Missoula Mayor Talks About Impacts of Open Space, Marijuana Initiative

[BluntKilla]

Missoula voters resoundingly agreed last week that their vision of Missoula contains a healthy amount of public open space.

In the Mayor's office, the open-space bond was the big issue coming out of Tuesday's election.

"We're lucky to be able to cross that off our list," Mayor John Engen said.

Now, Engen said, it's time for the real work to begin: finding, prioritizing and acquiring the open space -- essentially, spending the money.

NewWest.Net sat down with Mayor Engen and his communications director, Ginny Merriam, Monday to talk about how election results are going to affect the city and specifically, the Mayor's office. Both will be speaking about open space, the marijuana offence prioritization initiative and other election results on the Live Missoula radio program Nov. 19. So, offer up any questions you might want host Pete Deneault to ask or suggest subjects you might want discussed during the show in the comments section below this story.

Merriam said the most exciting thing about the open-space bond was how explicit the decision was. The bond passed by nearly 70 percent.

"It was such a clear mandate from people," Merriam said.

Merriam said she wonders if, considering how dear the issue has become for Missoula residents, open-space bonds could someday be as regular as school-mill levies on the ballot.

Engen said one of the reasons open-space has been an easy sell in Missoula is that it's a tried and true issue.

Pointing behind him to Mount Jumbo and Mount Sentinel, he said, "Those are lasting significant symbols of what the public, working together to preserve land, can do."

"There is more of that to be done and I think the public really understands that and expects it," he said. "This is something we've been good at doing, so they want to do more."

Then of course, there is the economic benefit open space provides to Missoula.

"It translates into dollars and cents," Engen said, adding that the translation occurs across the board. "Open space works for big boxes and mom and pops."

Voters also agreed last Tuesday to downgrade the priority law enforcement gives to marijuana offenses against adults in the county. Initiative 2 is the other big county ballot measure that will affect the city, and the Mayor's office.

Engen said his office is still weighing exactly what to do with Initiative 2 and that the city is "continuing to discuss our approach."

"There's enough ambiguity that we need to solidify a policy," he said.

It's not clear yet, Engen said, if there will be a challenge to the measure but there is talk that "a number of folks" are looking at fighting it.

"My big beef," Engen said. "Is if we're going to manage the way we enforce laws through initiative, we're micro-managing in the worst way."

"I'd just as soon we change the laws and let our law enforcement professionals enforce the laws rather than have us make a choice based on referendum how we're going to apply the law," he said.

It also could pose more subtle problems for the officers, Engen said.

"It takes away discretion and choice and tempers officers' ability to think on their feet and make good judgments on the ground and that's what we're paying them to do," he said.

Even though the initiative applies to county officers, it will affect the city as well, both Engen and Merriam said.

On one of the other measures on the ballot last Tuesday, 55 percent of Missoula voters chose to keep the city council and mayor's office non-partisan positions.

Engen said he'll continue to be open about being a Democrat, but doesn't mind that Missoulians don't want candidates to have a big D or R next to their names.

"If that's not a filter that helps them … then OK," he said.


Newshawk: BluntKilla - 420Magazine.com
Source: New West Missoula
Pubdate: 11-13-06
Author: Courtney Lowery
Copyright: 2006 NewWest
Contact: contact
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