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wednesdAYJuly 17, 2013105th year, No. 57Sidney, Montanawww.sidneyherald.com75 Cents

Fairview Old Timer’s Festival Saturday. Special section. Pages 1-6C

serving richland county and the surrounding area for 105 years

Bulletin Board

Fairview Festival The Fairview Old Timer’s Festival is Saturday. The main parade starts at 1 p.m. Enjoy all-day activities.

History Alive! History Alive! at the Confluence Interpretive Center is at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. CDT on Saturday and Sunday. Arch Ellwein will present Vic Smith: Champion Buffalo Hunter.

National anthem contest The Richland County Fair announces something new for this year’s fair – National Anthem tryouts to sing at the flag-raising ceremony, prior to the main concert and before the two rodeos. Deadline for entry is July 22. People can submit their video entries by uploading them at the Richland County Fair’s Facebook page, emailing jlarson@richland.org or mailing it to the fair office at P.O. Box 1026 Sidney, MT 59270.

New students Students new to Sidney Public Schools for the 2013-2014 school year are asked to register as soon as possible at Central School, 200 Third Ave. S.E., between 7:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m.

Republican Central Committee meeting The Richland County Republican Central Committee will hold a special meeting at 7 p.m. Monday to nominate three individuals to serve on a nominating committee to replace Rep. David Halvorson. The meeting is at the Eastern Agriculture Research Center conference room.

Happy birthday The Sidney Herald wishes Happy Birthday this week to friends Janice Oland, Joshua Morasko, Tami Smith, Shirley Hickok, Ryan Baumgartner, Case Bubka, Ty Mortensen, Jake Godfrey, Julie Schmitz Quamme, Brenda Boese Bolton, Chris Reynolds, Jamie Whiteman, Corey TwoHearts, Jordan Tyler, Kelly Holst, Courtney Sullivan, Shaun Jensen, Yvonne DeTienne, Jan Olson Thronburg, Melissa Rosier, Kim Scheetz, Michael Nelly Nelson, Sharon Carlson, Jared Kutzler, Jenny Lynn Dawson, Jammy Perry, Zack Nelson, Matt Shanower, Bailey Micheletto, Lorena New, Keelen Geiser, Oleen Moore Carter O’Connor, Toni Fink and Stephen Hamel.

deathJanae Susanne Moore, 20

Azalea Butka, 92

Page A3

InsideAround Town .....2AClassifieds .......5-7BDeaths ...............3ADial an Expert ...8B

Field day. ........1-3BOil report ...........6AOpinion ..............8ASports ...... 9 & 10B

louisa BarBer | sidney herald

Arts festival in Montana’s Sunrise CityLori Kirby of Leaf Creations in Williston, n.D., showcases the decorative potted plants she created for this year’s sunrise Festival of the Arts in sidney. Kirby was among dozens of vendors who set up booths at Veterans Memorial Park on saturday.

Staffanson aims to capture open seatBy LouiSA BARBeRsidney herald

He put himself in the running to capture the vacated legislative seat last year but stepped down after realizing he was competing against someone who held the same beliefs.

Scott Staffanson, the 52-year-old Sidney native, withdrew to become David Halvorson’s campaign man-ager. Now, more than a year later, with blessings from Halvorson’s family, Staf-fanson says he would like his name in the running to replace the legislator who passed away July 1.

“I’ve been encouraged to pursue it,” he said. “I really appreciated David’s representation, and I’ll try to do my best to represent Richland County in a simi-lar way.”

Staffanson will push for his name to be chosen once the Richland County Republican Central Com-mittee selects candidates

to be part of the process to find a new legislator. According to state law, each central committee from the deceased legislator’s

party and district (in this case Republican central committees in Richland and Dawson counties) must select three people within 45 days of the vacancy to form a six-member commit-tee.

This committee then nominates three people that the county commissioners in each county can choose from. The commission-ers select one person in a weighted point system.

Richland County com-missioners will have more say since the district lies more in Richland. As a result, Dawson County commissioners have about 1.3 points per vote while

Richland County commis-sioners will have about 15.3 points per vote.

To win, a candidate must receive at least 50 percent of the weighted votes, but if none receive the required amount, the central com-mittees must throw in three new names. Commissioners

then choose from all six. The Richland County Re-

publican Central Commit-tee has scheduled a meeting at 7 p.m. Monday at the Richland County Extension conference room to select members for the nominat-ing committee.

Staffanson, who withdrew

from last year’s Republican race to fill House District 37, said running against Halvorson was “eating me.”

“As soon as David was in there and especially as I got to know him, I couldn’t run against him,” he said. Conservative in all aspects of the word, Staffanson said the two men shared the same ideals and were es-sentially competing for the same votes. So he dropped out to support Halvorson. Now, with support from the legislator’s family he’s pur-suing state politics again, something that’s been of interest to him for several years. “This looks like an opportunity to get in and give back to our country,” he said.

Halvorson’s brother, Tom, was the nudge Staffanson needed to put himself in the running, and he had no qualms endorsing the new candidate. “He and my brother give the district very similar voting pat-

sidney schools settle after smooth talks By LouiSA BARBeRsidney herald

Bargaining between the teachers and the Sidney School District was smooth sailing, taking only one evening to come two-year terms.

The sides easily settled after discussing several issues, including salary and co-curricular salary. At the end of Wednesday’s meet-ing, the sides agreed on a 1.5 percent raise to the base sal-ary for the 2013-2014 school year, bringing it up to $30,780, and another 1.5 per-cent for the 2014-2015 school year, which would make the base salary $31,242.

For the co-curricular sal-ary, the district will add a 2 percent stipend for the Sid-ney Middle School student council advisor, and every assistant coach will have a salary 65 percent of the head coach.

“It went great,” Superin-tendent of Schools Daniel Farr said. “It was a very pleasant process. For both side, I think we’re happy.”

The latest bargaining comes as school administra-tors prepare for swelling student enrollment, work to fill staff positions and compensate for the housing strain.

“We try to do as much as possible to remain competi-tive,” he said.

reporter@sidneyherald.com

fairview police staying activeBy LouiSA BARBeRsidney herald

The Fairview police force is more active than ever, it seems, under Chief Cal Seadeek. “It’s just as busy if not even a little busier,” Seadeek said of his four-month tenure.

So far, Fairview police have recorded 960 incidents, which count anything they receive a call for – like traf-fic stops, tickets, warnings, parking complaints, DUIs and bar fights.

Arrests remain fairly low with just five last month; it’s the same for others. Most of the activity amounts to traf-fic that comes through the town, such as stop sign viola-tions, general complaints and the ever-lingering problem of speeding. “Re-ally, about half of what we got going on here is traffic related,” Seadeek said.

Early on in the chief ’s tenure, a gun shot incident rocked the county. It later turned out to be an accident, and the man was cited for discharging within city limits and obstruction of a peace officer because of a detailed lie regarding the incident.

“Talking to the guy, he made it sound like somebody had actually shot him,” he said.

It turned out to be quite the welcome to an area with

See FAiRview, page 10a

City, county see trash collections continue to soarBy LouiSA BARBeRsidney herald

Over the last few years, Chris Viets has watched the statistics in her office climb to record levels. The Richland County Landfill office manager keeps track of what comes in, and she’s amazed at what she’s seeing. “We are averaging about 2,000 tons per month since the first of the year,” she said, “That is 2 million pounds of material each month!”

And that’s on track to pass last year’s total of 25,654 tons of garbage.

“It’s growing every day it seems like,” Sidney public works director Jeff Hintz said. The city receives several calls from residents complaining their garbage

hasn’t been hauled but says there’s good reason for that. The amount of trash is still putting immense pressure on city employees and services. “We’ve just been inundated with extra garbage these days. It’s very very tough for us to get to what we used to do to do the same level of service that the city used to provide for everybody. We just can no longer do that.”

So far, the city’s at almost 600 tons of garbage a month. In June, it reached 590 tons, which is way above and beyond what crews used to handle. Five years ago, it was 400 tons or fewer. This last winter, garbage dropped down to 480 tons, which used to be 300-320 tons in a winter a few years ago. Records are being broken each month,

and it’s expected to be bro-ken this summer, breaking the 600-ton barrier.

“We’re getting a lot of outside dumping on the city,” Hintz said, referring to

transient residents who take their trash to the garbage cans. Hintz gets calls two to three calls a week from

Staffanson

See StAFFANSoN, page 10a

louisa BarBer | sidney herald

the Richland County Landfill collects 2 million pounds of trash each month, which is filling up the current cell.

‘the government should

not keep getting bigger

all the time. ’

Scott Staffansoncandidate

See gARBAge, page 6a