Fischer: Investing in the city we want

What makes a city worth living in?

The basics matter, obviously. We need police officers to answer the phone, firefighters to arrive when we call, streets plowed after a storm and clean water coming from the tap.

But nobody falls in love with a city because its sewer system functions properly.

We also love places because they give us somewhere to go and something to do. Parks. Trails. Ball fields. Libraries. Swimming pools. Places where teenagers can hang out, families can take their kids on a raw October afternoon, and neighbors can bump into one another.

And we expect a good community to do something else: help people when life goes sideways. Provide a safe place to sleep. Help someone find housing. Get an ambulance to the door. Make it possible to get across town without owning a car.

That leads to a harder question: How much of that city are we willing to pay for?

On Oct. 6, the Bozeman City Commission will begin talking about investments we might eventually ask voters to make.

There is no shortage of candidates.

Bozeman has grown dramatically westward, while some of our civic infrastructure has not followed. We need to consider another fire station. We have a severe shortage of housing that ordinary working people can afford. There are arguments for another library branch and for a community aquatics center — the sort of indoor public space that becomes particularly valuable during a Montana winter.

Then there are needs that don’t stop at the city limits: ambulance service, transit, emergency shelter. Bozeman residents need those services, but so do thousands of people throughout Gallatin Valley.

We cannot simply put everything on a ballot.

Nor should the discussion become five city commissioners arriving with five favorite projects and bargaining over which ones survive.

We need to ask some harder questions first. How urgent is the need? Is city government actually the right entity to address it? Is the project ready? What will it cost to build — and to operate 10 years from now? Are there other ways to pay for it? And, importantly, do the people who will receive the tax bill believe it is worth doing?

I have my own views.

I don’t want Bozeman retreating to an austerity mindset. Yes, my property taxes have doubled over the past 15 years, and I feel that just like everyone else. I also live in a house that has tripled in value over those 15 years.

Growth costs money. So does maintaining the community we already have. And I want Bozeman to remain more than functional.

I want kids to be able to ride safely to school. I want families to have somewhere to go when it is eight degrees outside. I want parks and trails and libraries that belong to everyone. I want firefighters to get across town quickly. I want someone who hits the worst month of their life to have a reasonable chance of finding their way back.

Those things are not all equally urgent. They are not all necessarily government’s job. And we certainly cannot afford all of them at once.

Making the choices harder is Montana’s peculiar system for financing local government. Communities such as Bozeman host enormous numbers of visitors who use our streets, parks and public infrastructure and spend money throughout town, yet our Legislature gives us no ability to shift some of the cost of growth and tourism away from property owners. Montana’s resort-tax system, for example, is available only to qualifying resort communities and areas — not simply any city experiencing heavy visitor traffic. Big Sky qualifies. Bozeman does not.

I would like the Legislature to give Montana communities more choices. I’m not inclined, however, to put Bozeman’s future on hold while we wait.

We have decisions to make now.

So before your City Commission decides what — if anything — we should ask voters to fund in 2027, I hope you’ll tell us what kind of city you want us to be.

What are we missing? What can wait? What can’t? What would you gladly pay a little more for — and what would make you vote “no”?

After all, a parent can spend only so many rainy afternoons in the Museum of the Rockies kids’ section.

Help us decide what comes next. Send your thoughts to comments@bozemanmt.gov.