Sign up for the free Great Falls This Week newsletter and stay in the loop on Great Falls city government, public school meetings, business news and upcoming entertainment and events. Sign up 3/30/2026 County goes forward with purchase of Belt dump site, bemoans pricetag The Cascade County Commission last week purchased 3 acres under a Belt dump for about about $123,000, although Commission Chairman Jim Larson lamented paying what he saw as an unfairly steep, by-the-acre price. “We’re not really buying acreage,” Larson said at the meeting. “We’re buying a facility with infrastructure on it. That infrastructure was built by Cascade County taxpayer money. Now we’re being asked to buy it back.” The county has operated the dump on private land for more than a decade. But in 2024, a few years after James Bumgarner bought the property, the relationship between Bumgarner and the commission soured. Negotiations over the monthly rate for county access to the property stalled in December that year, and Bumgarner locked the facility’s gate. The county considered other options, including building a new dump site. But the infrastructure alone for a new site would cost about $300,000, according to a county report presented to the commission, “and would leave the county in the same position it was prior, where the county-owned structure would be on leased land, and the county could be asked to move or leave in the future.”  So the commission resumed negotiations with Bumgarner.  “That infrastructure is basically worthless, except to us,” County Commissioner Eric Hinebauch told Montana Free Press. The Belt dump as seen on March 27, 2026. Credit: Zeke Lloyd, MTFP The county had recently made a similar purchase when it bought the roughly 1.6-acre Stockett dump site for about $64,000. Larson said at the meeting that he wanted to pay a similar amount for the entire Belt property. But instead, using the Stockett purchase, an appraiser calculated a price per acre, meaning that the county would have to pay about twice as much for the land in Belt.  Bumgarner said it was his right to set the price of his own land. “Does the public get to tell you what you’re going to sell your house for?” Bumgarner asked MTFP. “So I guess the same would be true. Does anybody get to tell me what I get to sell my land for when I’m the owner?” Commissioner Joe Briggs said he, like Larson, wished the county could pay $60,000 less, but he said it was time to sign the deal and reopen the site. “Give the people of the Belt area their permanent site,” Briggs said. “And move on with the lesson. Hopefully, everybody understands now why we want to own these sites because this is the kind of thing that happens when property transfers.” By the numbers The new salary for Great Falls City Manager Greg Doyon, which the city commission approved last week after a routine, closed-door performance review. Mayor Cory Reeves said Doyon oversees about 500 city employees and has done “an outstanding job this past year.” “He gives wonderful guidance and management to his city staff,” Reeves said. “Greg is known for building trust and reliability, and we’ve taken a great notice of his professional leadership and development.” The 4% raise, which included a 2.4% cost-of-living adjustment and a 1.6% performance component, received support from four commissioners. Commissioner Casey Schreiner voted no, but said his position was unrelated to Doyon’s performance.  “It just has to do with the budgetary constraints and the realities that we’re about to face this budget cycle moving forward,” Schreiner said at the meeting. Commissioner Joe McKenney pushed back on Schreiner’s rationale. “The budget constraints have been there the whole 18 years of Mr. Doyon’s city management career,” McKenney said at the meeting. “If we took budget constraints as the decision-maker of his performance and how much he is rewarded in salary, he would have never got a raise in 18 years and never again in the future.” Doyon received a 5.1% raise after his last performance review in March 2025.  Snapshot  A construction crew pours the foundation for the new Toby’s House Crisis Nursery March 23, 2026. Credit: Kolby Green Toby’s House Crisis Nursery is making steady progress in constructing its new facility on the corner of Second Street and Seventh Avenue South. The nonprofit broke ground in late January and hopes to open in the summer.  Toby’s House, launched in 2020, is a no-cost, drop-in child care facility that serves parents who need short-term care and can’t afford traditional daycare. The existing child care center operates out of a renovated home along Fifth Street in downtown Great Falls. 5 Things to Know in Great Falls Two city restaurants have closed, and another has closed its kitchen since March 16. Street Burgers and Kaboom have both closed, according to Facebook posts from both restaurants. Stadium Sports Bar Casino closed its kitchen.  Moody’s bond rating service recently gave Great Falls one of its highest ratings, said City Manager Greg Doyon at the March 17 city commission meeting. Doyon called the rating “an indicator of financial performance for the community.”  ​​“It allows the city, should it encumber debt, to be more competitive when those bonds are sold,” he said.  The Great Falls Public School Board will this week select a bid for roof repairs at Lincoln Elementary School, which lost its roof in a windstorm March 8. Luke Diekhans, director of business operations for Great Falls Public Schools, told MTFP that Montana law allows for an expedited bidding timeline for natural disasters.  City Police Lt. Matt Fleming said a gun was fired downtown in the early hours of March 22, but most details about the incident remain under wraps. According to a police department press release, one person suffered non-life-threatening injuries and was taken to the hospital. Police are investigating multiple suspects.   The Russell 2026 art auction sold out, with total sales exceeding $5.7 million, according to a press release. The three-day event in mid-March, put on by the C.M. Russel Museum, featured works by Russell and contemporary Western painters. The museum expects to retain about $1 million after paying expenses and consignors. The post Cascade County buys a dump appeared first on Montana Free Press. ...read more read less