BUTTE — It’s no accident that Bill Foley chose the abandoned Mount Con mine yard, which overlooks his old Cork Town neighborhood, to announce his candidacy for Butte-Silver Bow chief executive, a move that was driven by his frustration over Butte’s Superfund cleanup.
“They want to dump all kinds of toxic waste from the consent decree into the Dublin Gulch and I just think our heritage is too important to let that happen. We have to stand up and fight for our heritage and preserve our history, and history is more than just an old building to protect, we’ve got to protect our neighborhoods,” Foley said during his candidacy announcement Tuesday.
Foley is the first candidate to announce he running against first-term incumbent J.P. Gallagher for chief executive. Foley said he decided to run after attending a public meeting with the EPA in which he heard many residents express frustration with the slow pace of the cleanup and plans to dump contaminated soil near his old neighborhood in Uptown Butte.
“We shouldn’t dump near anybody’s house. I mean, if I can get there with the golf club with two strokes, it’s too close to be dumping to somebody’s house,” said Foley.
He’s also against the EPA using gray dirt, or dirt that has some contaminates in it, as fill dirt in areas of the cleanup.
“You wouldn’t leave a little bit of contaminated dirt when you’re sweeping up your kitchen floor, you wouldn’t leave it in your yard, you don’t want to leave it there, they need to clean that up,” he said.
Foley, who is 49 years old, has worked as a sports reporter for many years and also airs a regular podcast called The Buttecast.
“For the last 25 years I’ve been in the business of telling secrets, not keeping secrets, you know, I’m not very good at keeping secrets. My life’s an open book and I think the government should be an open book. I think people should know what’s going on in their government and we need to fight for that transparency,” said Foley.
Gallagher confirmed to KXLF that he intends to run again and will make a formal announcement soon. The deadline to file for public office is in March.
