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Published on Wednesday, January 31, 2007 Gazette Opinion: Urban, rural Montanans need to
talk
A great city serves its residents and its
region.City dwellers as well as their rural neighbors look to cities for opportunities to work, shop and enjoy large-venue entertainment. A great city provides services to folks beyond its borders, and, in the case of Billings, for hundreds of miles. These urban-rural ties that bind and benefit both groups have often been a source of tension in Montana. There is uninformed concern that "giving" something to cities takes something from rural areas. Tuesday night in Helena, the city of Billings, Billings Clinic and Montana State University-Billings hosted a forum to talk about the shared interests of Montana's urban and rural communities. Rural health partners Compelling illustrations of mutually beneficial rural-urban partnerships were presented by Cody Langbehn of the Billings Clinic and Kelley Evans, chief executive officer of Beartooth Hospital and Health Center in Red Lodge. Langbehn, who worked in Big Timber for eight years as CEO, now works from Billings with all seven of the locally owned rural hospitals that Billings Clinic manages in Big Timber, Columbus, Scobey, Red Lodge, Forsyth, Livingston and Lovell, Wyo. In addition to management services, Billings Clinic has helped these rural health centers link to telemedicine and teleradiology networks. Billings Clinic is working to roll out electronic patient records at all the rural hospitals it manages by making this important new technology affordable. These rural-urban partnerships are about the survival of rural health care and the survival of patients. As Evans said, "The patient has to have access." The Red Lodge health center, which is Carbon County's largest year-round employer, still uses a 1950 emergency room. In a mission statement adopted 11 years ago, its board of directors recognized the need to replace the entire health care facility. But the cost of rebuilding put the project out of reach until Beartooth leaders were joined in the project by Billings Clinic. Plans call for a new hospital in partnership with Billings Clinic and long-term care and assisted living in an arrangement with St. John's Lutheran Ministries of Billings. (Billings Clinic and Livingston Healthcare also have announced plans for building a needed replacement hospital in that town.) Most live close to cities Seventy percent of Montana's population lives within 40 miles of its seven largest cities, and more than 80 percent of the population lives within 50 miles, according to Larry Swanson, an economist and director of the Center for the Rocky Mountain West at the University of Montana. Wages earned in those cities are spread around the region by commuting workers. The contribution of cities to the income of neighboring counties has grown as the economies of Montana's largest cities have grown. But Swanson pointed out that investment in city and county services and public schools in Billings, Great Falls and Missoula has dropped as a percentage of personal income even in the midst of growth. The cities can't provide the services demanded. "We need to get the magnificent seven together and have some meaningful conversations and come and talk to the governor and Legislature," Missoula Mayor John Engen said. "We're not coming to the trough. We're interested in local control of our destinies." State government must allow greater local decision making so cities can invest in themselves. Copyright © The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises. Talk Back!Post your
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Out of town wrote on January 31, 2007 6:10 AM
I teach in a small town. I read your article and then the rest of the opinion page, and all I see is TAX those out of towners. I've started doing more shopping on line and less shopping in Billings. If the resort or luxury tax passes, like hundreds of others, I will stop coming to Billings and shop in other cities. Your town has become greedy and uncaring.   The Reason wrote on January 31, 2007 7:26 AM The real reason cities such as Billings can't pass school levies and improvements to their public buildings such as the Metra and Cobb Field is because by and large your population is conservative and Republican. This is not a bad thing, it just means that they tend to be very tight with their pocketbook when it comes to raising taxes. As a rural resident of Montana, I would be very opposed to state tax dollars being used to subsidize services in the "big 7". Afterall, the cities who rake in the money from us rural folks coming to town for tournaments, shopping, etc. should be the ones who cough up the money for taking care of your own schools and public facilities. Invest what we give you back into your own cities for a change. To make us pay for your services would be about as close to socialism as you could get! |
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