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Good Monday morning. This is Matt on the local news desk at Montana Free Press. Local elections are no less important than the big federal races in this mid-term year, and I’ve got the first in a series of candidate articles below. These are the people who might adjudicate your next highway traffic offense, so take notice!
But first… heads up, Great Falls
A stretch of road above the Rainbow Dam overlook parking area is closed through mid-October. The city of Great Falls announced that 67th Street North is closed for street reconstruction from the top of the hill to 18th Avenue North. The parking area for the Lewis and Clark conservation easement trailhead atop the hill is also closed.
One county candidate has unknown platform
This fall, Cascade County voters will see races for two justices of the peace on their ballots. These judges handle misdemeanor criminal cases and smaller civil cases that arise in the county jurisdiction — mainly outside of Great Falls, Belt and Cascade.
The office is nonpartisan, and the judges serve four-year terms. Montana doesn’t require a law degree to be a justice of the peace.
One of the races is competitive between former Cascade County sheriff’s deputy Brian Bebbington and Robert Polich, who has run a landscaping business. The second justice of the peace position has one unopposed incumbent, Steven Fagenstrom, after Great Falls attorney Cayle Halberg dropped out of the race this summer.
Bebbington, 54, is originally from England. He said that he served in the military there for 15 years and worked for NATO before moving to Great Falls with his then-wife. He told Montana Free Press in a recent interview that he worked at the Cascade County Detention Center while pursuing citizenship. After gaining citizenship, he became a deputy and worked for the county for 16 years.
“My law enforcement background sets me up perfectly to be a JP judge,” Bebbington said. “The judge does a lot of civil work, and I was a civil deputy.”
Bebbington said that if he wins the office, he expects to see people on some of the worst days of their lives and that he’ll rule based on the guidance of the law.
“It’s not my job to make their lives worse,” he said. “It’s my job to make it fair and impartial.”
Polich, who is running against Bebbington, has no campaign presence. It’s not known whether Polich has any legal or law-enforcement experience, or why he chose to run for office. He has no campaign website or social media page and has filed no campaign finance reports. He runs a landscaping business that is up to date on its business registration. He owns land between Great Falls and Ulm.
Polich didn’t respond to multiple calls and emails from MTFP over months.
Incumbent Justice of the Peace Steven Fagenstrom has held the position for 20 years. He said the caseload hovers around 7,000 per year, which is split between the two judges. The majority of cases are traffic offenses like DUIs and driving without registration.
Fagenstrom has endorsed Bebbington. He said that his advice to any newcomer, especially someone with a law enforcement or attorney background, is to become attuned to the judge’s role in the legal process. It’s a balance to weigh incriminating evidence with the measure of reasonable doubt.
“It’s good to have experience and background, but that isn’t necessarily that you use that in order to make a decision,” Fagenstrom said. “You use your understanding of jurisprudence to make a decision. And sometimes that’s more difficult.”
Voters will be asked whether or not they want to retain Fagenstrom in his position.
Photo Op 📸
Gov. Greg Gianforte convened a roundtable discussion in Great Falls last week to highlight school choice initiatives. The governor is pictured above with Morningside Principal Jennifer Martyn, elementary sixth-grader Raegan and Kristina Remsen, a mother of a CORE school student and PTA president.
The event was held at the Morningside CORE elementary school and included representatives from Great Falls Public Schools, the St. Patrick’s Academy Catholic school, a home-school family and state Rep. Randyn Gregg, a Republican whose large district includes White Sulphur Springs, Belt and Big Timber.
The roundtable reflected on initiatives already in place, including a tax credit program to support private school scholarships and the 2023 charter school legislation that led to the creation of the Morningside CORE school. The CORE school model places college students pursuing education degrees in elementary schools, where they both take college courses and work at the school. During the roundtable discussion, Gianforte asked one student teacher, third-year college student Morgan Dunn, what the main benefit of the program has been for her.
“Practice,” Dunn responded. “We get to practice what we learn every single day in the classroom.”
Read an in-depth story from last December about the Morningside CORE school here.
Eye on Local Government 🏛️
Just hours before his appearance at Morningside Elementary, Gov. Greg Gianforte was at Ag Processing Solutions near Vaughn to highlight the expansion of broadband internet access.
Spectrum, an internet brand of Charter Communications, announced plans to expand fiber broadband availability to 1,200 homes and businesses in unserved or underserved areas around Vaughn, Ulm and elsewhere in Cascade County over the next few years. In press releases, the governor and Charter boasted of a $7 billion private investment across the country for internet expansion.
But the announcements failed to highlight a major contributor to Charter’s expansion: taxpayers.
The expansion is supported by the state’s ConnectMT program, established in 2021 to expand internet access in rural Montana. The program is backed by federal funds from two main sources: the 2021 Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program and allocations through the COVID-era American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).
A project list shows that Charter was set to receive $2,162,620 via BEAD, with a required company match of $720,873. In an email to MTFP, a Charter spokesperson said that this week’s expansion announcement is tied to the ARPA funds. Charter was approved to receive $4 million in ARPA funds for broadband expansion, with millions more in other Montana counties.
The company’s press release mentions ConnectMT, but the expansion was characterized as “funded in part” by ConnectMT and didn’t mention the millions earmarked for the project, whereas the company said the expansion was “driven” by its own private investment. After building out its network with federal dollars, Charter stands to grow revenue by adding 1,200 new potential monthly subscribers. The spokesperson declined to share subscriber projections for this new crop of potential customers.
Charter disclosed in its financial filings that it has received $2.8 billion in federal subsidies and state grants for broadband expansion initiatives such as ConnectMT. The company’s profits for 2025 came to $5 billion.
Great Falls in Brief ⏱️
The City-County Health Department of Great Falls and Cascade County is offering drive-thru flu shots. The next is scheduled for Oct. 2 at the Great Falls Fire Rescue station at 109 9th St. S. from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. There will be four more drive-thru immunizations this fall, and the schedule can be found here.
There is an opening on the Great Falls Transit District Board for a citizen member. The board oversees the tax levy, budget and administration of the transit system and meets on the fourth Wednesday of each month. Applications are available at the city manager’s office in the Civic Center or on the city website.
A group called Big Sky Workers Coalition has withdrawn an appeal of several provisions of the building permit for the forthcoming WinCo grocery store, which is to be built along the Northwest Bypass. City staff had determined the appeals failed to “identify an actual violation” related to permitting requirements. After the coalition dropped its appeal, a meeting of the Board of Adjustments and Appeals was canceled last week. Information about the appeal is on the board’s agenda.
