Puffing up city council members Jeff Krauss and Sean Becker - two articles by Erin Schattauer

Reproduced here for fair use and discussion purposes. My comments in bold.
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Two articles written by Erin Schattauer have appeared in recent issues of the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, regarding two of our city councilmen. Reproduced below.

It precipitated a note from me. That is first, followed by her reply, and then the articles.

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Ms. Schattauer,

I apologize in advance for any offense you might take to the following.

I'm wondering if you have any journalistic skepticism regarding the city commissioners. I note that there is not a single negative observation, caveat, or challenging question in either of the two articles you've written.

These are the same city commissioners that messed up the transfer station, demanded Facebook passwords of their employees, paid fines to former employees, created a lightly used bus system and parking garage, and charged Wal-Mart $500,000 in extortion money.

Do you not remember the Story mansion debacle, including the "Becker Amendment?" Do you not wonder how someone can be in office for 10 years and not allocate money for needed repairs of infrastructure, instead allowing it to crumble?

It would seem that you wasted an opportunity to ask pointed questions, instead settling for a couple of puff pieces replete with pictures of cute children.

Forgive me for my directness.

Respectfully submitted,

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Notice her reply completely rationalizes her failure. The fact remains that she wrote two puff pieces, and failed to take advantage of the opportunity to challenge the power structure. It is irrelevant that the paper has already covered these issues. A "profile piece" tells us about the people being profiled. Why edit out important things about them?

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Rich,

Thank you for your email. I appreciate your directness.

While I understand your point, the two recent articles on the outgoing and incoming mayors were meant to be profile pieces. In the past, the Chronicle has diligently covered these topics, including the Story Mansion, Facebook passwords, etc., as they arise. We will continue to do this in the future as well.

Thank you, again, for your input.

Best regards,

-- Erin Schattauer

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Now for her two articles:

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Becker reflects on time as mayor
By ERIN SCHATTAUER, Chronicle Staff Writer

Sean Becker remembers repelling from the ice wall to give the welcome address at the Bozeman Ice Climbing Festival.

“So, I jumped off the top and I got all tangled up in the ropes. I thought they were going to have to call the fire department,” he said with a smile.

That is just one of the fond memories Becker will take with him as he prepares to step down as Bozeman’s mayor. He took the helm in 2012. On Monday, his term will officially end and Deputy Mayor Jeff Krauss will take over the city’s top job.

Becker was first elected a city commissioner in 2005. Elected mayor in 2009, he had to serve as deputy mayor for the first two years of his four-year term, a requirement in the city charter.

He spent the entire decade of his 30s involved in local government.

“When I was elected to office in 2005, I was single, no kids. I had roommates and it was just a totally different world,” he said.

Becker admits that before he had a family, he never understood when elected officials would leave politics to spend more time with their families.

“Having kids definitely shifts your priorities, and putting them to bed Sunday night and not seeing them until Friday night is really hard for any parent. And it’s really hard on my wife,” Becker said.

He and his wife, Nolita, have two daughters, Greta, 3, and Amelia, 1.

This past year, Greta’s third birthday was the first birthday celebration he had ever attended for his children.

With a full schedule of public appearances, ribbon cuttings and other obligations, Becker has been known to bring his daughters with him when he has to speak at or attend an event. “I’ve brought my girls with me everywhere,” he said. “They’ve been in my arms in the public their entire lives.

“I’ve also found I’m more endearing with a child in my arms,” he joked.

Becker estimates he spent between 30 and 40 hours each week on his mayoral duties. There is more to being mayor than just attending a weekly Monday meeting. Becker estimates he spends about two hours each day responding to emails. He serves on several other city boards. He meets with the city manager and department heads. He fields citizens’ questions while standing in line at the pharmacy. He has thousands of numbers in his iPhone.

“Now that Jeff ’s coming in my phone’s slowly stopped ringing,” he said.

In addition to his mayoral duties, Becker is employed as a business adviser with the Montana Community Development Corp.

Becker refers to himself as a “chrono optimist,” always convinced he can squeeze one more playground dedication or charity luncheon into his schedule.

“I love the public process and the process calls for any mayor to engage the public right where they’re at,” he said.

During his time on the commission, there are a few things he is proud of but quickly adds that he can’t take full responsibility for those accomplishments.

“No mayor, no one elected official, can ever claim full responsibility for anything that occurs,” he said.

That being said, Becker is proud of the guardrails that were installed leading up to Hyalite. This opened up access to ice climbing, ice fishing and crosscountry skiing, he said.

He is also proud of the city staff that has been assembled. The city has hired people with a lot of experience and talent and allowed them to be innovative, Becker said.

He is also happy with the city’s response when volatile organic compounds were found leaching from the landfill on the west side of town. Addressing the matter became the city’s main priority, Becker said.

Becker is also happy with how the city has created a welcoming venue for citizens to have their voices heard at City Commission meetings. When City Hall moved into its current building on Rouse Avenue, the muted colors, lower ceilings and the placement of the podium off to the side of the room made for a more welcoming public forum, Becker said.

“It’s not easy to engage your local government and it’s our job to make it easy,” he said. “We don’t have people crying on the dais as much anymore. We don’t have audiences that are booing and clapping as much.”

Becker said there is some unfinished business that he is leaving behind.

He said the commission should be more decisive about choosing a location for the city’s aquatics park. He thinks the city should partner with the Gallatin Valley YMCA and build a joint facility on 7 acres adjacent to the Gallatin County Regional Park.

He also said the city needs to move forward with a final design for the new municipal police and courts facility.

As Bozeman continues to grow, he also said the city needs a convention center, something that will require the city and Chamber of Commerce working on together.

“As Bozeman grows and tourism increases, it’s going to be even more clear that this is going to be a destination location for conference events if we can provide a facility,” he said.

Looking forward, Becker plans to continue serving in other capacities, including on the Northern Rocky Mountain Economic Development Commission, the governor’s Economic Development Advisory Board and the Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors.

Having grown up in Cincinnati, Ohio and moving to Montana when he was 18 to work as a pizza guy at Old Faithful Lodge in Yellowstone National Park, Becker said you can’t choose where you come from but you can choose where you end up.

“It’s truly an honor to serve as mayor of the community that you love,” he said.

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FRESH START
Jeff Krauss ready for third term as Bozeman mayor
By ERIN SCHATTAUER • Chronicle Staff Writer

Jeff Krauss knows what it’s like to just show up one day on Bozeman’s doorstep.

In 1975, Krauss drove a friend of his out here in his old car from Virginia and decided to stick around.

Thirty-nine years later, Krauss is Bozeman’s mayor — again. He served previously in the top city position from 2006-2008 and 2010-2012.

Mug in hand at a Main Street coffee shop, just a few days shy of beginning his third term as mayor, Krauss recalled how he got here and how that story of just showing up has shaped how he sees Bozeman today.

“I want people to like the people in this community and to work for the people in this community,” he said. “That includes the people that come tomorrow, because, at one time, I was that person that just showed up at Bozeman’s doorstep... But thanks to an attitude then of ‘What can you contribute?’ I was able to become a member of this community.”

In addition to his City Commission duties, Krauss is the director of finance and administration at the Museum of the Rockies and serves on the Montana Board of Regents. He lives in town with his wife, Peggy, and his two sons, Wynn, 24, and Ryan, 21.

As of Jan. 3, Krauss will have been serving on the Bozeman City Commission for exactly 10 years. On Monday, he’ll be sworn in as mayor, taking over the helm when Sean Becker steps down.

He admits he can’t predict the makeup of the upcoming commission.

“Every two years, you start out fresh and you don’t know where it’s going to go,” Krauss said. “I’m not a mind reader. I just hope we all do our homework.”

Krauss said he does his. He keeps tabs on national and local trends across the country, including the “other ‘B’ towns,” like Boise, Idaho, and Boulder, Colo.

“If you just stay in Bozeman and you don’t get out much, you don’t really know what’s happening in Montana and in the rest of the country,” he said.

Krauss said he reads the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Economist and a handful of magazines. He also picks up a copy of the local newspaper when he travels to another town.

“When I go to where I grew up in Virginia or I go on a trip somewhere else, I make sure I read those papers from the perspective of a mayor or commissioner, and I look around at what those towns are doing,” he said.

A national trend he sees mirrored in Bozeman is that there aren’t jobs for those under 30.

“I think we have the opportunity to change that in Bozeman by going out and finding the kinds of businesses we want to have in Bozeman. If we were deliberate about our economic development, we could attract the outdoor gear manufacturers, the Oracles, those niches,” he said.

Krauss would like to see companies like Oracle and Mystery Ranch become anchor tenants in Bozeman with more companies in those fields setting up shop here. But he said high fees and costly, time-consuming regulations create a monetary barrier for startups that want to locate in Bozeman. “You can either make it happen or let it happen. We have to be a town that makes it happen,” he said.

To be a town that crafts its own future and works to become what it wants to be, members of the community must work together, he said.

“I won the lottery when I found a way to live in Bozeman and raise my kids here. And you don’t do that alone. You have help,” Krauss said. “It’s getting into the community and having them help you make it. That’s how it works in Bozeman. We don’t tell that story. We need to live that story a little bit more.”

The first step toward accomplishing that is meeting Montana State University halfway in its goal to become more engaged in the community, he said.

The second step is breaking down what Krauss refers to as the “artificial barrier” that is the antigrowth issue.

“Back in the 1990s, there started to be a ‘them versus us’ mentality expressed as ‘growth doesn’t pay for itself.’ What this anti-newcomer sentiment ignored was that the current people making that statement weren’t ‘paying for themselves’ either,” Krauss said.

At that time, city streets, curbs, sidewalks, the swimming pool and tennis courts were not being maintained, Krauss said. Now, all residents are going to bear the costs of cleaning up things like the landfill, he said.

“We need to meet our needs together,” he said.

Over the last decade, the city has addressed needs related to water, wastewater and fire protection, Krauss said. Now, he said, it is time to focus on crumbling streets, failed intersections and roads with gaps in connectivity, like Fowler Lane and Ferguson Avenue.

“We’re going to raise taxes to do that. I’m going to tell you that right now,” Krauss said.

His candidness about raising taxes, Krauss pointed out, isn’t unique. Mayors nationwide talk about fixing roads, attracting jobs and providing opportunities for young people.

But “all the pluses are on our side,” he said. “Not every mayor can say that.

“We just don’t need to complain about success or divide ourselves artificially. We just need to be aware of what we can do to raise everybody up, just a little bit, economically and opportunity-wise.”

Over the next two years, Krauss would like to see a “friendlier, kinder” Bozeman. He would like to see the rehabilitation of North Seventh Avenue continue. He would like to see a downtown hotel district. He would like to see the local government creating incentives for businesses and residents to be more energy conscious.

“I think we can be the kind of town we want to be when we grow up, but this idea that we’re not going to grow is ridiculous,” he said.

To those who complain about growth, Krauss said: “I think they could take matters into their own hands and leave.

“There’s no closing the door after you get here,” he said. “I want to turn that ‘we don’t want anybody else here’ to ‘how can we attract the people who will add to our community and make it better.’”

Erin Schattauer can be reached at 582-2628 or eschattauer@dailychronicle.com . She’s on Twitter at @ erinschattauer.