Holly Michels

Feb 25, 2025 | helenair.com | Holly Michels

Though the buzz in Colstrip last week was over the uncertainty facing the town’s coal-fired power plant posed by a federal mandate that Montana cut its carbon dioxide emissions almost in half by 2030, other forces that could shutter two of the plant’s units loom much larger in the near future.

Feb 25, 2025 | helenair.com | Holly Michels

Criminal patients at the overcrowded Montana State Hospital in Warm Springs will soon be housed at the former Reintegrating Youth Offenders facility in nearby Galen. The state of Montana's lease for a new forensic, meaning criminal, mental health facility begins Feb. 1 and runs through 2035. It will house people committed to the state hospital through the criminal justice system.

Feb 25, 2025 | helenair.com | Holly Michels

Tom O’Connell, administrator of the state's Architecture and Engineering Division, uses a laser pointer to highlight maroon paint peeling away to reveal the white plaster below around the dome of the Old Supreme Court Chamber in the Capitol building. “See that whole section, that’s water coming through and causing damage and you see how close it is to the artwork,” O’Connell said last week on a tour of the Capitol. The artwork is seven paintings by the Cincinnati firm F.

Feb 25, 2025 | helenair.com | Holly Michels

On Monday, Gov. Steve Bullock announced plans to move 21 people from the Montana Developmental Center in Boulder to group homes around the state run by the nonprofit AWARE. MDC treats people with serious intellectual disabilities who have been determined by a court to pose an imminent risk of serious harm to self or others. The 2015 Legislature passed Senate Bill 411, which requires the DPHHS to develop a plan to close the center by June 30, 2017.

Feb 25, 2025 | helenair.com | Holly Michels

MILES CITY — The 600 Cafe, a mainstay of eastern Montana dining, has closed. Gloria Grenz, who owns the cafe with her husband Chris, who goes by his nickname Butch, said they closed the restaurant on Dec. 20, their wedding anniversary. “We didn’t have enough help,” said Gloria Grenz. “Whether that’s our fault or theirs, I don’t know.”Grenz said she and Butch aren’t sure if the closure is for good. “We’re both getting up there,” she said of her and her husband, both 68.