Remiss

Several events have conspired to reduce my posting to nearly nothing. First, there was some effort in finalizing the second issue of the print blog. Second, I have been reading "1942" by Winston Groom. It is a rare non-fiction, history book that is literally a page-turner. Third, I was away for United Way business two days last week. Fourth, it's been darn nice out.

And, last but not least, I've been working on a multimedia blogging entry about the coal plant. With a little luck, I'll have it up and running tomorrow morning.

Flashback

This is an interesting old piece. And this excerpt from the our Mayor's comment makes me wonder:

I made the comment in the context of Mr. Lawton's extreme focus on the energy deals to the neglect of basic housekeeping issues within the city.

Issue No. 2

The second issue of the offline version of this blog is done and printed. I'll start distributing it this weekend. It has pieces from a few local bloggers, as well as others whose writing does not often show up in the blogosphere.

If you want some for distribution, please email me at fallsblog@yahoo.com.

Time to start number three...

Food Stamps

The Tribune had a piece yesterday about a food writer who fed her family for a week using only food stamps. (More here.) This post is not about food stamps, although I will point out that with some effort and planning the author was able to feed her family comfortably with them.

No, what I have to comment on is the article's almost compulsive need to brag about the writer's normally elite food choices and, apparently, attitudes.

Were two references to "artisan bread" really necessary? Oh my goodness! "No more hormone-free local milk in a glass bottle." For shame!

The author first chose to shop at Aldi, "an international retailer specializing in a limited assortment of private label, high-quality products at the lowest possible prices."

She couldn't find the chicken she wanted, so "we headed to Wal-Mart, where the majority of Americans are reported to shop." Oh the poor thing. But gosh, even at Wal-Mart all they had was "boneless, skinless chicken breasts." Color me skeptical.

Since she couldn't afford "artisan bread" on food stamps, her son "argued for spongy, no-nutrition white bread — the kind he really liked — by insisting that it was more typical of what a food stamp recipient might be able to afford." Hey, cool, she's even teaching her kids to be elitist!

"But for a food writer, nutrition was not a totally negotiable point, even if money was tight. We compromised on a honey-wheat loaf, which both kids wolfed down in record time." Um, actually, plenty of families survive just fine without "artisan breads."

And you know what? "Accepting food stamps forces you to cook." No way! We need restaurant food stamps. Yeah, McDonald's food stamps. No, wait, then our poor starving people will all be fat. Can't have that.

According to the writer, she "could see the home stretch, but I can only imagine what it feels like to run out of food before the end of the week. And I hope I never have to worry that my kids are truly hungry."

Yeah, she can only imagine what it feels like to run out of food, because she fed her family on food stamps for a week with six bucks left over!

I'm sorry. I actually read some of the writer's stuff, and it's pretty good. I shouldn't be so sarcastic, but something about the whole "artisan bread" thing really stuck in my teeth (oops!).

Couple days off.

I won't be posting for a couple days as I have some rather intensive training for a charity board upon which I sit. There should be two good things when I get back.

First, issue two of the printed version should be available by tomorrow night.

Second, the public official who referred to my public records request as a "witch hunt" will be returning to town and, hopefully, will be responding to my follow-up request.

Maybe a contributor can step in while I am gone and post some interesting reading fare?

GFgirl

Who is GFgirl, the new contributor?

I don't know, but she took me up on my Homework Assignment, so I asked her to write.

How 'bout a profile? (A little more than you put on your profile profile.)

Teacher Raises

According to the Tribune, Great Falls teachers received a raise from their existing salaries. Now they will earn as follows:

First Year: $30,052.00

Second Year: $31,236.00

Top Tier: $62,366.00

I located this piece from April 2005 where there were increases to the following levels:

First Year: $28,519.00

Top Tier: $55,872.00

The best information I could find at the time was that the contracts were 205 days long. That would put the teachers' daily rates at:

First Year: $146.60, or $18.32/hr.

Second Year: $152.37, or $19.05/hr

Top Tier: $304.22, or $38.03/hr

Teacher benefits can be found here. If we annualized those salaries based on a 240 days schedule like most people work, they are:

First Year: $35,184.00

Second Year: $36,568.00

Top Tier: $73,013.00

Taking From Peter, Giving to Paul

'The (Great Falls Public Schools) board of trustees will also vote on whether members want to donate $35,000 of vending-machine money, derived from exclusive contracts with Coke and Pepsi distributors, to the Great Falls Development Authority.' (From Great Falls Tribune article, Trustees to consider increase in new-teacher pay)

Something does not seem right about this proposed donation from the school system to the GFDA. The school said they needed more money for education. The public approved a local mill levy in May and the legislature was generous toward education this session. Now the school system is so flush they have $35,000 extra to give to the GFDA. It is great that they want to be so charitable for a good cause but why not donate the money from the administrators salaries instead of taking it from taxpayers.

The GFDA has been a strong supporter of the coal plant fiasco. Many of us who are opposed to the coal plant were personal contributors to the first GFDA economic fund raiser several years ago. We will look at alternate ways to promote economic development in the future. If the school system has extra money, please return it to the taxpayers and let us decide what to do with it.

Where is the City Commission?

Why is the City Commission not helping GeeGuy get the PUBLIC documents he has requested from city staff? These people were elected by the voters of Great Falls to represent ALL Great Falls citizens, not just the "staff".

According to Mayor Stebbins "...we ARE the ones making the decisions, popular or not. Mr Lawton is our EMPLOYEE, and carries out the policies decided upon by the Commissioners."
(http://ecityblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/mayor-stebbins)

A couple of possibilities:

1. Mr. Lawton and others are carrying out the policies decided upon by the Commissioners, which is to say the City Commission has decided certain public documents should not be made public;

Or

2. The employees are not doing their jobs, in which case they should be instructed to do so or be fired. Gosh, what a concept.

Folks, this ongoing documents battle GeeGuy is fighting goes way beyond the coal plant and everything attached to it. Regardless of your position on the plant, the fact that a citizen of this city cannot get what he is rightfully entitled to, namely PUBLIC documents, should be a major concern and a red flag to all of us.

Why the stonewalling? Something stinks and I’m not talking about the dump.

Inquiry

"Negative."

"Troublemaker."

"Pot-stirrer."

"Sh*t Disturber."

Those are just a few of the names I have been called since I started this blog a couple years ago. (And the last one was from my dad!) While my criticisms may at times be pointed, I think for the most part they are fair. I understand that fair criticism is not necessarily "right," but it is essential and OK to have disagreement in a free democratic society.

It strikes me as curious, then, that so-called 'public servants' are often so resistant to any actual involvement by the citizens, despite professing (often loudly) their belief in 'open government' and 'citizen participation.' Talking the talk is common; walking the walk, not so much.

When it comes right down to it, this blog is really just three citizens' participation in their government. Asking questions, raising points that may not have been considered, criticizing decisions and locating and posting information are not bad things. Why, then, are so many officials resistant?

I know that at least one person on the City's staff has said that I am "nothing but a troublemaker." Another public employee with a different entity referred to my request for a public record as a "witch hunt," snidely suggesting that I must be low on "blogging material."

In some sense, I think the response is elitist. The great unwashed is really not competent to consider the "complexity" of many issues and so we should just leave it to our elected (and unelected) officials to lead the way. The amazing part, too, is that when these officials get their way and botch matters, they are surly and defensive.

One person commented to me about how difficult it would be to do a project like the coal plant with all the public scrutiny, including from this blog. "That's true," I replied, and suggested that this openness and scrutiny might well serve as reasons why public entities should stay out of business ventures that are typically private.

I have also learned that I should not always post right away. In all honesty, being called a trouble maker, or a witch hunter, pisses me off. The fact that the City has essentially refused to produce John Lawton's correspondence related to the coal plant pisses me off. These people do not own our government. It's ours, not theirs. If it were up to me, attitudes like that would cost them their jobs.

But it's not up to me. And those who have the ability to control 'staff' choose to ignore much.

Here's an open ended question, preferably to government officials in our town. Answer anonymously if you want. But dig deep. Despite all of your public protestations to the contrary, it's true, isn't it, that you would really just like us to butt out? We're obstacles, right?

egregia cum laude - with hysterical praise

The Tribune had a nice article recently regarding results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress. It is essentially our nation's report card and assesses student knowledge of various subject areas at grades 4, 8, and 12. We covered graduation rates here a few months ago. (Pomp and Circumstance For a Very Few)

"The report found that most of the scores that would label a student proficient on state tests don't yield that grade on the national tests. Montana was one of those states with tests that don't measure up with national tests, according to the report. (Montana State Superintendent) Linda McCulloch said what might be considered "basic" on the national test is considered "proficient" on Montana's CRT tests." (Great Falls Tribune)

I suspect that the Montana educational system decided to set lower state benchmarks so that a greater percentage of students will appear to be "Proficient" in math, reading, science, and writing compared to the rest of the nation. This inflated approach to education does not really help our kids.

When I was in school, you either learned the material in each class and obtained a passing grade or you did not. Grades meant something. It was fairly simple. If you did not pass you had to retake the class in the summer and if you did not pass that you were held back a grade. If you were held back a grade you were considered dumb. That put a fair amount of pressure on the not so smart kids. No one wanted to be publicly declared dumb so these kids usually stepped up their classwork and did the work to pass the class. That system worked fairly well as students had to work hard and actually learn the material to avoid being held back. In order to pass the class, the student needed to change, the class requirements did not.

It turns out, there are no dumb kids anymore. We now have tiered classes; basic and advanced for example. In truth, basic means barely acceptable and advanced means average. Yes, most kids are actually average. Average has become a dirty word it seems. In many classes today it is not uncommon that a third of the children are placed in the 'Honors' class or are considered 'Gifted' Personally I think 'gifted' should be reserved for people who are incredibly smart regardless of disability (i.e. Stephen Hawking) not a dozen of your kid's 5th grade reading class.

Kids are smarter now (just ask them) and as proof, look at their grades. Do you think any of the kids in the Advanced-Gifted-Honors class would ever receive a 'C" grade? No way. These geniuses deserve higher grades. Every student needs to pass and every student needs to feel good about their grade regardless of achievement it seems. I think that teachers get pressure from parents and administrators to give higher grades in order to pass along marginal students. Students are getting more A's than 10 years ago. A+, A, or A- grades were given to 36% of college bound seniors taking the SAT in 1996, compared to 43% of similar college bound students in 2006. Overall grade averages also increased in these groups; 1996 (3.21 average) vs. 2006 (3.33).

Grades are up but performance is down however in some areas. From the National Report Card on 12 grader reading performance, 'With the exception of the score for students performing at the 90th percentile, declines were seen across most of the performance distribution in 2005 as compared to 1992.'

So smart kids may be getting a little smarter (and more attention) but other students are just being allowed to pass along with unearned higher grades and less performance. The outcome of this grade inflation is that a high school diploma does not mean as much as it used to and does not necessarily even assure the student is literate. 'A report released in March 2006, that looked at the reading skills of college-bound students who took the ACT college entrance exam found that only 51 percent were prepared for college-level reading.'

So how do Montana students actually perform in national testing compared to the rest of the nation? State Superintendent Linda McCulloch said the comparison between state and national tests isn't accurate. "When it comes to ACT, SAT, standardized tests or national tests, McCulloch said Montana students do well. We're consistently at the top of all of those tests," she said."

More inflation. In truth, Montana students are actually above average on national tests but not what I would call "consistently at the top". In 2006, Montana ranked 23rd for Average SAT score and 14th for Average ACT score. (Also see NAEP scaled scores for various subjects.)

Montana's educational system does not need to artificially lower the benchmarks in order to look better. It is equivalent to lowering the hoop in basketball. Our test scores indicate we are above average compared to other states. Lets be honest and call a 'B minus' a 'B minus'. We are not quite "gifted" yet.

Offline Blog

Whew. I am almost done with the second issue of the offline blog.

I plan to run a tabloid size this time with newsprint instead of glossy paper. So far it will be comprised of 8 pages. I have had so much content submitted, I only wrote one small piece.

The content is varied and interesting. I will let you know when it's available.

Thanks for reading!

A Homework Assignment (for anyone who will take it)

Our friend Hawkeye posted a comment a few days ago that has been bothering me. He quoted Mayor Stebbins from an old post: "And Hawkeye, we ARE the ones making the decisions, popular or not. Mr Lawton is our EMPLOYEE, and carries out the policies decided upon by the Commissioners."

If I had time (and I don't) I would go back through the City Commission meetings for the last year or two. And I would look at all the things the City Commission voted on.

Then I would try to determine how many of these issues/matters/resolutions/ordinances originated with an elected Commissioner and how many originated with staff.

Anyone have some time on their hands?

Water Credit: A Little More Info...

It is no surprise to anyone following the whole coal plant debacle that the City of Great Falls has mortgaged city water rights to SME to subsidize Electric City Power sales. In other words, the price of power to some of ECP's customers has been artificially reduced because the City is paying for almost 14% of these customers' power bills.

This was originally discussed by City Manager John Lawton in a September 21, 2004, Agenda Report. In discussing the first power purchase contract with SME, our City Manager said: "Part of the deal with SME will be to exchange a low price for electricity now for future consideration for water for the Highwood Station generating plant. We will work out the details later, but this approach is necessary to give us rates that are as close as possible to SME’s other wholesale customers. That price differential will be offset in the future, on a dollar for dollar basis, by lower raw water prices SME will pay the City."


"Necessary to give us rates that are as close as possible to SME’s other wholesale customers" That's an interesting way to put it. Especially in light of the City's statements since then. City representatives have been touting the success of Electric City Power (see, for example, here) claiming that it has been providing customers with great rates, great service, yada, yada, yada.

Well, not really. You see, all that really happened is this: SME went out and purchased 5 MW of power from PPL Montana at their basic rate. Then the City told SME that if it would re-sell that 5 MW to Electric City Power for $5.70 mWh less, the City will pay SME back later.


Doubt me? Here's the agreement:

Let's pretend I am Bill Gates. I go out and buy 10,000 Chevrolet Corvettes at the market price. Then I go tell XYZ Auto that I will sell them those Corvettes for $60,000.00 each, but they only need to pay me $500.00 today. The remaining $59,500.00 will be paid to me later.

XYZ Auto puts an ad in the paper, and offers 10,000.00 Corvettes for sale for a mere $500.00. They sell like hotcakes. XYZ has $5,000,000.00 in the bank and runs around telling everyone that they are the greatest car dealers in all of history. They sold 10,000 Corvettes in a day and saved their customers over $59,000.00 apiece.

Woo hoo.

Sure, there's the little thing about the $59,500.00 per car that they still owe, but hey, they get to use assets that belong to other people to pay that back, right?

Would you accept that line of reasoning?

Do you accept that line of reasoning?

Chamber of Commerce

The next time your favorite legislator claims to be "pro-business," you might want to take a look at this.

A second, full-time job...Pt. 5

I previously wrote about requests for information from the City of Great Falls. I received two responses this morning from the City Clerk. The first one is a little difficult to follow because she responded in the body of the email. Like she did, I will color my email blue, and her responses red:

Hi Peggy,

Thanks for your help on this.

Regarding the documentation for the contributions, I am not necessarily looking for what we attached to the wire transfer form. I am looking for information provided by SME to substantiate the request for payment of additional capital. For example, if you consider the March 14, 2006, contribution, we initially received a "Project Draw Request" from SME. This document contained information supporting SME's need for funds.

I am assuming that someone from SME did not simply call the City and say "we need $213,357.20," and "we need $250,000.00." Someone must have provided some documentation to support the City's contributions of over $400,000.00. I am seeking copies of that. Thanks for the clarification. I have the additional information to send you or if you want you can pick up. Please let me know your preference. After checking with Coleen on this, she noted it is likely that she received the information directly from Tim Gregori when each of the members was presented with their share of the draw request during one of the SME Board meetings and therefore no
transmittal letter exists.

Can I assume that the rules of operation and schedules of rates, charges and classifications are being refused under the City's claimed exception for preliminary drafts? Was this work in progress at the time of our inquiry, or was it started in response thereto? As you're aware, the Board is directed to consider and recommend rules from time to time. The rules of operation have been a work in progress and have yet to be compiled into a single document and formally adopted by the ECPI Board and the City Commission. The schedule of rates, while they exist in Resolution 9500 and 9648 as well as all the purchase power agreements, were not compiled into one single sheet labeled "schedule of rates." What we do have is attached. (The attachment can be found here.)

Finally, it does seem that we are getting close to completely satisfying my requests, with two exceptions. First, since I have not been through all of the materials you have provided yet, I cannot affirm they are complete. Since I know the volume of information you have, I can only imagine this is a time consuming task.

Second, I am not convinced I have been provided with a complete copy of all correspondence, emails, etc., regarding the project. Since this information is maintained by the individual departments, and since you are provided access to it only as determined by the department heads (in this case, Mr. Lawton and Ms. Balzarini), I am not sure you have the ability to produce the information in light of the department heads' failure or refusal to provide it to you. I am presently considering alternative avenues of obtaining this correspondence since it seems you and I have reached a dead end. I do not blame you for that, but neither do I believe this impasse represents a good faith effort to comply with the letter or spirit of the law by certain City officials.

Thanks again, and I look forward to hearing from you.

I responded as follows:

Hi Peggy,

Thank you for your responses. A little follow up.

First, regarding the documentation to support the City's contributions, you believe that Ms. Balzarini received the information to support the draw requests during an SME board meeting. If it was in writing, I would like copies of it. If Ms. Balzarini took notes, I would like copies of them. I am assuming that the City did not make capital contributions of over $400,000.00 without any written documentation of what those funds were used for by SME. (Editor's Note: I re-read this, and I read it incorrectly the first time. They apparently do have written documentation, and I have sent someone over to pick it up.)

Second, I asked about the rules of operation and schedules of rates, charges and classifications. You state that the Rules of Operation have been a "work in progress." Was this work in progress at the time of our inquiry, or was it started in response thereto? Also, I appreciate your reference to Resolution 9500, but I don't think the City is representing that that is its "schedule of rates, charges, and classifications" is it? As you know, such a schedule is required by state law. The reason that Resolution 9500 does not appear to be such a schedule is that it discusses one rate and is silent about classifications. Further, the rate set forth on the schedule do not match up with the exhibit you forwarded me with your email. So, it appears that we still do not have such a schedule but one will be proposed to the ECP Board very soon. Was the preparation of the schedule commenced in response to our inquiry?

Thanks for everything

I also received this response from Ms. Bourne:

I delayed responding to you until after you attended the ECPI Board meeting on Monday, and hoped you found Mr. Gregori's and Mr. Lawton's explanation of the nature of the City's ownership share of Highwood useful I am wondering if you still need for this information and if you do, if you want to modify it in any way. I will provide anything that meets the definition of public record in MCA 2-6-202 and is a City record. Your request does include documents specifically excluded in subsection C. Those items will not be provided. I look forward to any additional direction you can provide.

Peggy"

She also helpfully enclosed the language of MCA 2-6-202. I responded to her this morning as follows:

Hello Peggy,

Thank you for your response. I did find Mr. Lawton's and Mr. Gregori's presentation helpful. It raised a couple additional questions, though.

They said that the City's share of the power will be whatever is left over after the cooperatives get theirs. They also said that any City contribution for development costs over the City's eventual share (percentage-wise) will be refunded or credited to the City's account. I would like copies of any writings that evidence those two statements or relate to them. In other words, what creates the right to a share of the power, whatever it is, and what creates the right to a refund of overpaid development contracts. I am assuming we have some sort of contractual right to power and a refund, not just verbal discussions. In addition to contracts or memos creating the rights, I would like any other documents that discuss or relate to these
issues.

As far as the items that the City maintains are not public because they are "for reference purposes only, a preliminary draft, a telephone messaging slip, a routing slip, part of a stock of publications or of preprinted forms, or a superseded publication," I understand you are refusing to produce them. Can you at least identify them for me?

Thank you

Do you see why this is like a full-time job?

Electric City Power, Board Meeting, 6/4/07-Part 2

As noted below, I attended the June 4, 2007, meeting of the Electric City Power Board of Directors. The Agenda for the meeting noted that, as a part of the Executive Director's Report, there would be a "Discussion of ECPI Ordinance and Rules of Operation." Since this is an issue I had previously addressed, I looked forward to this part of the Executive Director's Report which, I learned, was to be delivered by Jordan Love, the Administrative Officer, not the Executive Director.

Mr. Love stated that when the ordinance was drafted, no one knew "what it would look like," apparently referring to the public power utility. According to Mr. Love, they did not really know at the time that the ordinance was drafted just how the utility would be operated (another moving target?) so, although he did not say so directly, I guess that is the City's justification for failure to adopt Rules of Operation in the nearly four years since the ordinance was adopted.

That, and the words "from time to time." He repeated this phrase from 5.20.080 several times. Gosh, we're only supposed to do this "from time to time," right? 4 years? That's "from time to time."

He was silent about the schedule of rates, charges and classifications which is required not only by the ordinance, but also by Montana Law. (And there's no "from time to time" exception, either.)

Of course, there was not a hint that maybe, just maybe, there was an eentsy weentsy bitsy chance that "staff" dropped the ball. Oh, no sir. Everything's fine here. And we have contracts, he said. Those are kind of like rules. But no worries, we'll "bring the proposed rules to the board in the very near future."

Then again, I received an email today from Peggy Bourne from the City of Great Falls in response to my previous request for the rules and rates. She said "The Standard Service Offer and the Optional Customer Service Contract were presented to the PSC for approval. These address the rates, billing, terminations, "rules", etc. They are included in the ECPI license information and also in the ECPI Annual Report to the PSC. "

Wait a minute. You mean that there were rules prepared in accordance with the ordinance? Why, then, did "staff" not know about it? If "staff" didn't prepare the rules for presentation to the PSC, who did?

So, either the rules required by the ordinance were prepared years ago, submitted to the PSC, and no one knew about it, or the rules have not been prepared in the last 4 years but they'll be done in the "very near future." Either "staff" didn't do what they were supposed to do, or the left hand doesn't know what the right did.

Are you sure you want these guys to run a utility?

White Paper

It's quite amazing, really. When you become a 'blogger,' pretty soon things just start to fall in your lap. People give you things if they think you might find them interesting.

Take, for instance, this "White Paper." Someone just gave this to me. It is interesting for a variety of reasons.

First of all, this is a document that was apparently prepared for the City of Great Falls' utility, Electric City Power, by its consultant, R.W. Beck. Why, then, is it marked "Confidential?" Perhaps someone should send R.W. Beck a copy of Title 2, Chapter 6 of the Montana Code.

Also of interest are the handwritten notations on the document. The first page says "Martha." Martha Cappis from Coleen Balzarini's office? Could, perchance, the handwritten notations be Ms. Balzarini's?

And, note that on the first page, R.W. Beck anticipates that ECP will have 62.5 MW of capacity from the Highwood Generating Station. Someone, though, wrote in "35-62.5." Ooops. I guess Beck spoke too soon. Maybe if ECP had a contract with SME, this number wouldn't be a "moving target."

The document goes on, on p.2, to discuss the need for "shaping services." It notes that there are other additional services that will also have a cost to ECP (add 10-15% to the cost of the power). Have these costs been included in the per MWh prices? Did anyone on the ECP board or the City Commission ask the question?

Page 3 discusses the "new customers" that ECP hopes to secure by October 1, the deadline under the "re-regulation bill." This "confidential" document is silent as to the identity of these "new customers," but the handwriting helpfully describes who they will be. First, we expect, apparently, that the "New Ethanol Plant" will buy 20MW of power from ECP. What new ethanol plant? Not the one that's been 'in the works' for 20 years, I hope. That does not seem to be a very reliable customer.

Then we have "Barrett Minerals," "Aspen Air," and "City's." Barrett Minerals is a company outside of Dillon that mines talc. Actually, Barrett Minerals has already signed up for 4MW of power. See, they told us the coal plant would help economic development by providing steady power to businesses. They just didn't tell us those businesses would be located in Dillon. (And I am pretty sure Aspen Air is in Billings.)

New Slogan: Great Falls: Economic Development Capital for the Rest of the State.

I like this language from p.4: "To what extent can the 'uncommitted' portion of the ECPI's resource commitment be balanced against the marketability of the excesses into the wholesale market? Will a wholesale marketability analysis be useful?"

Um, let me guess. R.W. Beck does "wholesale marketability analyses." A mere $60,000.00? $100,000.00?

Well, that's all I have time for tonight. As you can see, it's all so terrifically complex. Maybe someone else can read this stuff and add to the discussion.

Montgomery

I was handed this last night at the Electric City Power Board Meeting. I cannot vouch for its validity, but it sounds like there is another company out there that wants to sell us some power.

Did anyone else hear about this? If not, why not?

Since I can't figure out how to get it big enough to be legible, I'll just quote it:

Dear Mr. Lawton:

On behalf of Montgomery Great Falls Energy Partners LP, the owners of the Great Falls Energy Center, I would like to offer the City of Great Falls the opportunity to discuss any potential interest the City may have in purchasing electricity which will be generated by our facility or the opportunity to purchase an undivided interest in the facility. As you know, the natural gas fired combined cycle facility will be located in your city and will be one of the cleanest generators of electricity in the State of Montana.

We look forward to becoming a member of your community and would enjoy the opportunity to discuss the above mentioned opportunities with you.

Please feel free to contact me...

I thought this was even more interesting.

Below I posted a piece about the Great Falls Tribune's allegedly signing a Confidentiality Agreement with a local government entity whereby the Tribune would not be able to divulge certain "confidential" information. A paid employee of a public, governmental organization told me (or so I thought) that the Tribune had entered the Agreement.

After posting that, I received a comment from someone a little closer to the issue than I am. This individual raised a question about the accuracy of the post. So, to clarify, I will post a greater excerpt of the email I received from the paid employee of this public organization. I am trying to maintain some privacy about the entities involved, at least for the time being, until I found out more. Thus, the parenthetical language: "The tribune [sic] will be included if they would like, just as they were with [another quasi-governmental agency] and have been on all of our [litigation discussions] (unlike the [another political subdivision]). They entered into the confidentiality agreement and witnessed the reporting on sensitive issues."

Thus, this individual clearly stated to me that the Tribune had entered the Confidentiality Agreement. I suppose there could be a question whether the writer meant to say the Tribune entered the Agreement with the government entity represented by the writer, whether the Tribune entered the Agreement with the other "quasi-governmental agency", or whether the Tribune entered the Agreement with both entities. I interpreted the foregoing language to mean that the Tribune entered the Agreement with the government entity represented by the writer; whether that interpretation is correct or not, I think it is absolutely clear that the writer represented that the Tribune did, in fact, enter into a Confidentiality Agreement whereby the Tribune agreed to withhold stories.

So imagine my surprise when I received this comment to my earlier post. The meat of Mr. Moseman's response is here: "Similarly, no member of the Great Falls Tribune newsroom would be allowed to sign the confidentiality agreement you describe. If a newsroom employee has not honored that, I would be interested to know."

Between Mr. Moseman and the other individual who originally made the allegations, I believe Mr. Moseman.

And if the Tribune did not, in fact, sign the Confidentiality Agreement, is it appropriate for a government employee to represent to a member of the public that they did? The Tribune's alleged signing of the Confidentiality Agreement was used in an attempt to convince me that signing such Agreements is routine and should not be questioned. Was the same 'argument' used to convince board members to sign this Agreement? I think I'll keep digging.