No. 24: Ain’t nothing like creating a distraction

If you can’t prove them wrong, create a distraction. That seems to be the government playbook in Butte and around the country.In this episode, Erik and Bill start off agitated by the rumors being spread that they said a recently-hired Butte firefighter was not qualified for the job. They were accused of saying he only got the job because his uncle is a member of the Butte-Silver Bow Council of Commissioners.Well, nothing could be further from the truth. Erik and Bill have done nothing but praise firefighters — paid and volunteer. The brave men and women who sign up to go into a burning building to save lives are nothing but heroes, and Erik and Bill would never profess to be experts on the hiring qualifications of those heroes.They figure that the rumor dates to an episode earlier this year when Trudy Healy mentioned an ethics complaint she made against fellow commissioner Josh O’Neill because he did not disclose a conflict of interest while chairing the Fire Advisory Board. There was no mention of nepotism or qualifications in the complaint, and Erik and Bill had nothing to do with it.You can read the complaint at MadAboutMontana.com.The rumor is nothing more than a distraction to take away from the fact that our local government recently poisoned our water. It is a distraction so we might not notice that our chief executive lobbied the United States Department of Urban Development to raise — yes raise — the acceptable lead standards for affordable housing. Distractions are also been used by dark-money groups to attack citizens over the Bozeman Water Adequacy Ballot InitiativeWell, Erik and Bill are not falling for it, and neither should you.