The annual Uptown Christmas Stroll, The Magic of Christmas, will be this Friday, December 1st, in Historic Uptown Butte from 5:30pm to 10:00pm.

Check out the details and schedule from Mainstreet Uptown Butte.

The Christmas Stroll is always on the first Friday in December and is always a fantastic time.

This year, the Historic Uptown Bus (HUB) will be running from the Butte Plaza Mall (the old Stage location) every half hour. It’s free and will decrease your parking woes.

And remember, if you indulge, have someone else do the driving.

We’ll look forward to seeing you Uptown.

The holiday layout is complete. Tell us what you think by leaving us a comment.

Marx and I (and all the rest of the ButteTalk team) wish you and yours the best Thanksgiving.

Here’s hoping your day is wonderful. The weather is supposed to be questionable, especially this morning so stay safe if you are travelling.

Take care and thanks for stopping by.

As you may have heard, Butte will be the site of an Economic Development Summit next spring with ties to some pretty big names in media and business.

From the Billings Gazette:

WASHINGTON – Microsoft founder Bill Gates and former NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw will headline an economic development summit in Butte in April.

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., is organizing the summit. Gates will appear live via satellite.

“The summit is about working together to boost our state’s economy and create more good-paying jobs,” Baucus said. “We want our kids to be able to stay here and raise their families.”

The summit begins April 30 and ends May 1.

Well, it is an excellent honor for Butte to be selected as the place to host the summit.

One commenter on the Billings Gazette story thinks that it’s a wasted honor.

Hole wrote on November 18, 2006 4:14 PM
Butte is a hole. If Montana were to be given an enima, that is where they’d stick it. How about Billings, Missoula, or Bozeman for such an event!

We are pretty sick and tired of Butte having this rap to the rest of the state. People who haven’t been here in a while really have nothing to base this kind of comment on. Butte’s a changing place. We really are going to have to work extremely hard just to climb out of the “hole” of everyone elses’ biases.

I think the summit will be good for Butte, and it’s no wonder that Baucus would select us for his damn summit. We’re the only place in this state that supports his party in the first place, aren’t we?

So come on Butte, it’s our turn to shine. Don’t let the naysayers have the satisfaction of being even CLOSE to right.

And for the record, we in Butte can manage to spell enema right…

I am a die-hard Grizzly fan, but anyone who has an interest in Big Sky football knows the Montana Grizzlies’ defensive performance was the only reason they were able to hang on to the Big Sky title.

The Grizzlies defeated the Cats 13 to 7 today at Washington Grizzly Stadium. Montana’s two field goals should’ve been touchdowns with no questions asked. Not to mention, making it to the 2 yd. line with 20 seconds to go in the half and coming up short.

Josh Swogger, quarterback for the Griz, completed only 17 passes out of 41 total attempts and had two interceptions.

The Grizzly coaching staff really needs to revise the Montana offense if they want to have a chance in the playoffs. The Griz will host the first round of the playoffs next Saturday in Missoula. Parings will be announced tomorrow.

Read the full story from the Billings Gazette.

A few problems with our hosting service kept us off line for most of the day today.

We’re back online and everything is running great. :)

After hiding out and letting the realizations of his loss sink in, Conrad Burns finally conceded to Jon Tester early this afternoon.

“I stand ready to help as Montana transitions to a new United States Senator,” Burns said in a statement provided to the Associated Press. “We fought the good fight and we came up just a bit short.”

If a good fight means political mudslinging of false facts, then good job Conrad!

The only thing I will never understand is how he managed to get so many votes. How can people in this state still be so ignorant? It is embarrasing to all Montanans.

Anyway, have a nice life Conrad and keep your dirty politics out of our state.

It’s so nice to wake up to such good news.

• Tester Declared the Winner (Billings Gazette)
• Democrat wins Montana Senate seat, CNN projects (CNN)
• Democrat Wins Montana Senate Race (CBS)
• Democrats on Brink of Controlling Senate After Cliffhanger Win in Montana; GOP Loses House (ABC)
• Democrat Wins Montana Seat, Ties Senate (Newsvine)

I would have posted this sooner but I’ve been kinda glued to the TV waiting for Conrad to conceed. Secretary of State hasn’t yet called the race though, that I can find. Oh well, it’s coming…..

Plus Rumsfeld is resigning? Holy awesome, batman.

I may just give up and go to bed without final numbers on the Tester/Burns race or the close race in Virginia. But first, I have some thoughts on some of the races/numbers from today and BSB’s results…

• Okay, Butte. Seriously. In the race for House District 76, a member of the National Socialist Movement got 472 votes?! How is that possible? One vote for this guy is too many. White separatists aren’t the kind of people we need representing us.

  Mostly, to me, it shows that some people will just vote for the party even if they know nothing about the candidate. At least, I hope that is what it means.

• Mike Kerns, unseated in Commission District 1. Very, very interesting…… Now who will be Rick Foote’s best friend on the council?

• Is anyone ever going to run against Mike Sheehy? Ever? Come on people, someone needs to step up.

• Cindi Shaw takes Commission District 11. She’s knowledgeable and well spoken. Good luck to her.

• In my opinion the Study Commission REALLY missed the boat and just let the chance to affect some meaningful change pass us right on by. Oh well, maybe in ten years…. In the meantime their namby-pamby ideas seemed to fire up the typical Butte voter, so who knows.

• The Fire Department will get their new truck. Good. Jeff Miller (Director of Fire Services) runs a tight ship and I think he’s a great department head.

• Law Enforcement Levy defeated…

  Who’s surprised? This is a clear message to Sheriff Walsh: the public thinks that the resources that he already has aren’t managed appropriately or effectively. The less-than-favorable WRICOPS study of the Law Enforcement Division and general public opinion around town pretty much guaranteed this levy would fail.

• I’m still not giving up on Jon. He’s still ahead by 1% as I write this.

  If, however, Conrad Burns gains re-election I may just give the hell up. This man is making us look like a state full of assholes, people. I don’t appreciate being a laughingstock in the first place, but then to just put him back in for another term when he keeps embarrassing us? Ridiculous.

  It’s really tough to be blue from head to toe in such a red state…..

I’m going to get a couple hours sleep. With my fingers and toes crossed.

Butte-Silver Bow apparently had an easy count this Election night–results posted on the BSB website show 100% of precincts counted as of 11:15 p.m. Wow, they made quick work of that.

Update: Okay they have since posted another update, as of 1:21 a.m. and I’ve just updated the numbers on this post based on the updated numbers. Any other updates will be reflected in this post as well.

Let’s take a look at a few of the issues and races and how Butte voters chose to vote.
* These results are unofficial.

District Court Judge District 2 Dept 2

Brad Newman	8,028 votes	57.36%
Margie Thomas	5,944 votes	42.47%
(24 write-in votes)

State Representative District 73

Art Noonan (Democrat)	2,759 votes	97.36%
(67 write-in votes)

State Representative District 74

George Groesbeck (Democrat)	3,288 votes	98.00%
(67 write-in votes)

State Representative District 75

Jim Keane (Democrat)	2,994 votes	97.91%
(64 write-in votes)

State Representative District 76

Jon Sesso (Democrat)	2,230 votes	82.26%
Shawn Stuart (Republican)	472 votes	17.41%
(9 write-in votes)

BSB Commissioner District 1

Glen Granger	817 votes	54.80%
Mike Kerns	673 votes	45.14%
(1 write-in vote)

BSB Commissioner District 2

Joe Lee	1,145 votes	99.13%
(10 write-in votes)

BSB Commissioner District 7

Mark Moodry	637 votes	68.13%
Debra Lynn Retzlaff	296 votes	31.66%
(2 write-in votes)

BSB Commissioner District 9

Dan Foley	759 votes	75.15%
Laurie A. Raymond	245 votes	24.26%
(6 write-in votes)

BSB Commissioner District 10

Mike Sheehy	494 votes	95.92%
(21 write-in votes)

BSB Commissioner District 11

Cindy Shaw	586 votes	58.72%
Michael J. Hogart	401 votes	40.18%
(11 write-in votes)

Issue 1

Removal of “at the pleasure of” language from the charter. Placement of responsibility of the community enrichment and superfund coordinator with the Chief Executive.

For Changes	8,968 votes	68.77%
Keep Existing Language	4,073 votes	31.23%

Issue 2

Employment contracts instead of lifetime employment for department heads.

For Changes	8,467 votes	64.75%
Keep Existing Language	4,609 votes	35.25%

Issue 3

Animal Control as a Separate Department.

For Changes	8,467 votes	64.75%
Keep Existing Language	4,609 votes	31.32%

Issue 4

Evaluate Chief Executive Annually.

For Changes	9,720 votes	72.87%
Keep Existing Language	3,619 votes	27.13%

Issue 5

Publish Annual Budget Before Budget Hearing.

For Changes	10,484 votes	77.77%
Keep Existing Language	2,996 votes	22.23%

Fire Truck Bond Issue

For Bond Issue	9,080 votes	65.05%
Against Bond Issue	4,879 votes	34.95%

Law Enforcement Levy

Against Levy	7,953 votes	57.12%
For Levy	5,971 votes	42.88%