Council delayed decisions to renew liquor licenses for hotels that have hosted federal immigration authorities.

While immigration enforcement in Montana is different from the acute surges taking place in Minnesota, local law enforcement in this state has been involved in numerous federal arrests. The 2025 arrest of Beker Rengifo Del Castillo started with a traffic stop by Whitefish police. The town’s police chief said last year that U.S. Customs and Border Protection arrived after local officers reported the stop to dispatch. The man sued the police department over alleged racial profiling.

Helena officers were involved in the high-profile arrest of Christopher Martinez Marvan, who was arrested and detained last summer. Martinez Marvan also sued and alleged that his initial traffic stop was based on racial profiling.

In Great Falls, law enforcement officials have said that involvement in immigration enforcement doesn’t happen often, but there are interactions. A year ago, authorities arrested Jose Duran Valdivias, a citizen of Mexico, after Great Falls police detectives took pictures of Duran Valdivias’ ID card during an investigation and shared information with a Homeland Security agent. He pleaded guilty to illegal reentry and was placed in ICE custody last summer.

The Cascade County Detention Center is a regional holding center for immigration detainees through a contract with the federal government. The number of detainees can vary and is typically a dozen or fewer. On Wednesday, the jail roster included five people labeled as “immigration inmate.”

Local law enforcement interactions with immigration authorities are much more common in Hi-Line communities, where Border Patrol agents are more active along the Canadian border. If those arrests lead to criminal charges, many of the cases are heard at the U.S. District Court in Great Falls. 

One case moving through that courthouse is that of Roberto Orozco-Ramirez, a Froid father who ran an automotive shop for years and was arrested last month. Court documents indicate that federal authorities, not local law enforcement, initiated that arrest, though the case spurred the Roosevelt County sheriff to post on Facebook that Orozco-Ramirez posed no danger to the community.

Court records for multiple cases describe arrests initiated through interactions with the Toole County Sheriff’s Office, the Havre Police Department, the Cut Bank Police Department and the Rocky Boy Police Department, among others.

This story was updated on Feb. 9, 2026, to attribute a quote to Rose Stone. The original version of this story mistakenly attributed the quote to another person.

In-depth, independent reporting on the stories impacting your community from reporters who know your town.

The post Great Falls residents call on city commission to act in response to immigration crackdowns appeared first on Montana Free Press.

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02/02/2026

Child care center eyes next chapter

Contractors, board members and other community partners of Toby’s House Crisis Nursery held a groundbreaking ceremony on Jan. 28 for its new building.

The child care nonprofit is in the middle of construction on a 5,000-square-foot building at Second Street and Seventh Avenue South. The building will allow Toby’s House to expand its capacity, which is currently licensed for about a dozen children. The project has been supported through donated labor, materials and financial gifts, including $500,000 from Jimmy and Debbie Filipowicz.

“That speaks a lot to this community,” Scott Dunbar, a project manager with Walsh Group, said at the ceremony last week.

The temperate winter has been favorable to construction, and Dunbar said they will be working throughout the season. Toby’s House Executive Director Leesha Ford said they hope to open in summer 2026.

Toby’s House is a no-cost, drop-in child care facility that serves parents who need short-term care and can’t afford traditional daycare. It opened in 2020 and currently operates out of a renovated home along Fifth Street in downtown Great Falls. The facility has been at or near capacity in recent months, Ford told Montana Free Press.

In 2025, Toby’s House services increased significantly compared to the previous year, Ford said. The facility nearly doubled the number of meals served to children and saw 1,829 visits last year, up from 849 in 2024.

Read MTFP’s feature story about Toby’s House here.

Photo Op 

Chunks of ice moved at a quick pace along the Missouri River during a Jan. 23 visit to Fort Benton.

Calling all photographers: Submit a photo for Great Falls This Week to mhudson@montanafreepress.org.

Verbatim

“The community responded more than I ever thought. They’re giving us help I didn’t know we needed.”

— Roberto Orozco Lazcano, an 18-year-old freshman at Williston State College, speaking outside a Great Falls courthouse last week

Orozco Lazcano made the trip to Great Falls last week in support of his father, 42-year-old Roberto Orozco-Ramirez, who was arrested by U.S. Border Patrol in January for being in the country illegally. An initial hearing for Orozco-Ramirez was held Jan. 28 in U.S. District Court.

Orozco Lazcano wasn’t alone. A group of family and community members also made the trip from Froid, a small northeast Montana community where Orozco-Ramirez has lived for more than a decade and runs an automotive repair shop. They expressed frustration that the Trump administration’s avowed immigration enforcement against the “worst of the worst” ensnared a father of four with no criminal history in Froid.

Read the full story from MTFP reporter Nora Mabie.

5 Things to Know in Great Falls

Gov. Greg Gianforte toured classrooms for trade programs at Great Falls College MSU last week. He stopped at the welding building, spoke with instructors of a flooring program and sat behind the wheel of a driving simulator that’s part of the commercial driver’s license program. Montana Office of Public Instruction Superintendent Susie Hedalen was also along for the visit.

During another stop on his Great Falls visit, Gianforte and Lt. Gov. Kristen Juras honored Norma Smith with a Spirit of Montana award. Smith had a long career in media that included work in New York and Montana, where she hosted thousands of episodes of “Today in Montana” for KRTV in Great Falls. Smith was named Television Broadcaster of the Year in 1985 and in 2010 and was the second woman inducted into the Montana Broadcasters Hall of Fame, according to a release from the governor’s office.

Jeremiah Johnson Brewing announced that it will pursue a production facility and tasting room in one of the industrial condos being developed by the Great Falls International Airport. The project could break ground this spring, according to a video from the airport. The company has roots in Great Falls but currently only has taprooms in Whitefish and Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. This project will bring a taproom to Great Falls and support the expansion of the beer company, according to founder Jeremiah Johnson.

The Great Beyond Film Festival will hold its inaugural event Feb. 5-7. The festival is a “celebration of cinema that dares to explore the unexplained,” according to organizers. Films shown at the festival will touch on themes of the paranormal and the extraterrestrial — something that has historical roots in Great Falls. Tickets, event information and previews can be found here.

Time to update your bookmarks as the city of Great Falls has a new website and URL. The former website (greatfallsmt.net) has been replaced by www.greatfallsmt.gov. For those who like to stay updated on public meetings, the live stream page is here, and agenda documents can be found here.

The post Toby’s House breaks ground on new facility appeared first on Montana Free Press.