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Teacher OK after striking bear while riding bike
NYTIMES
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: September 10, 2008
Filed at 4:24 p.m. ET

MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) -- A middle school teacher suffered some bruising and a big scratch on his back after he struck a bear while riding his bicycle to school.

Jim Litz said he was traveling about 25 mph Monday morning when he came upon a rise and spotted a black bear about 10 feet in front of him. He didn't have time to stop and T-boned the bruin.

He tumbled over the handlebars, his helmet hit the bear's back and the two went cartwheeling down the road.

The bear rolled over Litz's head, cracking his helmet, and scratched his back before scampering up a hill above the road.

Litz's wife drove by shortly after the crash and took her husband to the hospital. He hoped to be able to return to teaching science at Target Range Middle School on Friday.

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Sen. Barack Obama chats with people over a hot dog in Butte, Mont. on the Fourth of July at a picnic attended by about 1,000 people. Photo by Alexia Beckerling.

Inconvenient Truth Director Making Film About Obama, Dems in the West
Newwest.net
By Courtney Lowery
7-06-08 

As Barack Obama grilled burgers and hot dogs in Butte, Mont. this Fourth of July, Davis Guggenheim, the director of An Inconvenient Truth and his film crew were tailing the presidential candidate, filming for a project about Obama and Democrats in the West.

Jeff Zeleny has the tidbit on The New York Times The Caucus blog, reporting that the filming happened all day, at the picnic in front of the World Mining Museum and during Obama’s trip to the “richest hill on earth.”

The film will be shown in August at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

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Column: Money moved voters in most cases
By CHARLES S. JOHNSON of the Missoulian State Bureau
July 6, 2008      

HELENA - For the most part, money talked during Montana's statewide primary elections.  Candidates who spent the most money in contested primaries generally won their respective races. That's not to say that spending more money was the only reason they won, but it certainly helped.

This probably comes as no surprise, although there have been plenty of exceptions over the years.  The question is, why? Do stronger candidates attract more donations? Or does having a larger campaign war chest make someone a stronger candidate? Or, more likely, is it a combination of the two?

More important, should money play such a pivotal role in campaigns? It's unfortunate and unfair that it does, but it seems to be a political fact of life.  Money will continue to heavily influence state and national political campaigns until there are major overhauls of campaign finance laws.  Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen. Those who write the campaign finance laws benefit from them as incumbents.

The need to raise money, and lots of it, can keep many potentially good candidates from running against those capable of reeling in lots of campaign cash, particularly incumbents.  To measure the impact of money in the primary, we divided the amount of money the candidates spent in their respective races by the number of votes they received. That tells us how much they spent per vote received.

Spending the most money per vote, $2.62, was Steve Bullock of Helena, the Democratic nominee for attorney general who won a highly competitive three-way primary.  Comparisons with Bullock's two primary opponents, Mike Wheat of Bozeman and John Parker of Great Falls, weren't immediately possible. Their campaign finance reports didn't balance, so they are having to file numerous amendments with the political practices office to close out their campaigns.

Yet since it appears that Bullock spent the most money and did garner the most votes, the conclusion should stand that he spent the most per vote.

Next was Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer, who spent $2.46 per vote to easily win his three-way primary. However, neither of his opponents, William Fischer of Lakeside or Don Pogreba of Helena, spent more than $4,300 in their races. Schweitzer spent nearly $394,000.  In third place was Republican attorney general nominee Tim Fox of Helena. He spent $2.28 per vote to defeat Lee Bruner of Butte in that competitive two-way primary. Bruner was in fourth place in the spending race, investing slightly more than $2 per vote.

Roy Brown, the Republican nominee for governor, was in fifth place in dollars spent per vote. He spent more than $131,600 in his primary, or nearly $2 per vote received, in racking up an easy win. His opponent, Larry H. Steele from Great Falls, hasn't filed his final report, but had spent only a little more than $2,000 through the previous reporting period.

In sixth place was Claudette Morton, a Democratic candidate for state school superintendent from Helena. She was the statistical exception to the rule.  Morton finished last in her four-way primary, but appears to have spent the most per vote, $1.43, of the three Democratic superintendent candidates who filed reports.  Holly Raser, a Democrat from Missoula who placed second in votes, hadn't filed her closing campaign finance report by Thursday afternoon. It was due June 23.

The Democratic primary winner for state school superintendent, Denise Juneau of Helena, was seventh, spending $1.23 per vote.  There weren't contested primaries for state auditor and secretary of state. The winners of both parties' primaries automatically advance to the November election.

Both candidates for chief justice of the Montana Supreme Court, Mike McGrath and Ron Waterman, also advance to the general election. So does Justice Pat Cotter, who faces a vote on whether to retain her instead of an opponent.  These statistics are for the state races only.

When the closing primary reports are filed for Montana's federal races, they will show that the two surprise primary winners spent far less per vote than did the favorites.  Defying the theory that you need money to win elections are Bob Kelleher, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, and John Driscoll, the Democratic U.S. House winner.

Another aberration occurred in 2006 when Democratic challenger Jon Tester knocked off three-term Republican U.S. Sen. Conrad Burns, despite Burns outspending him $9.2 million to $5.6 million.

So what's the moral of this story? Money still counts in political campaigns, but not always.

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Big sky guy?  Coming to the big screen in August from Denver.

Obama Mixes Holiday And Politics In Montana
NYTIMES 
By REUTERS
Published: July 5, 2008
Filed at 4:12 p.m. ET

BUTTE, Montana (Reuters) - Democrat Barack Obama mixed presidential politics with parades and barbecue on Independence Day on Friday, celebrating his daughter's birthday with a picnic and fireworks in Montana.

Obama, concluding a week-long campaign tour focused on values and patriotism, was cheered by crowds as he watched a holiday parade and threw a picnic for supporters in Butte -- a Democratic bastion in a state that normally votes Republican in White House races.

Obama was joined by his wife Michelle and daughters Sasha and Malia, who was celebrating her 10th birthday.

"I finally told her the truth that all these fireworks and stuff are not just for her," Obama said of Malia, who was serenaded with "Happy Birthday" by crowds at the parade and the picnic.

Obama and his family sat in bleachers and watched passing floats and trucks for about an hour in the broiling sun. He apologized for not walking in the parade, a tradition for most U.S. politicians, and blamed his Secret Service protection.

"This is the first parade where I haven't walked. The problem is if we start walking the Secret Service was going to have everybody put their hands up the whole parade route," he said. "We decided that wasn't gonna be much fun for everybody."

Obama later walked along the parade route for about 25 minutes anyway, shaking hands, holding babies -- at one point he took two at a time -- and wishing supporters a happy 4th of July.

"Can't wait for the inaugural parade," Linda Beischel of Helena, who drove to Butte to see Obama, told the Illinois senator.

"It will be fun," Obama replied.

Obama will face Republican John McCain in November's presidential election. McCain took the day off.

Obama told supporters at a picnic hosted by his campaign later in the day that battling special interests, forging a policy of energy independence and revitalizing the economy were patriotic endeavors.

He praised the U.S. military for its work in Iraq and Afghanistan and said improving treatment for veterans would be a priority.

"That's how we show, on this 4th of July, our patriotism," he said.

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Public Lands:  As Logging Fades, Rich Carve Up Open Land in West
NYTIMES
By KIRK JOHNSON
October 13, 2007

WHITEFISH, Mont. — William P. Foley II pointed to the mountain. Owns it, mostly. A timber company began logging in view of his front yard a few years back. He thought they were cutting too much, so he bought the land.

Mr. Foley belongs to a new wave of investors and landowners across the West who are snapping up open spaces as private playgrounds on the borders of national parks and national forests.

In style and temperament, this new money differs greatly from the Western land barons of old — the timber magnates, copper kings and cattlemen who created the extraction-based economy that dominated the region for a century.

Mr. Foley, 62, standing by his private pond, his horses grazing in the distance, proudly calls himself a conservationist who wants Montana to stay as wild as possible. That does not mean no development and no profit. Mr. Foley, the chairman of a major title insurance company, Fidelity National Financial, based in Florida, also owns a chain of Montana restaurants, a ski resort and a huge cattle ranch on which he is building homes.

But arriving here already rich and in love with the landscape, he said, also means his profit motive is different.

“A lot of it is more for fun than for making money,” said Mr. Foley, who estimates he has invested about $125 million in Montana in the past few years, mostly in real estate.

The rise of a new landed gentry in the West is partly another expression of gilded age economics in America; the super-wealthy elite wades ashore where it will.

With the timber industry in steep decline, recreation is pushing aside logging as the biggest undertaking in the national forests and grasslands, making nearby private tracts more desirable — and valuable, in a sort of ratchet effect — to people who enjoy outdoor activities and ample elbow room and who have the means to take title to what they want.

Some old-line logging companies, including Plum Creek Timber, the country’s largest private landowner, are cashing in, putting tens of thousands of wooded acres on the market from Montana to Oregon. Plum Creek, which owns about 1.2 million acres here in Montana alone, is getting up to $29,000 an acre for land that was worth perhaps $500 an acre for timber cutting.

“Everybody wants to buy a 640-acre section of forest that’s next to the U.S. Forest Service or one of the wilderness areas,” said Plum Creek’s president and chief executive, Rick Holley.

As a result, population is surging in areas surrounding national forests and national parks, with open spaces being carved up into sprawling wooded plots, enough for a house and no nosy neighbors.

Here in Flathead County, on the western edge of Glacier National Park, the number of real estate transactions, mostly for open land, rose by 30 percent from 2003 to 2006, according to state figures. The county’s population is up 44 percent since 1990.

The United States Forest Service projects that over the next 25 years, an area the size of Maine — all of it bordering the national forests and grasslands — will face development pressure and increased housing density.

But the equally important force is the change in ownership. According to a Forest Service study, not yet published, more than 1.1 million new families became owners of an acre or more of private forest from 1993 to 2006 in the lower 48 states, a 12 percent increase. And almost all the net growth, about seven million acres, was in the Rocky Mountain region.

Institutions, pension funds and real estate investment trusts have been particularly aggressive buyers. Over the last 10 years, at least 40 million acres of private forest land have changed hands nationwide, said Bob Izlar, the director of the Center for Forest Business at the University of Georgia. It is a turnover that Mr. Izlar said was unmatched at least since the Great Depression.

Here in the West, questions of clout and class have been raised by the new arrivals.

This year, the conservation group Trout Unlimited, which had been considering ending its involvement in disputes between private landowners and fishermen over public access to fishing streams, backtracked after its members rose up in protest. Some members accused the group of siding with the landowners by not fighting for fishermen’s access rights.

In parts of Colorado where communities have committed tax money to preserve open space, conflicts have erupted on the borders of the public lands over whether the programs — which in many cases buy out an owner’s right to develop property, but not the property itself — are simply enriching landowners who keep the land and the public off, too.

“When you’re there, you’re on four million acres,” said Michael Carricarte, who bought an 800-acre property in Glenwood Springs, Colo., in 2005, and now has the place, bordered on three sides by federal land, up for sale, asking $23.5 million.

“To get to where our property touched public land would take three hours by public road, but from our house it was 10 minutes by four-wheeler or Jeep," he said.

Mr. Carricarte, 39, said he was now in the process of selling a conservation easement to the Aspen Valley Land Trust that would lock 600 acres, all bordering public land, into permanent preservation.

Longtime residents tied to the old timber economy are finding it difficult to keep up. In parts of New Mexico and Colorado, the timber industry has all but collapsed; log harvests in the national forests have fallen to about one-fourth of what they were 20 years ago in the Rocky Mountain region, and less than a tenth what they were in the Pacific Northwest.

Some privately owned timberlands have increased production, but in the West, where more than two-thirds of all forest land is publicly owned (compared with about one-sixth in the eastern United States) private owners, even if they want to allow logging, cannot make up the difference.

Ronald H. Buentemeier, a second-generation forester, said he struggled every day to get enough wood to stoke the family-owned mill he runs in Montana, the F. H. Stoltze Land and Lumber Company.

“There’s not enough private land out there,” said Mr. Buentemeier, a blunt-talking 66-year-old with a flat-top crew cut. “We’ve been pulling rabbits out of the hat to keep going.”

In ways that would have been unthinkable only a few years ago, environmentalists and representatives of the timber industry are reaching across the table, drafting plans that would get loggers back into the national forests in exchange for agreements that would set aside certain areas for protection.

Both groups are feeling under siege: timber executives because of the decline in logging, and environmentalists because of the explosion of growth on the margins of the public lands.

One of the most ambitious proposals is here in Montana. It would allow some logging in the Beaverhead and Deerlodge National Forests in the state’s southwest corner in exchange for the designation of new areas within the forests as permanent wilderness.

Some timber companies say that gaining conservationists as allies may be the only way to get back into the national forests, and so stay in business. But both sides say that success will require a turn of the historical momentum against logging in the West that began in the early ’90s.

A court decision in 1991 involving the northern spotted owl required the Forest Service to manage for more than just timber production. The national forests in the northern Rockies constricted logging, fostering expansion in other forest areas like the South.

“If there’s anything the industry should have learned over the years, it’s that we can’t do this by ourselves,” said Gordy Sanders, the resource manager at Pyramid Mountain Lumber, one of the mill operators involved in the Beaverhead and Deerlodge negotiations.

Many environmentalists say they have come to realize that cutting down trees, if done responsibly, is not the worst thing that can happen to a forest, when the alternative is selling the land to people who want to build houses.

Stoltze Land and Lumber, for example, which owns about 36,000 acres near the border of Glacier National Park, has said that the failure of the logging industry would leave the company no option but to sell land into the booming development market.

That prospect chills the blood of people like Anne Dahl, the director of the Swan Valley Ecosystem Center, a conservation and education group.

“I’m a former tree hugger who was opposed to everything, every timber sale,” Ms. Dahl said, “but now I see that the worst thing you can do is lose it all to development.”

Other new partnerships are emerging. Last year, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Indian tribes, which have a reservation south of Whitefish, joined with conservationists to buy a square mile of land from Plum Creek that was deemed crucial to the endangered bull trout.

The tribes chipped in $4.8 million, half the purchase price, and the Trust for Public Lands put together the other half. The two parties recently completed a plan to manage the property jointly, said the Salish and Kootenai tribal chairman, James Steele Jr.

Plum Creek, based in Seattle, changed its corporate structure in 1999 to become a real estate investment trust. Some Plum Creek property has been bought by conservation groups, including about 68,000 acres in the Blackfoot Valley northwest of Helena. Negotiations continue for more conservation sales, with money surging into funds organized by groups like the Nature Conservancy and the Trust for Public Lands.

Mr. Holley, the Plum Creek executive, said that his company was committed to both the timber and real estate businesses, but that only a small percentage of its land, perhaps 30,000 acres or so, had the combination of attractions — proximity to public lands but also to other amenities, like shopping and restaurants — to make sale for development feasible.

The Forest Service, meanwhile, is struggling to find its own balance. A spokesman for the agency said that the national forests across the West were increasingly tilting toward recreation and away from logging. But the growth in population on the forests’ edge also means more need than ever to thin the trees, through some logging, if only for wildfire protection.

Tom Tidwell, the regional forester for 25 million acres of national forest that includes Montana, northern Idaho, North Dakota and part of South Dakota, said the Forest Service was eager to keep timber companies in business to help with the thinning.

“We’re more in the need of the industry,” Mr. Tidwell said. “It’s essential that we have someone to do that work so that taxpayers don’t have to pay for it.”

One broiling and unresolved issue is who gets to use the land as it changes hands.

Most private timber tracts in the West, including those owned by Plum Creek, have traditionally been open to recreational use, treated as public entry ways into the vast national forests, grasslands and wilderness areas that in Montana alone add up to nearly 46,000 square miles, about the size of New York State. But in many places, the new owners are throwing up no trespassing signs and fences, blocking what generations of residents across the West have taken for granted — open and beckoning access into the woods to fish, hunt and camp.

“Part of our character is that we have so much big sky and open country,” said Gov. Brian Schweitzer of Montana, a Democrat who has publicly sparred with Plum Creek about its land sales. “We’re going to have to be creative. There’s no textbook written on how to do this.”

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Kaczynski case changed lawyers' lives forever
By CAROLYNN BRIGHT and EVE BYRON of the Helena Independent Record
April 3, 2006 

HELENA - Helena attorney Michael Donahoe was alone in his office on April 3, 1996, when he turned on his television to view what co-workers from the Federal Public Defenders office in Great Falls were telling him - the suspected Unabomber had been arrested near Lincoln.

For almost two decades, the Unabomber had terrorized the nation and frustrated the FBI. He murdered three people and injured dozens of others, usually with bombs sent through the mail.

Donahoe's telephone rang, and on the other end of the line was U.S. District Judge Charles Lovell.   The judge told Donahoe he would defend Ted Kaczynski, the suspected Unabomber.  The phone call was followed by a meeting in the judge's chambers, in which Donahoe said Lovell assured him that he had the utmost of confidence in his abilities. That was important to Donahoe, who is known for his animated, almost volatile courtroom defense of his clients.

“It was also his way of letting me know to keep my head,” Donahoe recalled.  The judge's words of encouragement also were particularly meaningful given the insecurities that started surfacing as Donahoe realized the gravity of his duties in the Kaczynski case.

“It's a crossroads,” he said. “You think, ‘Geez, this case came my way, and am I up to it?' ”

Bernie Hubley's telephone call came a few weeks earlier.  Ten years ago, Hubley prosecuted criminals for the U.S. Attorney's office in Helena. He's a calm, fatherly type, kind of the yin to Donahoe's yang in court.  Hubley is also a former FBI agent, used to getting calls from colleagues at the bureau. So when FBI Special Agent Tom McDaniel called and asked Hubley to come down to chat on a quiet morning in February, Hubley had no idea that his world was about to change significantly.

“I walked into his office, and there were all kinds of strange faces,” Hubley recalled. “They disclosed that they thought they maybe were on to the Unabomber.

“I listened and thought it was interesting. But I don't think anyone was convinced it was him until the search of the cabin. The situation was so bizarre, the idea that some hermit that lived in a shack was the guy responsible for bombings and deaths from New Jersey to northern California. It was kind of a hard sell.”

Arresting the suspected Unabomber didn't happen on the FBI's preferred timeline. For months they were gathering evidence, most of it circumstantial, that Kaczynski was their man. Still, they didn't have any “smoking gun” or eyewitness accounts that this recluse was the person responsible for murdering three people with bombs and injuring 23 others.

On April 2, the FBI received a telephone call from a national news organization, saying they knew the FBI was actively seeking the Unabomber somewhere between Missoula and Helena, and would go public with that news within 24 hours.  Law enforcement wanted an arrest warrant, but knew they didn't have enough on Kaczynski just yet. However, they believed they had legal cause to comb through his cabin, so they sought a search warrant from Judge Lovell.

“We put together a draft it was about 100 pages long to give to the judge. But that's not something that you just bring into a judge and sit there and watch him read,“ Hubley said. “I told him I would return a little later.”

The judge took the inch-thick document home and read it carefully. He signed the search warrant the next day, April 3.

“It was executed at noon,“ Hubley said.  Theodore Kaczynski was a smelly, disheveled man when Donahoe met him for the first time at the Lewis and Clark County Detention Center. His body odor was so strong at the time of the arrest that it gave officers headaches and it took a week to get the stench out of the car that took him to Helena.

The crazy hermit impression was swiftly swept away as Donahoe settled in to apprise his client of the allegations against him, and how the next few days would unfold.

“(His true personality) struck me in the first moments,” Donahoe said. “He had that academic air.”

It was on that level that the lawyer chose to relate to Kaczynski throughout their professional relationship. As a federal public defender, Donahoe seeks common ground on which to interact with the people he represents. With Kaczynski, it wasn't difficult, he said.

“He was a very friendly, gentle man,” Donahoe said. “He was soft-spoken, but he also had his opinions.”  Hubley never spoke directly to Kaczynski, but believes the nice-guy persona was one of many calculated ways Kaczynski hid the fact that he was a cold-blooded murderer.

“He knew that he had to present the image of being the antithesis of the Unabomber to the community. He had to be nice, to be low-key,” Hubley theorized.

One of Donahoe's first duties as Kaczynski's attorney was to tame his client's physical appearance. He wanted the world to see the quiet man he met at the jail, not the wild-eyed maniac pictured in front-page photographs of newspapers and magazines throughout the nation.  The federal public defenders office keeps a collection of “court clothes” for defendants who need them, so outfitting Kaczynski wasn't difficult. But Donahoe did hire a hairstylist to trim Kaczynski's hair and beard.

The resulting physical metamorphosis was what Donahoe hoped for, but he regrets the spectacle that followed when the stylist conducted interviews with the media about her experience, and even tried to sell Kaczynski's locks.  Donahoe quickly learned that such behavior, and attention, would be the norm as Kaczynski moved from the woods outside of Lincoln into the unflinching spotlight.

During the spring of 1996, the national media were entrenched in eastern Montana, as hordes of television, radio and newspaper reporters descended upon the small town of Jordan to cover the anti-government Freemen standoff. April 3 was Day 10 of what would be an 81-day impasse between the FBI and the 14 people who refused to leave the 960-acre ranch.

The media's attention quickly turned to Lincoln, then Helena, as word got out of the suspected Unabomber's arrest.  More than 30 media representatives converged on Lincoln that afternoon, interviewing anyone they could find about the reclusive hermit known to occasionally ride his bike into town.  The following day, scores of reporters and photographers descended into Helena. They gathered in the parking lot at the federal courthouse on the south end of Last Chance Gulch, desperate to get a view of Kaczynski.

Helena's federal courthouse was woefully prepared for a media frenzy of this sort. The press and its satellite trucks covered every inch of the courthouse parking lot, swarming over Judge Lovell when he stepped from his car and mobbing Kaczynski as guards walked him from the police car to the courtroom.  Eventually, a chain-link barrier was erected to fence off portions of the lot.

As the media circus swirled around him, the main question on Donahoe's mind was, “How is this guy going to get a fair trial?”

Interview requests rolled in from high-powered journalists like Barbara Walters and Tom Brokaw. National talk show host and defense attorney Gerry Spence railed regularly on CNBC about how Kaczynski would never receive a fair trial.  Donahoe adopted “no comment” as a favorite phrase and shifted responsibility for handling the media to his boss, Chief Federal Public Defender Tony Gallagher.

“Other than that, I just tried to function in a basic way,” he said. “(The case) was different in its character but the essentials of defending (Kaczynski) weren't any different.”

Donahoe did try to use the media's relentless pursuit of “anything Unabomber” to benefit Kaczynski by asking Judge Lovell to dismiss the charges. Donahoe argued that media leaks which he blamed on federal investigators had so poisoned the pool of prospective jurors nationwide that there could be no opportunity for Kaczynski to receive a fair trial.

Lovell denied Donahoe's request.

A search of Kaczynski's cabin turned up copies of the Unabomber's ranting manifesto, the typewriter on which it was written and a bomb. Donahoe had his hands full, and defending Kaczynski wasn't always easy.  Donahoe cared about the man, whom he recognized as a prodigy, an accelerated intellect. Still, Kaczynski was difficult to reach.

“He just had retarded emotional development, so his relationships suffered,” he said. “But if you put the time into it, he was reachable.”  To connect with Kaczynski, Donahoe even shared his family life with the Unabomber suspect, going so far as to bring in photo albums.  Apparently it worked. In a psychological evaluation performed by Dr. Sally Johnson, she noted that Kaczynski said he formed a “quick and close relationship” with Donahoe.

However, Donahoe could not convince Kaczynski that an insanity defense could be his best chance of avoiding the death penalty for the crimes of which he was accused.

“He wanted to prove he was fine,” Donahoe said. “When that was not evident, we started to drift apart.”

Donahoe recalls one meeting with Kaczynski that he describes as being particularly confrontational. He says Kaczynski disagreed with some aspects of the defense Donahoe was pursuing, and threatened to take his case to one of the lawyers who were waiting in line to defend him.

“I told him that was fine,” Donahoe said. “I explained I had to do my job. I told him, ‘I'm not going to not do my work just to stay in the case and keep you happy. I can't work with one hand tied behind my back.' ”

After that meeting, Kaczynski wrote Donahoe a note from the jail apologizing for his behavior, and assured Donahoe he was the attorney he wanted to represent him.  But like most of Kaczynski's relationships, this one ended. Prosecutors decided to try the case in Sacramento, Calif., and even though Donahoe was asked to join the Unabomber's defense team, he decided to stay in Helena, and return to his regular clients in the federal system.

“I made my peace with it pretty early,” he said.

Hubley, however, wanted to see the case through to the end. Four prosecutors - one from Sacramento, one from San Francisco, one from New Jersey, and Hubley - joined forces to try to keep the Unabomber behind bars. Kaczynski was moved from Helena to Sacramento on June 24, 1996, and for about two years, Hubley flew out of Helena to California almost every Monday morning and returned every Friday evening.

“There was more evidence to convict Kaczynski than I have every seen, or that any prosecutor will ever see,” Hubley said. “Any jury anywhere would have convicted him.”

He recalls the Unabomber case as a unique experience.

“U.S. News (& World Report) called him a ‘twisted genius,' ” Hubley noted. “We knew early on that there were mental issues with this guy, but he felt all along that any suggestion that he had mental issues wasn't going to fly.”  Kaczynski was indicted by a federal grand jury on June 18, 1996, for two fatal bombings in Sacramento in 1985 and 1995, and two attacks that maimed scientists at Yale and the University of California in 1993. He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, but was found competent to stand trial, and faced the death penalty.

The case presented a moral dilemma for prosecutors, not because the crimes Kaczynski had committed didn't warrant the death penalty, or because of his mental state. Instead, they wondered about the potential impact to other cases, where a family member turned in another family member.  Still, the evidence showed a perfect case for death penalty, based on the legal statute. Prosecutors felt they could prove Kaczynski was a cold-blooded, calculated, aggravated serial murderer.

But the prosecution team didn't get to make that decision. It was up to Attorney General Janet Reno to decide what penalty would be sought. On Jan. 22, 1998, as part of a plea agreement, Kaczynski pleaded guilty to the deaths of all three men he murdered, and to being the Unabomber. In return, prosecutors dropped the death penalty and Kaczynski agreed to accept life in prison or a federal psychiatric facility without the possibility of parole.

Kaczynski later tried to withdraw his guilty plea, saying that it was involuntary, but the request was denied.  Donahoe continued to receive notes from his former client long after Kaczynski was transferred to California. Sometimes Kaczynski wanted to share information about his defense, but he also sent personal greetings for Donahoe and his family.

That correspondence has all but halted in recent years.

What's left, Donahoe said, is the experience; what it taught him about himself and what matters in his life.  He said he'll never forget the friend who allowed him to vent - melt down might be a better phrase - as the pair drove to Townsend for lunch one day after he picked up the Kaczynski case.

“He told me to just be Michael, and that I would be fine,” Donahoe said.  The experience also helped Donahoe realize that his job isn't about him - it's about the justice system.

“As time goes on and you realize you're part of a greater whole, you're kind of awestruck by it,” he said. “It's a privilege to participate.”

Finally, Donahoe said, the time he spent with Kaczynski emphasized the fact that, despite the apparent divisions in society, people aren't really all that different.

“We all suffer from the same kinds of defects,” he said. “You can always see a little of yourself in these people.”

Hubley also has moved on, but doesn't want people to forget the Kaczynski he came to know, the arrogant coward who shattered lives with bombs.

“It has troubled me that as the years go on, he's becoming something of a legend, a mysterious folk hero. It's like the more we write about him and talk about him, it almost glamorizes him,” Hubley said.

“But there's no more cowardly way to attack a person than to send them a package, which you typically associate with having something good inside, but instead it kills them. He was a very intelligent, eccentric, cold-blooded killer and I don't want people to forget that. He was a failure and a coward.”

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EPA reassures Bonner-area residents on wells
By PERRY BACKUS of the Missoulian
January 27, 2006 

BONNER - Bonner-area residents received some assurances Thursday night that they won't be left high and dry when the Milltown Dam is removed in the next couple of years.

Nearly 200 people attended the meeting at the Bonner school hosted by the Clark Fork River Technical Assistance Committee. Many came with concerns about their water wells after seeing some drop dramatically following the recent removal of the Bonner Dam.  Seven wells in the West Riverside area or the portion of Milltown adjacent to the Blackfoot River either went dry or began sucking up sediment following the 8-foot drawdown of the Milltown Reservoir and subsequent dam removal project.
 
With plans calling for a 10-foot drawdown of the reservoir this summer and a larger drop of 17 feet in 2008, many in the area are worried about their water wells.

Russ Forba, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Milltown Dam project leader, told people EPA will be the party responsible for wells affected by the drawdown and the agency is going to do its best to react quickly. 

There are going to be some surprises.

“We're not going to be able to predict everything that's going to happen,” said Forba. “We do want a system in place so we can react quickly.”

To do that, EPA will work with Missoula County and the University of Montana to rate all the water wells in the area as having a high, medium or low probability of being affected by the proposed drawdown in June.  People owning wells that are rated most likely to be affected will have a variety of options including hooking up to an alternate water supply, having a new well drilled or redeveloping their current well. EPA will pick up the costs for that work.

“We've budgeted for this,” said Forba. “It's not unexpected. It's just hard to predict which wells will be impacted.”

Chris Brick, a groundwater geologist with the Clark Fork River Technical Assistance Committee, said people living closer to the river will have more potential to be affected by the drawdowns.  Brick said it was her “rough guess” that most of the impacts to well levels will be seen following the initial 10-foot drawdown in June - and those impacts may not occur until the traditional low-water period at the end of November or early December.

While EPA has responsibility for paying for wells affected by dropping water levels, the Atlantic Richfield Co. will pick up the costs for wells contaminated by arsenic.  New drinking water standards for arsenic adopted just three days ago will make that even more challenging. The new standards dropped arsenic levels from 50 parts per billion to 10.

Missoula City-County Health Department's relatively new voluntary monitoring program has found one well with arsenic levels at 11 parts per billion and potentially another one with levels higher than the new standards.

Arco is currently providing the family with the contaminated well with bottled drinking water and will probably drill a deeper well that taps cleaner water for them in the near future, said Forba.

The two wells were on the frontage road near Piltzville.  Peter Nielsen, the health department's environmental health supervisor, said the county's voluntary monitoring program began in August. So far, residents have used about 120 test kits.

The program, paid for by the EPA, is free to residents. The kits include a prepaid mailer and are available from the county.  Nielsen said it's important to test wells all the way down the river to the confluence of the Bitterroot throughout the process to remove the dam.

“We're encouraging people to do more than one sample,” he said. “It is a voluntary program.”  The county also hopes to gather additional information about wells in the area.

“We want to update our well inventory ... and make sure that some of the wells in the area haven't been missed,” said Nielsen.  In addition to that, Nielsen said the county would like to install some instruments in a few wells that will provide continuous information throughout the dam removal process.

Reporter Perry Backus can be reached at 523-5259 or at pbackus@missoulian.com

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Photo by TOM BAUER/Missoulian

Wayne Burnham sits Monday at the counter of Garden City News, the business he's owned in downtown Missoula since 1979. Burnham is closing the newsstand at the end of January, and will lease out the space to a new business.


NEWS FROM THE EAST:  As of January 1, 2006, Weston Pharmacy no longer to carry newspapers - Peter's Market to pick up slack.
Garden City News to close its doors permanently on Jan. 31
By ROBERT STRUCKMAN of the Missoulian, January 4, 2006

Wayne Burnham watched the glass door of Garden City News swing shut behind a customer. Having just purchased a pair of bridal magazines, she walked away up North Higgins Avenue.

Burnham, the 52-year-old owner of Garden City News, reflected on the range of magazines on his store's shelves.

“Titlewise? I haven't counted,” he said.  He has hundreds, if not thousands. They cover every subject. He has 17 titles devoted to woodworking and hand tools and 13 on martial arts, fighting and professional wrestling. The store's inventory covers everything from cars and country music to cooking and underground art.  He has wire racks of comic books and one wooden stand with 51 books of crossword puzzles.

But not for long. Garden City News - downtown Missoula's only old-fashioned newsstand - will close its doors for the last time on Jan. 31.

“There's no money in it,” he said.  Burnham, who owns the building, will remodel the space and lease it to a retailer. He won't say to whom. The lease isn't finalized, he said.  The worst financial pressures on the newsstand can be summed up with one anecdote. The wholesale price for USA Today is 72 cents. It retails for 75 cents. When Burnham balked, a USA Today rack appeared outside his store.

“There's just a point where it's not worth it,” he said.  Freight costs have hit hard, too. The Sunday New York Times, formerly available for $6, has gone up to $7.50. That's all due to increases in freight rates.

The box stores don't help either. Burnham sees books retailing for less than he can buy them wholesale. He sees well-thumbed copies of magazines on box store magazine racks. The readers who thumbed those copies might have bought from him in former days.  But he stops himself when he starts complaining.

“I don't want to sound bitter,” he said.  Burnham bought Garden City News in 1979. One customer, hearing of the imminent closure, said he'd been buying magazines there for 57 years.

In Burnham's early days, Missoula's downtown was full of empty storefronts. He weathered the ups and downs of interest rates and the ebb and flow of area businesses.  He was in his mid-20s. He had a master's in business administration from the University of Montana and wide tastes as a reader. What wasn't to like about the newsstand business?

In those days, a newsstand was the only place to find a wide range of magazines and newspapers. The Internet and superstores such as Barnes & Noble Booksellers and Borders Books and Music have revolutionized the media industry, and newsstands across the region have changed or closed.  Burnham doesn't pretend to know the breadth of the newsstand business, but he knows his corner better than anyone. As the profit margins in newspapers, books and magazines tightened, most newsstands in Montana began to sell espresso or ice cream.

Burnham has always sold cigars as a side business, but espresso? Lattes aren't for him.  Garden City News remained an old-fashioned newsstand. That was Burnham's luxury. As tough as the newsstand business had become, Burnham had freedom. He owned his own building.

“That's the only reason I've been able to stay in business as long as I have,” he said.  For more than two decades, Garden City News and Garden City Printing operated side by side in the same building.  Even as the bottom lines of the businesses narrowed, the three operators enjoyed themselves, lunching together and talking football, Burnham said.

About two years ago, one of them died. About 18 months ago, Jim Dredger decided to close the print shop.  By then, North Higgins was nothing like it had been years ago. The old characters have disappeared from downtown, Burnham said.

“Some of it I will miss. Used to be a bunch of people from Butte would get the Butte paper every day. Some people you see every day, some every week,” he said.

But this is a strange tough time. Businesses downtown are flourishing. The world has simply passed Garden City News by, Burnham said.  That's a hard thing not to take personally, for a guy who has made a life out of a newsstand. But there's a flip-side.

After Garden City Printing left, the space stood vacant for a time. Then Burnham remodeled it, adding new hardwood floors and lighting. A few months ago, a high-end women's clothing store called Coco Atelier opened there.

“Judging from the Mercedes and the Lexus pulling up here, it's been doing pretty well,” Burnham said.  A similar remodel is in store for the Garden City News space.

“It's my retirement,” Burnham said.  Burnham doesn't plan to sit still. He has some other projects to concentrate on, he said.

“If I don't work, I'll go crazy,” he said.  As for the looming vacuum in the newsstand business downtown, it has some people pondering.  Every summer, Jolie Anderson, owner of Bird's Nest Books, directs two or three magazine-seekers a week to Garden City News. Could her used bookstore sell magazines?

“I'm thinking about it,” Anderson said.

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State may redefine trophy elk to aid poaching enforcement
Posted on Dec. 8
By SUSAN GALLAGHER of the Associated Press

HELENA - Montana might borrow a page from the hunters' bible to help determine whether illegally killed bull elk are trophies, allowing the state to demand $8,000 in compensation for a dead animal.

State wildlife commissioners Thursday heard a proposal to strengthen enforcement against poachers by broadening the definition of a trophy elk. The new definition would include a standard from the record book of the Boone and Crockett Club, the Theodore Roosevelt organization that compiles information about all sorts of trophy animals.

The idea will be put out for public comment, commissioners said. Then they will decide whether to adopt the change.

 
Presently Montana defines a trophy elk as one with at least six tines on one antler, plus antler length of at least 43 inches and width of at least 36 inches. All three criteria must be met to classify the animal as a trophy worth restitution eight times that for other elk.

Under the proposal outlined Thursday by Jim Kropp, law enforcement chief for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, an animal would be a trophy if it either met those standards, or had a Boone and Crockett score of 320 before the antlers dried. An elk with that score would not necessarily meet all three requirements now in state regulations.

Kropp addressed commissioners after placing in front of them antlers from two large Montana elk killed illegally in 2004. Neither could be classified as a trophy because the antler width fell short of 36 inches. Put to the Boone and Crockett test, however, they would be trophies. In 2002, the wildlife agency began using Boone and Crockett records as a way to determine trophy deer.

"People are coming here and poaching some of our biggest and best game animals," Kropp said. "We need to get the message out that we're not going to tolerate this."

Restitution for killing a non-trophy elk is $1,000.

Paying restitution to the state is one of several conditions that may be placed on poachers. Typically they are stripped of hunting privileges, as well. Courts may impose fines.

An observer at the commission meeting, Lee Carlbom of Augusta, questioned the need to distinguish between a trophy elk and others when requiring restitution.

"Does it cost the state anymore to raise that bull (elk)...?" Carlbom asked.

"If they poach - they shoot it illegally - give them a ticket."

The 1999 Montana Legislature passed a law requiring greater compensation for trophies, Kropp said.  The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation said in a statement that it supports a broader definition of a trophy if that aids enforcement and herd management. Montana has about 138,000 elk, the country's second-largest population after Colorado, the foundation said.

Unlawful hunting includes killing animals outside of the hunting season, shining spotlights on wildlife to zero in on them before the shoot and using rifles during archery season.  There is black market for big antlers and "people will do whatever it takes to get them," Kropp said in an interview.

Montana collects about $100,000 a year in restitution for big-game violations, he said. Fish, Wildlife and Parks gets 60 percent of the money and uses it for hunter education and law enforcement. The rest goes into the state treasury.  Restitution for a variety of Montana's trophy animals has been established. Amounts include $2,000 for a pronghorn, $6,000 for a moose and $30,000 for a bighorn sheep.

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What kind of place is Missoula?

John Engen, new Mayor of Missoula

New mayor calls for civil discourse among city leaders
By GINNY MERRIAM of the Missoulian

The business of the city can be done in civil and productive ways - and it will be, say Missoula's mayor-elect and members of its new City Council.

“One of the things I'm going to work on is reminding us all pretty relentlessly that we are not all here to agree,” said John Engen, who will be sworn in as mayor Jan. 2 along with the new council members. “We are here to have intelligent discussions and seek agreement.”

Engen, who has been Ward 1 representative on the City Council for four years and chaired its difficult Plat, Annexation and Zoning Committee, said he and other candidates heard loudly and clearly from the public during their campaigns: “You all need to stop bickering. You need to stop being so angry. You need to represent us with a civil tone, a compassionate spirit and a sense of professionalism.”

“I think if each of us approaches our service with that in mind, we'll solve the problem,” he said. “There isn't a person on that council, new or old, who isn't capable of holding to that standard.”

Council President Jack Reidy, who has represented Ward 5 for 20 years and calls himself a centrist, would like to see council members serve their wards but broaden their thinking.

“If we pay a little more attention to the good of the whole city of Missoula, instead of one issue or forming coalitions, we'll move forward for the good of the city,” he said.

How the council members will interact with each other won't be apparent immediately, said Heidi Kendall, Ward 1 representative for two years. It takes a while for new members to get their sea legs. And with a new member coming to fill the late Bob Lovegrove's Ward 5 seat, there may be seven new members.

“I'm really hopeful that we'll be able to have a much more harmonious two years than the past two have been,” she said. “One reason I'm hopeful about it is I think a lot comes from the mayor. I'm really optimistic and positive.”

Engen said during his campaign that a new civility in city government extends to the public, too.

“I don't abide bullies, and the City Council chambers is not a place for bullies,” he said in an interview a week before the election.

The perception among council observers is that discussion of issues has been tainted with political and personal rivalries, as well as individual council members' dislike of one another.

“Leave personality out of it,” newly elected Ward 4 representative Jon Wilkins said the week before the election. “And respect people.”

Jerry Ballas, Ward 4 representative for six years, is pleased by a new group of council representatives who seem reasonable, thoughtful and not prone to contention for contention's sake.

“I'm looking forward to it,” he said. “When I look at people's personalities and how they relate, they're people who are willing to discuss and not bring a lot of personality into it,” he said.

The tone of discussion in council and committee meetings is important, too, Ballas said.

“The way people talk to each other is important, too,” he said. “Sometimes, the way people talk to you, they have a way of making the hackles on the back of your neck stand up. I haven't talked to any new people who are like that.”

Ballas worries about the combined experience and leadership that's walking out the door as the new council comes in. For instance, only three council members - Ballas, Kendall and Ed Childers - have solid experience as heads of council committees. Stacy Rye and Don Nicholson have some experience. Nicholson is chairman of the city-county Transportation Policy Coordinating Committee.

“I think we're going to have a real challenge because we lost so much historic leadership,” Ballas said.

The council often looks more contentious than it is in practice, Engen said; the dramatic, noticeable moments are the ones that get attention.

“I think, like with most of government, about 95 percent of what we do we agree on,” he said. “We agree to fix potholes and pay firefighters.”

Some council observers see common-interest camps among members, and those camps are often blamed for gridlock or for blocking all legislation of a certain ilk. While there are extremes on some issues, “there's always a swing,” Engen said. And the swing votes are not necessarily the same people.

“That's part of the elegance,” he said.

Looking at the new council on its sheer political face, “it still seems like there's a 6-6 progressive-conservative split,” said new Ward 3 representative Bob Jaffe. “That's pretty much the same.”

How much that will hold on how many and which issues is anyone's guess, he said.

Council members have immense issues in front of them, he said. Even with constructive work among themselves, the public will have various opinions of it.

“It seems like some of the decisions we have to make could have a big impact,” he said. “I like to make people happy. But on everything, there are going to be people who are unhappy.”

New Ward 5 representative Dick Haines sees rough spots ahead if the council tries seriously to face its financial limitations and meet its responsibilities. The city is near to its bonding capacity, it needs better support for infrastructure, and the Montana Public Power Inc. proposal “has really gotten out of hand,” he said.

A number of council representatives disagree with things the present mayor and council have done, he said.

“I think there's great potential to have a very smooth-running, businesslike council,” he said. “And there's potential for just the opposite.”

New Ward 1 Councilman Dave Strohmaier talked often in his campaign about civility in public discussion. Ideological differences are legitimate and expected, he said. But being confrontational doesn't work.

“I think sometimes there's confusion between advocacy and confrontation,” he said. “Being a strident voice does not necessarily mean advocacy.”

Strohmaier would be open to formal training in civic engagement for the council.

The new council and the new mayor will be sworn in Jan. 2. The council's first order of business will be the election of a president. Then it's on to the rest at hand.

“None of us is perfect, especially me,” Engen said. “But we're all obligated to try.”

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The County's voters wanted to study their form of local government...

The purpose of the Study Commission is to study the existing form and powers of a local government and procedures for delivery of local government services and compare them with other forms available under the laws of the state (MCA 7-3-172).

The Study Commission is comprised of seven elected members and an ex-officio, non-voting member appointed by the Board of County Commissioners. Staff consists of one Administrative Secretary.

Local government meets--not at City Hall (being rebuilt as the County courthouse, we think) but on an interim basis, for the Council at least, (?) here:

MISSOULA CITY COUNCIL MEETING

SAINT PATRICK HOSPITAL

CONFERENCE CENTER, 1^ST FLOOR,

 500 W BROADWAY, MISSOULA, MT

Find your Councilperson by name and district here: 
Meet your city council person in e-person here;
HANDY LAWS TO KNOW:
Public peace, morals and welfare rules here;



Missoula view (from City of Missoula website)
Where exactly am I?
A map is the first thing you need when moving to a new place...http://maps.google.com/maps?oi=map&q=Missoula,+MT

Who lives in Missoula, Montana?
Next is U.S. Census data for Missoula, Montana: http://factfinder.census.gov/

QUESTION:  How is Missoula, Montana like Weston?  ANSWER:  Neither is known for "diversity."

What kind of music do people in Missoula, Montana (city not county) listen to? 
Link to music-on request:  http://www.kbga.org/