04/22/2024
Helena agencies and the Lewis and Clark County Public Health Department have received a sizeable federal grant to sustain their crisis response team and expand the service to rural parts of the county, according to a county press release.
The public health department, in partnership with St. Peter’s Health and the Helena Police Department, received a $549,976 grant from the Bureau of Justice Assistance — an arm of the U.S. Department of Justice — to help continue funding the mobile crisis response team.
The crisis response team, which was created in 2022 to provide support to people experiencing a mental health crisis in the Helena area, was formerly funded through the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services until July of last year.
Since its inception, the local crisis team has served more than 775 individuals experiencing a mental health crisis, the release said, negating the need for more than 600 emergency room visits.
Jolene Jennings, the county’s behavioral health systems specialist, told Montana Free Press that besides maintaining the current funding, the grant will pay for the expansion of the service to the northern parts of the county in Lincon and Augusta and neighboring Broadwater and Jefferson counties.
The county’s public health department selected St. Peter’s Health to facilitate the response team’s planning, program implementation and data collection over the next three years.
“Public safety is the primary objective of this project,” Helena Police Chief Brett Petty said in the press release. “Expanding mobile crisis response services means increased safety for individuals, for law enforcement officers and for our community at large. Everybody wins.”
Public Notice
The city of Helena and Lewis and Clark County will host several opportunities in the next two weeks to elicit public feedback on updating the county’s growth policy.
The City-County Consolidated Planning Board met Tuesday, April 16, to review a presentation from the consulting company SE Group and create a plan for the county that will best address the needs of Augusta, Canyon Creek, Canyon Ferry, Craig, the Helena area, Lincoln, Marysville and Wolf Creek.
The county and the consultation team are seeking feedback on rural development, growth management and land use, groundwater availability, and fire and flood protection.
Once the public has shared its input through six open house events and eight workshops, the consultation group this summer will present a first draft of the growth policy and a land-use map to the city-county planning board.
The first Helena area open house will be on April 25 at the City-County Building, 316 N. Park Ave., from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. East Helena will also have an open house on April 25, at the East Valley Firehall, 2694 Valley Dr., from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
For additional information on the policy update and the open house schedule, visit the county’s growth policy website.
5 Things to Know in Helena
BID Rebrand?: During a Business Improvement District meeting on Wednesday, April 17, officials announced that the district in downtown Helena is considering rebranding its name to “The Gulch.” Interim director Megan Helton shared the idea with downtown business owners and organizations during the meeting and asked for their feedback before making any decisions.
Restroom Business at BID: The Business Improvement District will hold an open house on Tuesday, April 23, to gather the downtown community’s feedback on the proposed locations for public restrooms and toilet types. Earlier last month, the city commission approved a $98,000 grant for the restroom project, which will cost about $240,000 overall. The open house will be at 330 N. Jackson St., from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Protection for the Police: The Helena Police Department was awarded a $6,670 grant from the Mason Moore Foundation to purchase 20 body armor plates for its officers. The police department applied for the grant at the beginning of the year to replace expired armor plates. The department said it cannot afford the equipment due to the budget cuts in recent years, according to the application from Police Chief Brett Petty. The grant will come before the city commission for approval during its meeting on Monday, April 22.
Mann Gulch 75th Anniversary: The U.S. Forest Service announced on April 10 that the forest service, along with the National Smokejumpers Association, the Montanan Discovery Foundation and other local organizations, will this summer commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Mann Gulch Fire that killed 13 smokejumpers. The events on August 3-5 will include a showing of “Higgins Ridge” at the Myrna Loy and a memorial on the Capitol lawn. For more event information, visit the Montana Discovery Foundation’s website.
First Five: The first Alive at Five concert this year will be on Wednesday, June 19, and will feature the band The Good, The Bad and The Blues, according to Heidi O’Brien, the marketing director for Lewis and Clark Brewery, which took over as the event’s organizers this year. The summer show kick-off will be at Women’s Park, 575 Fuller Ave., at 5 p.m. Visit the event’s website to follow for more updates for Alive at Five.
3 Questions For
Thomas Caffrey has been teaching at Captial High School for the last nine years. Caffrey teaches AP environmental science and earth science classes for freshmen, juniors and seniors and recently was named Montana’s Outstanding Earth Science Teacher by the National Earth Science Teachers Association. Montana Free Press spoke with Caffrey about the honor, his classes and his passion for teaching the sciences. His comments have been edited for length and clarity.
MTFP: How did you feel about receiving the title?
Caffrey: I was caught off guard, actually. I think somebody outside of the school district as well as inside the school district apparently nominated me. It wasn’t something I expected and it was just kind of a pleasant surprise, and it’s always nice to get recognition.
Not a ton of schools are offering earth science anymore, and so it’s neat that the Association of Geoscience Teachers still is recognizing people who are in the trenches still teaching this, and recognizing its importance in K-12 education, and honestly, there needs to be more of it. There’s just such a focus to push kids towards what’s on the ACT that I think we’re really losing sight of what we should be teaching them, you know, earth science. I mean, most of the kids I teach are from Earth.
It’s a pretty cool thing because I feel like the geosciences are really underrepresented in K-12 education. Everybody has biology and they have some sort of physical science, probably physics, chemistry, but rarely is there an earth science or a geology-based course available to kids until college. Turns out there’s a lot of careers that involve this particular science and a lot of directions you can take with it and a lot of money can be made, a lot of jobs in Montana. You can stay in the state and work in the geological field or, you know, hydrology, geology, meteorology.
MTFP: What interested you to start teaching earth science?
Caffrey: I just love the outdoors. My love for the outdoors, that’s what made me fall in love with geology originally. It’s just the wonder of mountains and rivers and streams. I’m a fly-fishing outfitter, and I tell people all the time there’s no better application for the scientific method than chasing wild trout with a fly rod. What are they eating? Why are they eating it? What’s the weather doing? What are the bugs doing? What are the fish? What’s gonna make them happy? Everything comes into play with that. Good fishing doesn’t happen on accident. It’s a lot of intel and a lot of science to it.
MTFP: What are your next plans with your classes?
Caffrey: We always have something going. We’re really fortunate to have an indoor greenhouse attached to our building as well as an outdoor greenhouse, which was acquired through a grant. Monday’s Earth Day and being an earth science teacher, that’s a big deal for us. We have a shortened schedule on Monday so we’re actually going to celebrate my class on Tuesday, the 22nd. All my classes will be taking little plants and little containers and putting them in bigger containers with topsoil and, you know, soil and soil health is a big part of what I teach.
We started plants. We have about, I would say, 1,200 plants started: tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, watermelons, maybe a few eggplants. We’ll have a plant sale in mid-May for the public and then we ended up donating about 300 plants to the Helena Community Gardens. I think we did 200 to the Helena Food Share last year. They do a good job of getting food on plates, in the cupboards and people’s refrigerators. So we’re part of that.
Comings and Goings
Coming(?): The Mexican fast-food restaurant Chipotle may be coming to town. According to an application for a building permit filed in February, the Barclay Group out of Phoenix, Arizona, intends to build a location at 3017 N. Sanders St. The estimated cost of the new Chipotle is about $900,000. The building permit has not yet been approved by city officials.
Going: The Big Bull Grill and Tavern has closed its doors on Canyon Ferry Road in East Helena. The family that ran the East Helena business announced the decision to close on its Facebook page last week.
“This was not an easy decision or one that was made lightly!” the post said. “We have put a lot of hard work into this store but feel that for our family it is best that we got back to roots we know and focus on our Winston Location.”
Going: The old Bison Engineering building on the corner of North Roberts Street and 11th Avenue was demolished last week to make room for a new bank. Bison relocated down the road at 3143 E. Lyndale Ave. According to coverage in the Independent Record, a Stockman Bank will be built in place of the tear-down.
Glad You Asked
Earlier this month, a reader emailed MTFP to ask if prescribed burning was affecting the local air quality and wondered why the air-quality index on her phone weather app wasn’t reporting any issues due to the smoke.
We reached out last week to Kelly Dorsi, the air research and monitoring section supervisor for the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, and she helped identify the best ways for the Helena community to check the up-to-date air quality. Dorsi recommended the Today Air Map that the DEQ created to check the monitors around Helena. The website is operational for mobile and desktop devices.
Helena History
Take a look back at downtown Helena during the holiday season around 86 years ago.
“Helena This Week” is reported and written By JoVonne Wagner. Send your Helena news and tips to [email protected].
