Mike Jopek

Whitefish’s Economic Engine

During the past decade, the tri-cities of Flathead County were the fastest growing places in Montana. Propelled by record growth, property valuations skyrocketed. The 2009 worldwide credit-fiasco depressed the valley leaving middle class prospects dismal.

Three years later, Whitefish is trudging back. Median home values again hover around late 2009 levels, which ballparks the pre-bubble values of the growth years. Today, Whitefish is the sole city in the Flathead posting recovery gains. Proper community planning protected property values.

For the coming years, Flathead taxing jurisdictions will see their budgets increase thanks to the formula used in the 2009 property tax reappraisals. Homeowners are stung by the Legislature’s failure to cap taxes. Due to the six-year phasing of reappraisal, taxes will be based upon 2006 benchmark values – increasing one-sixth annually.

The same cast of characters who served in the 2011 Montana Legislature seeks homeowner trust for the next session. They promise to fix the appraisal mess. Recall in 2009, Gov. Brian Schweitzer unsuccessfully asked the Legislature to freeze tax values. Schweitzer said the state should let the market stabilize. But the 2011 Legislature was laser-focused on nullifying all things federal, rather than offering a homeowner fix.

But petty partisanship aside, places like Whitefish continue to progress thanks to a positive attitude from locals.

Whitefish recently garnered state recognition – from the conservative Montana Contractors’ Association, for the downtown street work projects. The plan was initially snared in a web of created-controversy, as naysayers used downtown revitalization to wage a 2009 election year campaign against sitting Councilor Frank Sweeney.

Sweeney lost that election by slim margins, but came roaring back, posting an impressive win last November. Locals appreciate his no-nonsense leadership and advocacy of Whitefish.

The merchants association, called the Heart of Whitefish, works tirelessly to promote a stronger and more vibrant economy. Not only does downtown look great, it is thriving.

The Heart of Whitefish sponsors one of the best farmers’ markets in Montana. The market has become such an economic boost that downtown businesses acknowledge Tuesday nights are competitive with weekends.

Retail sales were up double digits over the previous summer. Tourist taxes are posting significant annual gains. As locals enjoy the Whitefish Winter Carnival, lodging claims good numbers of “heads in the beds.”

The carnival was rated a top-10 event in the world by National Geographic’s Traveler magazine. The magazine touted the Penguin Plunge as a “frigid dip into Whitefish Lake.”

Whitefish was paraded in Vogue magazine as a top destination town in the nation. Vogue pegged Whitefish enviably as “VIBE: Aspen the way it was.”

Nestled near Beaver Lake, the cross country skiing at Stillwater Mountain Lodge was rated top three in Montana by Yahoo sports news.

Allegiant Air announced a twice-weekly direct flight from California to Glacier Park International Airport. This is welcome news to San Francisco Bay skiers looking for Whitefish powder. But locals will appreciate the business, work and recreation aspects of air service.

Big-money investors are again taking notice of the Whitefish success by pumping millions of dollars in commercial revitalization back into downtown. This is good news for the local economy and middle-class construction workers. The hub of the community is clearly downtown. And locals know it.

Luckily for Whitefish, someone, sometime and somehow figured that the real economic engine of the city lay in protecting the most valuable assets of the community. The clean drinking water, the open public lands, the friendly business atmosphere and the great recreational outdoors preserve community and attract investment.

The local can-do attitude is all around Whitefish, easily seen in the sheer number of public and civic projects.

Economists say the power of positive attitude jolts economic depressions. Welcome back Whitefish, may your optimistic spirit again raise employment and resonate across Montana.

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-Mike Jopek is a retired State Legislator who again helps run the family farm in Whitefish. He welcomes feedback at mike@mikejopek.com.

Copyright 2012 www.mikejopek.com All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

Montana’s Political Courage

In one of the first initiatives Montana voters passed, the 100-year-old Corrupt Practices Act prohibits direct corporate campaign contributions. Montana’s state and local elections are still transparent by mandated disclosure laws.

The U.S. Constitution never gave person-rights to corporations. The activist U.S. Supreme Court reopened those floodgates with Citizens United. Justice John Paul Stevens said in his dissent that the ruling “threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the nation. The path it has taken to reach its outcome will, I fear, do damage to this institution.”

President Barack Obama, in a rare State of the Union repudiation, said the court, “reversed a century of law” and allowed “foreign corporations to spend without limits in our elections.” Observers noted that an attending Justice Samuel Alito mouthed the words “not true.”

Montana’s Corrupt Practices Act was a reaction to nefarious acts in the state Legislature where big money was essentially buying votes to select the next U.S. senator. Quickly, Montana citizens adopted the ban on direct corporate spending.

In an email to constituents, Montana Sen. Jon Tester wrote, “We all know what happens when Wall Street banks and other powerful special interests get their way: partisanship trumps citizenship and special interests get a free pass to pollute our elections. And when it comes time to balance the budget, Medicare and Social Security end up on the chopping block.”

Montana still allows corporate spending on local elections, but through a transparent vehicle called Political Action Committees. PACs disclose where the money came from and how it is spent.

Flexing their muscles, the National Association of Realtors spent nearly $2 million in PAC money to successfully pass a Montana constitutional initiative that bars real estate transfer taxes.

Montana has a long history of transparent government. The concept that corporation are people makes little sense to Middle America. Montanans want to keep that right to see who is funding politics.

The GOP attempted to nullify anything federal that moved in the 2011 Montana Legislature. It is a bit ironic that Republican candidates have not asserted a states’ rights defense on the Montana Supreme Court ruling. Apparently for political elections, the Montana GOP leadership prefers that corporations remain people. Or that is the impression imprinted in voters’ minds.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, unless unlimited super PAC spending has an effect. Ironically it was Romney who famously stated, “Corporations are people, my friend.” And the primary voters of South Carolina were inundated by a tidal wave of negative media purchased with a single $5 million super PAC check.

Last November the citizens of Missoula pushed through an initiative calling for an end to corporate personhood. It passed by a whopping 3-to-1 margin. More Montana towns may be forced to take action, as real people find their political courage and say, “enough is enough.”

It’s hard to believe that Congress would not fix this supreme mess. Only the worst Congress ever would do nothing.

Thanks to Attorney General Steve Bullock, Montana is notably the only state in the nation fighting to protect the rights of people to participate in fair and transparent elections. Middle class people appreciate the political courage to act and speak out. Bullock deserves credit. Whether the U.S. Supreme Court is ticked at the gall of Montana to challenge their decree remains to be seen.

For Montana, and its local towns and school boards, it is publicly irresponsible to allow mega corporations and big money to dump unlimited and secret cash into our hometown elections. Democracy is not about money. It is not about secret donations. Democracy is about public trust, real people, vibrant communities and actual lives.

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-Mike Jopek is a retired State Legislator who again helps run the family farm in Whitefish. He welcomes feedback at mike@mikejopek.com.

Copyright 2012 www.mikejopek.com All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

Food Fight

Most in Congress ignore the growing hunger for better food. Today a budding constituency is fed up with the quality of our school lunches and the laboratory modifications made to real food.

Food has become a social movement. It makes sense: people make eating decisions three times a day. And eaters do not like all that junk added to processed food, ingredients that you cannot even pronounce.

A few years back, the Montana Legislature debated a bill that required the labeling of cloned meat and milk products. A session prior, a bill required labeling of genetically engineered foods. Labeling affords consumers a food choice.

Needless to say, Big Ag worked relentlessly to slaughter the labeling concepts in the Legislature. If citizens want their engineered or cloned foods labeled, they may have to do it through initiative.

First Lady Michelle Obama has proven a tireless advocate for healthier school lunches and better food choices for kids. Obama tilled a vegetable plot onto the White House lawn, the first Victory Garden since Eleanor Roosevelt worked the dirt during the war. The garden is a powerful symbol to encourage others to grow their own food.

During WWII, the U.S. military advocated for better school lunches as recruits were in poor physical condition due to malnutrition. Today a battalion of retired military generals insists it is time to reexamine school lunch menus as recruits pose a national security threat because youngsters are “too fat to fight.”

Montana Sen. Jon Tester is the only active farmer left in the U.S. Senate. He grew up “picking rocks” on his grandfather’s farm. He now operates an organic farm, growing crops like lentils, peas, barley and wheat.

Tester made a name for himself as an advocate for agriculture. He assured that small-scale farming remained viable and safe during the corporate food security debates. If not for Tester and his farming background, no one in Congress may have stood up for family farms.

Small-scale farming operations are springing up around Montana, as more young people return to the land to grow real food. Young farmers and fresh consumers are the vital components for this food-based movement.

Even old-timers again recognize that foodies are concerned with not only how their food is grown, but also who their farmer actually is.

Recently Tester wrote a letter to Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and said, “The skills young people acquire from family agriculture translates into a healthy work ethic that will serve them their entire lives, whether they choose to stay in agriculture or not.” He said that family agriculture is one of the foundations of America.

Mark Bittman is the lead food columnist for the New York Times. He is the author of “Food Matters,” which looks at the crucial connections between food, health and the environment. Bittman recently praised Tester for having the “guts to fight Big Ag.”

This year, one of the biggest bouts heading toward Congress is the Farm Bill – more aptly renamed the Food Bill. This is massive policy dealing with all things food. It will decide big issues for small family farms, for local farmers’ markets, for food stamps for the hungry, and for infants drinking formula.

This bill will be a real food fight in Congress. Count on Big Ag demanding their subsidy for corn syrup in soda pop and genetically engineered crops like corn or soy. Oddly, the only issue this bill will likely not debate is the labeling of engineered and cloned foods.

One food truism is too simple to ignore. No amount of corporate political marketing can change the fact that what we eat and whom we elect to Congress will affect our families’ health for decades to come.

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-Mike Jopek is a retired State Legislator who again helps run the family farm in Whitefish. He welcomes feedback at mike@mikejopek.com.

Copyright 2012 www.mikejopek.com All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

New Year’s Miracle

Christmas season offers joy, a time to reflect on our lives, and a resolve for the New Year. To people worldwide Christmas miracles are everyday possibilities. Miracles grow from natural dirt.

Dr. Terry Wahls is a professor of medicine in Iowa. She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis a decade ago, for which there is no cure. She turned to the very best doctors and received great care.

Wahls undertook chemotherapy and the prescribed drugs but continually become more severely disabled. She knew that brains affected with MS suffered. Her body was ultimately ravaged and confined to a wheelchair.

Seven years later, she said, “In the fall of 2007, I had an important epiphany. What if I redesigned my diet so that I was getting those important brain nutrients not from supplements but from the foods I ate?”

Today Wahls is up, walking and teaching. She said “we, you are all starving ourselves.” As she lectures around the country about the miracle of food, Wahls is standing to show that “kale has the most nutrition per calorie of any plant.”

Dr. Pauline Chen noted the lack of education when she said, “Within days of being accepted into medical school, I started getting asked for medical advice … Should I take vitamins? What do you think of this diet? Is yogurt good for me or not? Each and every time someone posed such a query, I became immediately cognizant of one thing: the big blank space in my brain.”

Katherine Chauncey, a registered dietitian offered a solution when she said, “You can’t just keep writing out script after script after script of new medications when diet is just as important as drugs or any other treatment a patient may be using.”

It’s obvious that what we eat matters. But wellness and real food is seldom mentioned by leaders in Congress.

In Iowa, presidential candidates were asked about health care. None acknowledged the need for wellness or education toward better food choices. Diane Sawyer asked Rep. Ron Paul, a doctor, if there is anything that Congress should do toward healthy youth behavior on the front of bad habits, obesity or exercise.

Paul responded, “No essentially not, but they have to be a referee. If people are doing things that hurt other people, yes. But if you embark on instituting a society where government protects you from yourself, you’re in big trouble and that’s what they’re doing.”

Referees watch closely to ensure that players adhere to rules and settle disputes. Referees are intended to note the epidemic of obesity in children today. The solutions appear simple: less corn syrup, more vegetables, and a bit of exercise. Any referee would surely say that eating education is in order if we want healthier kids.

We Americans are tagged the fattest people in the world and pay the most for healthcare. But gratefully our food is the cheapest anywhere.

Kalispell, Somers and Whitefish schools have taken positive steps toward a healthier lunch menu. Somers grew a garden, while Whitefish is building a greenhouse.

The local Whitefish Lions Club grew potatoes for schools the past couple years. Whitefish schools have a history of gaining national recognition for healthier snacks.

Voters in California are putting onto their 2012 ballot a requirement that genetically engineered foods be labeled. There are no GE foods or crops in Europe. A shocking 75 percent of U.S. supermarket foods are in some way genetically engineered.

Grandma’s food was miraculous, not processed or laden with junk one cannot pronounce. No reason can explain how dirt, water and one tiny seed can grow such an abundance of healthy kale. Feel better and live healthier by making the wonder of eating real and good food your New Year’s resolution.

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-Mike Jopek is a retired State Legislator who again helps run the family farm in Whitefish. He welcomes feedback at mike@mikejopek.com.

Copyright 2011 www.mikejopek.com All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

Real Politics

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer is nationally recognized for his plain talk and good ideas. The Democrat selected a Republican running mate by allowing Montanans to mail in their nominees. He used the same strategy to trim the state budget and to select the design for the state quarter.

Schweitzer is frugal with the Montana budget, and on target to leave the state with a whopping $500 million surplus. But it was the public veto branding of the 2011 Legislature’s Tea Party bills that made history.

Mostly forgotten is how in 2007 Schweitzer won a historic $100 million homeowner tax rebate. But few will forget how he visited Fox News in 2011, calling out legislators for looking “bat crap crazy.”

Last week U2 star Bono shared the stage with Florida Sen. Marco Rubio to rousing applause as he pledged to fight AIDS internationally. It proved a real rock star approach to politics.
That platform was reminiscent of 2005, when Montana Sen. Jon Tester was on stage with Pearl Jam bassist and youth vote advocate Jeff Ament. “Keeping rural Montana alive has so much to do with the youth of Montana,” Ament said.

Recall how Tester trumpeted his cornet on a cold January morning, commencing the 2005 Legislature to the tune of “When the Saints Go Marching In.” That Legislature invested historically in education.

Today Tester is a solemn workhorse, the lead sponsor of recent legislation that provides incentives to hire veterans. Significant to foodies, Tester earned the praise of New York Times’ Mark Bittman for having the “guts to fight Big Ag.”

Texas Rep. Ron Paul leads Tea Party loyalists with his “End the Fed” message. Paul energized younger conservatives with his call to end wars. Paul dubbed himself the “flavor of the decade.” Billionaire Donald Trump wrongly labeled Paul a “joke candidate.”

CNN asked former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman about Trump’s gathering of GOP hopefuls. “You know, I’m not going to kiss his ring. And I’m not going to kiss any other part of his anatomy. This is not about ratings for Donald Trump. This is about jobs for the American people. I don’t like to see the dumbing down of American politics,” said Huntsman.

Huntsman coined the movement toward “politics as entertainment.” He said people want solutions to the joblessness crisis. Huntsman said there is “no trust toward Congress, the executive branch or Wall Street.”

Huntsman found his real voice but has staggeringly low poll numbers in Montana. This is bad news for Republicans, as a moderate Huntsman is well suited to upset a resilient President Barack Obama.

In a speech last week, Obama seized upon the Occupy Wall Street theme in Kansas, vowing to fight for fairness at a “make or break moment for the middle class.”

It is time for politicians to be real, to open up and talk directly with the American people. In the real world, Middle America has it tough and is hungry for a middle class warrior.

Three years ago Muntadhar al-Zaidi tossed a shoe at a ducking President George W. Bush and heckled “this is a farewell kiss from the Iraqi people, you dog.” While scorned in America, al-Zaidi became a real hero in Iraq while serving nine months in prison.

Whitefish elections demonstrated that general voters are tired of fanatical rhetoric. An influx of big-money spending mattered little. Voters hungered for the realness of a Schweitzer-style menu of good ideas and plain talk.

But November is a far away, with plenty of fanatical primary rhetoric in the path. Primaries have never been about moderates or independents, only the views of base stalwarts matter.

Merry Christmas Montana, thanks for keeping it real. May the season offer you honest joy, real love and the blessings of family and friendship.

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-Mike Jopek is a retired State Legislator who again helps run the family farm in Whitefish. He welcomes feedback at mike@mikejopek.com.

Copyright 2011 www.mikejopek.com All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

It was the conviction for social justice that drew former Philadelphia Police Captain Ray Lewis to Wall Street to join activists at the Occupy movement. Lewis was arrested by New York police as protests entered their third month.

“The fact that they were not doing this for themselves; they were doing this for all people who are suffering injustice. That conviction they had for social justice just inspired me. And I couldn’t do anything else but come down,” Lewis said.

The movements’ “jobs and justice” message resonates with Middle America. The status quo is suddenly taking the young activists seriously.

According to MSNBC, a well-known Washington lobbyists group pitched an idea to the American Bankers Association. The lobbyist group contends that a strong “message war” may be needed to combat the grassroots nature of the Occupy protest.

The cornerstone of its nearly $1 million plan on the Occupy movement would identify the perceived leaders and provide “… survey research, opposition research, targeted social media monitoring, coalition planning, and advertising.”

In their proposal, rejected by the bankers, the lobbyists indicated that, “Well-known Wall Street companies stand at the nexus of where OWS protesters and the Tea Party overlap on angered populism. Both the radical left and the radical right are channeling broader frustrations about the state of the economy and share mutual anger of TARP and other perceived bailouts. The combination has the potential to be explosive later in the year when media reports cover the next round of bonuses and contrast with stories of millions of Americans making do with less this holiday season.”

Cultural differences aside, Occupy Memphis recently met with the Mid-South Tea Party. “You have a lot of the same goals we have, which is to take our country back,” said a conservative Tea Party activist. The two movements found common ground on government bailouts and crony capitalism. But a wide rift remains on social justice issues.

At a town hall meeting, a polite Ron Paul told Occupy activists, “I’m very much involved with the 99 percent. I’ve been condemning that 1 percent because they’ve been ripping us off.”

To protect themselves, lobbyists and corporate America may undermine the credibility of the Occupy movement. Given the income disparity, they have a tough message to push. The top 1 percent of America now has a larger net worth than the bottom 90 percent combined, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

Polling by the status quo is obviously underway as they seek to hold the reins of this social, but quickly maturing political movement.

The iconic photographs buzzing over the Internet, showing young women being pepper sprayed and young men beaten by batons, appear to energize the non-violent youth movement into action. Embarrassingly, political leadership remains silent on the brutality, appearing more concerned about re-election.

The Nation journalist John Nichols last week said, “I don’t think that a year ago anybody would have predicted that on a cold, rainy day in November 2011 you would have thousands and thousands of young people out on the streets in New York City and in cities across the country. Something has changed.”

Multiple unions now embrace the “jobs and justice” message pushed by the movement. A December Occupy Congress action is planned in Washington.

Florida Congressman Ted Deutch introduced the OCCUPIED amendment (Outlawing Corporate Cash Undermining the Public Interest in our Elections and Democracy). Deutch seeks to overturn “Citizens United,” restoring a right for Congress and states to regulate election monies. Cynics give the proposal a 1 percent chance of passing.

It is a value for work that keeps American families united and assures liberty and justice for all. Congress appears to openly ignore the public by not passing a “jobs bill” to help get Americans back to work.

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-Mike Jopek is a retired State Legislator who again helps run the family farm in Whitefish. He welcomes feedback at mike@mikejopek.com.

Copyright 2011 www.mikejopek.com All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

Leftist journalist Naomi Klein wrote the books “No Logo” and “The Shock Doctrine.” The social activist spoke at the Occupy Wall Street movement indicating that they can fulfill on the promises of the 1999 global trade action in Seattle. That was the last time a global and youth-led movement took aim at corporate power.

Asked how the Occupy movement deals with establishment politicians, Klein said, “Don’t worry about it. What will make this movement vulnerable is if it doesn’t develop its own democratic mechanisms to speak for itself. Then it’s vulnerable to people using your energy to fight for limited small changes. It’s in your power to not let this happen. You are not cannon fodder for Washington policy wonks.”

Someone asked Klein, “How do we transform the energy of the movement into something that is actually happening?”

“Something is happening,” Klein responded. “You’re giving the people courage. You’re telling them they’re not alone and they’re not crazy. You’re giving them a space to find one another.”

“It just can’t happen overnight, but I beg you not to fetishize not having a structure. We made that mistake, and it destroyed our movement,” Klein continued.

The recent Supreme Court decision, Citizens United, radically returned American politics back to the secret days of corporate political financing.

“Corporations are people, my friend,” Republican Presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney said at a recent political rally. People in the audience shouted, “No, they’re not!”

“Of course they are,” Romney responded.

Secret corporate political spending skyrocketed by fourfold over four years. The next presidential race alone may top $1 billion by each of the general election candidates.

Last week Missoula became the third city in America to call for an end to corporate personhood. It passed by a 3-to-1 margin. Missoula said corporations are not people and money is not speech.

Montanans enjoy some of the oldest campaign finance laws in the nation. Long ago, citizens passed a ban on secret money and direct corporate contributions to candidates.

Those looking to overturn the ban on corporate financing want to “inject unlimited amounts of money into Montana’s state and local elections,” Attorney General Steve Bullock wrote in federal court papers. Former Secretary of State Bob Brown filed a brief in support of the attorney general’s position.

Secret money would return Montana to the political days of the “wild west.” Recent Whitefish city election spending approached $100,000 when combining spending of all candidates, special interest PACs, and the huge influx of non-disclosed individual money.

But a populist uprising occurred in Whitefish as the slate of youthful and progressive city candidates won big. More people turned out to vote than at any time in Whitefish history.

The Occupy movement awoke the courage for youth to mobilize. America will observe how today’s people capital of the Occupy movement competes politically with the dollar capital of corporate America.

In Ohio real people mobilized and voters repealed the state’s controversial ban on collective bargaining rights for public workers.

With an above-the-fold headline in local newspapers reading “U.S. wealth gap is now largest ever,” it is easy to see that a populist “jobs and justice” message from the Occupy movement would resonate.

In 1966 Jesse Unruh said that “money is the mother’s milk of politics.” We will see in the months ahead if it is corporate cash or real people that translate to political capital as candidates vie for elected office.

The Occupy moment sheds light on America’s thirst for work. Perhaps Congress will pass a jobs bill. And perhaps Corporate America will repatriate profits and all those jobs they exported overseas.

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-Mike Jopek is a retired State Legislator who again helps run the family farm in Whitefish. He welcomes feedback at mike@mikejopek.com.

Copyright 2011 www.mikejopek.com All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

Middle America knows it is getting squeezed. A decade after the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Stegall Act, greedy Wall Street firms made too many irresponsible bets that collapsed the housing market, sending unemployment skyrocketing.

Plenty of politicians insist that government should not create jobs by spending public money to fix bridges, hire teachers, rebuild roads, or invest in infrastructure projects. The Occupy Wall Street movement has put pressure on corporate America to hire workers.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis released a report indicating a meager 49 manufacturing plants in the United States employing more than 5,000 people. Americans buy plenty of Apple iPhones, even if they are made in China where the company employs thousands of people.

Montana also invests its considerable cash reserves in Wall Street banks. The new director for the Montana Board of Investments should take a fresh look at banking with local credit unions and community banks. They offer better returns, create local credit and local jobs.

At the first Occupy Kalispell gathering, activists held plenty of signs. “Main Street not Wall Street,” “I can’t afford a politician so I made up this sign,” “This country was built by men in denim and will be destroyed by men in suits,” and “1 percent richer, 99 percent poorer. and 100 percent unfair,” were all common themes.

Cindy Geer was talking to a local TV outlet. Geer indicated that the movement had relevance because there is a lot of unemployment in the Flathead and people were tired of big money control. Geer said: “We’re the 99 percent. That means all of us. It doesn’t matter if you’re Democrat, Republican or Tea Party: we’re all together in this.”

Someone else reiterated author Fran Lebowitz: “No one earns $100 million. You steal $100 million. People earn $10 an hour. People earn $40,000 a year. Earn means work, OK?”

A Republican friend at the event indicated that the movement should focus on changing government rather than the greed of Wall Street. But at a subsequent Occupy rally in Kalispell, a Tea Party activist merged with the Occupy movement holding an “End the Fed” sign.

Past corporate executive and presidential hopeful Herman Cain criticized the Occupy movement saying, “They might be frustrated with Wall Street and the bankers, but they’re directing their anger at the wrong place. Wall Street didn’t put in failed economic policies. .. They ought to be over in front of the White House taking out their frustration.”

Fellow residential candidate and Texas Rep. Ron Paul disagreed, saying, “I think Mr. Cain has blamed the victims. There’s a lot of people that are victims of this business cycle. We can’t blame the victims. I’d go to Washington as well as Wall Street.”

The far right and the far left may someday agree that both Wall Street and Washington are culpable, as citizens petition for redress of grievances.

Occupy Wall Street might swing the political pendulum back toward the middle. But, whether citizens are Occupy Wall Street activists or Tea Party activists: the ballot box is open.

Flathead cities are defined by local culture, strong community and a great sense of place. It will take vision and community partnerships to ensure continued economic prosperity.

Next week townsfolk in Columbia Falls, Kalispell and Whitefish decide who voters trust for leadership. Voters should occupy the ballot box.

Whitefish voters can mail ballots back or drop them off at Whitefish City Hall. Kalispell is mail only. Kalispell or Whitefish voters who did not receive a ballot must vote in Kalispell at the Earl Bennett Building any day, including Tuesday.

Columbia Falls still has a good old-fashioned Election Day with polls open Tuesday at City Hall.

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-Mike Jopek is a retired State Legislator who again helps run the family farm in Whitefish. He welcomes feedback at mike@mikejopek.com.

Copyright 2011 www.mikejopek.com All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.