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Senator Taylor Brown and Representative Jonathan McNiven answering questions during the Legislative Forum Update in Lockwood, MT.

If you’re one of the many who follow the 2011 legislative session, chances are you were also invited to a legislative update by your Montana Senator and Representative.  As the legislators were all home during the 4 day transmittal break, you should have heard from your local Montana legislators this last week. 

 In Lockwood, Senator Taylor Brown (Senate District 22) and Representative Jonathan McNiven (House District 44) met with local residents on Feb. 24^th and heard their concerns regarding issues important to them.  From topics of medical marijuana, property rights, workmans Comp to abortion, noxious weeds and ditch access were all in the works for different topics that were discussed.

 One of the main issues addressed during a local legislative forum was the incorporation possibility of Lockwood.  The bills that were being introduced in the legislative session included addition of annexation if an area was to incorporate as well as adding another option for an area instead of a U.S. Post office.  The term that was used in the bill is called a Contact Postal Unit (CPU).  There is a Contract Post Office in the Lockwood IGA store at this time and has been for some years now. 

As some see it, the members of the Lockwood Steering Committee are trying to look ahead to what the future for Lockwood should be or could be.  Lockwood is now a community of approximately 8,400 people (according to the 2010 U.S, Census report), roughly the size of Miles City or Lewistown, with about 180 businesses.   If it continues to grow, then the problems with streets, sidewalks, traffic, law enforcement, lighting, etc. will at some point require more than what they have now.  Some options include, at some point beginning to discuss whether Lockwood should someday attempt to incorporate as its own town, or whether it should try to annex into Billings, or whether it should just continue as is, organized as different districts for services like water, sewer, fire, transportation, etc.  Those have been adequate so far, but will they be enough when Lockwood grows to a larger, denser population like 14,000?

The City of Billings has made it clear that they are not interested in annexing Lockwood into their city at this time.  They recognize that it would take a lot of investment to bring Lockwood up to the par with the kinds of city services that Billings provides.  Billings has estimated that it will take some $85 million to upgrade Lockwood to the City of Billing’s levels.  It seems that most Lockwood people don’t want to be annexed anyway and most don’t feel that they need all the services that Billings provides to its residents.  Lockwood residents in general seem to want lower taxes and less services, even though they realize that their growing population is increasing in its needs.

To the casual observer it would seem to make sense that with 8400 residents, Lockwood should consider incorporating into its own town.  There are some in Lockwood that want to at least start that discussion.  Unfortunately that idea has been stopped by a recent state law that requires that a community like Lockwood must have a Post Office in order to even consider incorporation, and since the U.S. Postal Service has said they do not plan to build a Post Office in Lockwood, that has stopped any ability to move forward with the discussion of incorporation. 

The Lockwood Steering Committee has encouraged their representatives to support a bill (SB91), that Representative Bill Glaser has tried in the past.  It would simply lift the requirement that in order to consider incorporation as a town, a community must first have a Post Office or Contract Postal Unit (CPU).   If that bill were to pass, then if Lockwood wanted to vote on whether to incorporate, they could pursue a petition to that effect, and see what local people wanted to do.  Most residents will want to know a lot more about what that cost would be and some say a majority would not even vote to incorporate anyway.

Senator Taylor Brown talking during Legislative Update Forum.

One leader said it this way: “No one is saying that we are definitely seeking incorporation at this time but, rather, if we find that incorporation is the only means through which we feel our issues can be adequately and fairly addressed, then we need to have that option remain open to us. The key here is that Lockwood has current issues that must be dealt with that will only get more critical in the future if they remain ignored.”

There are several outside forces that do not necessarily want Lockwood to incorporate, mainly because of questions about changes in the tax base.  Yellowstone County for example would not want Lockwood to form its own town if that meant that Lockwood city limits would absorb the Exxon Refinery and other large businesses, because that is currently a significant part of the County’s tax base.  The Exxon Refinery is also concerned about being incorporated into a future town of Lockwood, and then possibly having to pay increased taxes.  So, because of those concerns there is a second bill from Representative Gary MacLaren that was considered called HB426, which basically would say that if a town does incorporate that “Land used for agricultural, mining, smelting, refining, transportation, or any industrial or manufacturing purpose may not be included in a proposed city or town without the written consent of the owners of the land.”   Because this is such a broad inclusion, (“transportation, or any industrial or manufacturing purpose”) that would make it pretty hard to ever form a new town of any kind.

As Representative Jonathan McNiven had also stated while talking to residents at the forum, “Taylor Brown and I are only trying to do a good job of representing Lockwood here in the Legislature, and we will do whatever the residents want, but when there is no organized town, then it falls upon the leaders of the community, county and local residents (like the local residents those involved in the Lockwood Steering Committee) to step forward and try to do some thinking about what the future of the community need to look like 15 years from now.

Other Town Hall meetings last weekend took place at the Elks Club (Pacaderm), Petro Hall (Montana Shrugged Tea Party), and the Heights City Brew.  The Transmittal Break for all Legislators ends Tuesday, March 1 as they report back to work in Helena.