If you can’t prove them wrong, create a distraction. That seems to be the government playbook in Butte and around the country.
In this episode, Erik and Bill start off agitated by the rumors being spread that they said a recently-hired Butte firefighter was not qualified for the job. They were accused of saying he only got the job because his uncle is a member of the Butte-Silver Bow Council of Commissioners.
Well, nothing could be further from the truth. Erik and Bill have done nothing but praise firefighters — paid and volunteer. The brave men and women who sign up to go into a burning building to save lives are nothing but heroes, and Erik and Bill would never profess to be experts on the hiring qualifications of those heroes.
They figure that the rumor dates to an episode earlier this year when Trudy Healy mentioned an ethics complaint she made against fellow commissioner Josh O’Neill because he did not disclose a conflict of interest while chairing the Fire Advisory Board. There was no mention of nepotism or qualifications in the complaint, and Erik and Bill had nothing to do with it. You can read the complaint here:
The rumor is nothing more than a distraction to take away from the fact that our local government recently poisoned our water. It is a distraction so we might not notice that our chief executive lobbied the United States Department of Urban Development to raise — yes raise — the acceptable lead standards for affordable housing.
Distractions are also been used by dark-money groups to attack citizens over the Bozeman Water Adequacy Ballot Initiative
Well, Erik and Bill are not falling for it, and neither should you.
Watch this episode on YouTube:
Mad About Montana Podcast 
Hmmm… there’s a lot to comment on after listening to the Bozeman segment. First, acknowledgement that Bozeman is not perfect and we’re definitely struggling with a variety of competing interests, a disturbing commodification of our housing stock, and a high growth rate fueled by years of rapid in-migration that has helped push home prices to some of the highest rates in the country. Contrary to some of the statements, however, there is a LOT of planning going on and great concern shared by current residents, city staff and city commissioners that we need workable solutions, lots of solutions. In 2024, the city imposed a fairly strict urban camping permit program, allowing the homeless to continue living in RVs in certain parts of town until the opening of our permanent shelter – Homeward Point (ribbon-cutting takes place today, btw). We’ve added hundreds of affordable housing units over the past few years (mostly in the form of apartments which isn’t great but we’re working on trying to get more affordable single-family homes on the market). I would say most people agree that we need to find a way to make it possible for those who work here, and go to school here, to actually live here, and live comfortably. Believe me, that is a tough nut to crack in a place that has been so influenced by outside wealth. If anything, the WARD (Water Adequacy for Residential Development) initiative is showing us, is we all need to do a better job of building trust so we can work together on solutions. Tearing one another down has become the norm and it’s toxic. I could on but I’ll call it good. (Except to add Bozeman’s water conservation program put in place a few years ago is working really well, and the Yellowstone Club and a great majority of Big Sky is in Madison County.)
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THANK YOU FOR THIS!!!!!
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Jennifer—
I hope you can understand it is hard to build trust when there are so many glaring conflicts of interest.
John Meyer
Bozeman Mayoral Candidate
meyerformayor.com
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The Bozeman Water Adequacy Initiative was written by a grassroots group of Bozeman residents who are intergenerational, come from a variety of socio-economic and educational backgrounds, and are a combination of renters and homeowners. Our working group is Water Adequacy for Residential Development, and thus the initiative itself is often referred to as WARD..
The goal of the WARD initiative is to help conserve the City of Bozeman’s (City) finite municipal water supply while providing much-needed affordable housing to the Bozeman community (wardbzn.com). The initiative offers a concrete plan to leverage 33% affordable housing either for rent at 60% Area Median Income (AMI) or for sale at 120% AMI from every new residential development of three-plus housing units that uses the City’s cash-in-lieu-of-water-rights program (CILWR) — which 99% of all new residential developments in Bozeman use. Also, WARD will give Bozeman residents a lasting voice in how Bozeman’s finite municipal water supply is allocated to new residential development.
The WARD working group (we) is acting in accordance with direct-democracy provisions guaranteed under the Montana Constitution, Article V, Section 1. – “The people reserve to themselves the powers of initiative and referendum.” To qualify the WARD initiative for the Bozeman municipal ballot, in 90 days (3-26-25 to 6-23-25) we collected verified signatures from 5,800 Bozeman registered voters, which was 400 more signatures than needed to meet the City’s 15% voter-signature requirement for the November 4, 2025, ballot.
The City has known about the WARD initiative since spring 2024 (yes, 2024) when we were still drafting it. That said, the City never took us or the initiative seriously until we got it approved for signature gathering on March 25, 2025. Since then, the City has done its “worst” to defeat the initiative, not only by advocating against the initiative’s language but also by attempting to discredit those of us who co-authored it and who are advocating for its passage.
For example, earlier this year the City earmarked $100,000 in taxpayer dollars to “educate” Bozeman voters about the WARD initiative–as if Bozeman voters are not smart enough to educate themselves. To date, the City has spent well over $50,000 of that earmarked money to pay a Seattle-based firm to craft a variety of anti-WARD ads and pay for hundreds of hours of City staff time to prepare and make anti-WARD presentations at public and private meetings. Added to the City’s taxpayer-dollar-funded, anti-WARD campaign, hundreds of thousands of private dollars–coming from in state and out of state–have been spent lobbying against the WARD initiative. PACs are alive and well in Bozeman this fall.
In contrast, the WARD working group has raised approximately $8,400 dollars (all gracious local donations), and we will have spent just over $6,000 by November 4.
There are only a few more days left before November 4. Consequently, I’ll take this opportunity to offer my heartfelt thanks to everyone who has advocated for the passage of the Bozeman Water Adequacy Initiative (aka WARD).
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