On a Tuesday afternoon in early March, a group of neighbors stood at the end of their residential street at the edge of town. As they chatted, they stared steadily at the sun dropping low over an adjacent 114-acre parcel of land. <\/p>\n
Dogs lolled on the ground, nudging tennis balls suggestively at their owners\u2019 feet. One of the neighbor\u2019s children, a 5-year-old girl with a sequined heart on her shirt, played nearby. The day was winding down, but in a few hours\u2019 time, many of the property owners gathered on the dead-end street \u2014 a restaurant owner, a former mine worker, a stay-at-home mom \u2014 planned to fill the chambers of the Laurel City Council to weigh in on the future of the nearby plot of land and, therefore, the future of their city.<\/p>\n
The plot abutting their properties became a point of fierce fixation for the neighbors and other Laurel residents beginning in January, when state officials announced the site as the future home to a 32-bed psychiatric facility to treat and rehabilitate people in the criminal justice system. Mental health advocates and the administration of Gov. Greg Gianforte have pushed for the facility\u2019s construction to ease the backlog of people languishing in local jails, awaiting mental health evaluations before they can proceed to trial. <\/p>\n
Many locals aren\u2019t opposed to the facility\u2019s purpose. Some even agree that it\u2019s vital. But the announcement that the facility would be built in Laurel \u2014 along with the obscure process that led to that decision \u2014 catapulted residents of the south-central Montana town, with a population of roughly 7,200, into a chapter of vigilant community organizing unlike anything many longtime locals have ever seen. <\/p>\n
In recent interviews with Montana Free Press, the facility\u2019s opponents rarely described themselves as adept government watchdogs. But a common sentiment has quickly pushed them to clear the learning curve: the bitter perception that the people of Laurel were overlooked and disregarded by state and city officials who don\u2019t care about their town\u2019s future nearly as much as they do.<\/p>\n
In the hours before she joined her neighbors at the end of their road, one of nearby property owners, Shawna Hopper, had filed a petition with Yellowstone County officials to remove Laurel\u2019s mayor<\/a> from office over allegations of backroom dealing to bring the facility, and its promise of jobs, to the city\u2019s backyard. In the weeks prior, Hopper and others had been busy on other fronts. They\u2019d pushed for a key city employee to resign, launched a Facebook group called Laurel C.A.R.E.D.<\/a> (Community Advocates for Responsible Economic Development) that now has more than 1,000 members, launched a website, drafted emergency ordinances, filed a slew of public records requests for officials\u2019 emails and text messages and began surveying residents about their stances on the new development. <\/p>\n Hopper, a local restaurant owner who\u2019s married to the local fire chief, said the full-tilt organizing comes out of a commitment to Laurel\u2019s present and future \u2014 and a strong distaste for being done wrong.<\/p>\n \u201cI have the heart to make this a better community,\u201d Hopper said, reflecting on local fundraising efforts she\u2019s helped spearhead for everything from local softball teams to the fire station. \u201cBut I\u2019m not one that\u2019s going to be pushed and walked all over.\u201d<\/p>\n Rep. Lee Deming, a Republican lawmaker and retired teacher who taught in Laurel for decades, said in a recent interview that the community blowback against the state\u2019s new psychiatric facility had \u201ccreated huge rifts\u201d in the community. The clash, Deming said, was far and away more severe than other local fights he could recall, including the multi-year legal saga over the development of the NorthWestern power plant just south of town.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it is different. I think it\u2019s much more intense,\u201d Deming said.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are going to be some people who are going to be upset for a long time over how the process worked out,\u201d he added. \u201cAnd I don\u2019t blame them for that at all.\u201d<\/p>\n The move to recall the mayor is a recent crescendo in the Laurel group\u2019s furious organizing. (Asked to comment on the recall petition, Laurel Mayor Dave Waggoner said he had hired a lawyer and planned to file an injunction in District Court to have the petition invalidated.) Beyond that, the group\u2019s aims are multifold. In the short term, many locals have said they want state officials to simply show up to speak directly with residents and listen to their concerns. Others are focused on a larger achievement: preventing the state from building the facility at the current site altogether. <\/p>\n A \u2018REMARKABLY SUCCESSFUL\u2019 LOCATION<\/p>\n Amber Zahn first learned that the state\u2019s facility was coming to the field next to her house in January via a series of late-night text messages from Hopper, who had read about the site selection on the local news, KTVQ. She remembered feeling stunned and then concerned \u2014 about the facility blocking a path for the development of future homes and businesses; about her home\u2019s property value; about her children\u2019s safety if any patient were to escape from the secure building. <\/p>\n \u201cWe can be selfish and say it\u2019s gonna take away our view, which it is,\u201d said Zahn, looking out over the nearby property from her backyard patio. \u201cBut it also puts us in fear. And is fear a great thing to base things off of? No, but it makes a lot of decisions for a lot of people.\u201d<\/p>\n In November, the Friday after Thanksgiving, the state announced that Laurel would be the home to the new forensic facility, baffling many local residents. Unlike the eastern Montana towns of Hardin and Miles City, Laurel had never officially sought the facility. <\/p>\n Asking towns in the eastern half of the state to apply for the facility had itself been an abrupt change to the selection process steered by the administration of Gov. Greg Gianforte and the Montana Board of Investments, the state\u2019s development arm. It came about only after Billings and Yellowstone County officials brusquely rebuffed the state\u2019s advances over the summer to locate the facility in Montana\u2019s largest city.<\/p>\n The forceful opposition from Billings officials in the summer of 2025 was a prelude to the outcry that would eventually erupt in Laurel. Influential locals in the metropolitan hub blasted the Gianforte administration for appearing to announce that the facility was coming to their city, rather than asking for public buy-in. (\u201cIt\u2019s pretty bizarre,\u201d Billings City Councilmember Mike Boyett told MTFP in an August interview.) In one particularly tense stand-off during a tour of another site in July<\/a>, a frustrated local elected official jabbed a finger at the chest of a state lawmaker backing the facility. (\u201cI would say Sen. (John) Esp and I were nose to nose,\u201d recalled Yellowstone County Commissioner Mark Morse, explaining his anger at the state\u2019s presumptive attitude. \u201cThe whole thing just felt like it was a done deal.\u201d)<\/p>\n While the state concentrated its early efforts on Billings, the prospect of locating the facility in Laurel, or other southeast and south-central Montana towns, lurked in the background. <\/p>\n But when the Gianforte administration backed off from Billings and pivoted to seeking applications from other locations, Laurel didn\u2019t submit a proposal. Instead, the city\u2019s chief administrative officer, Kurt Markegard, sent a letter to the Board of Investments explaining why Laurel wasn\u2019t lining up alongside other contenders. In short, he said, Laurel didn\u2019t have a suitable 10-acre site within its city limits to offer.<\/p>\n Local residents, however, pointed to other parts of Markegard\u2019s letter as proof of a kind of courtship with state officials. In his explanation, addressed to Board of Investments Executive Director Dan Villa, Markegard referenced conversations that he and Waggoner, the mayor, had previously had with Villa about another suitable site outside of Laurel\u2019s boundaries \u2014 a parcel that could be annexed into the city. <\/p>\n \u201cLaurel\u2019s Mayor Dave Waggoner and I have described to you a location just outside Laurel\u2019s city limits that has most of the criteria that would make building the facility remarkably successful,\u201d Markegard wrote. <\/p>\n To Zahn, Hopper and other opponents, the November letter only raised more questions about those past conversations, and the parcels being considered. In a small town, the facility was bound to turn into someone\u2019s new neighbor. Residents set out to learn more.<\/p>\n In between attending public meetings and writing letters to city council members, locals began filing public records requests for past emails, text messages and other communications between Markegard, Waggoner and Villa. Their requests were eventually successful, yielding months of documented conversations<\/a> among the three men dating back to July \u2014 including Markegard\u2019s suggestion of a different small parcel of land closer to the interstate that runs through the city.<\/p>\n In an August email to Villa, state health department director Charlie Brereton and state budget director Ryan Osmundson, Markegard highlighted a 10-acre plot of land just west of Laurel, bordered to the north by Old Highway 10. He discussed the options for water and sewer infrastructure, access to the interstate and zoning regulations. <\/p>\n \u201cThe Mayor of Laurel would like to invite you all to a (Microsoft) Teams meeting to further discuss the potential for the proposed site to become the home of a new state facility,\u201d Markegard wrote. \u201cPlease look over the included information and pictures and consider this site as the best site in Yellowstone County to build a facility.\u201d <\/p>\n In a March interview, one of the Laurel opponents, Kris Vogele, said the August email left a bad taste in his mouth about Markegard\u2019s involvement \u2014 even if he suggested a parcel of land different from what the state eventually chose.<\/p>\n \u201cHe almost acted as an agent of the state,\u201d Vogele said. \u201cI don\u2019t know if I call it nefarious, but I would say that it was being derelict of his duties or something, where he wasn\u2019t representing the city.\u201d<\/p>\n Markegard declined to comment to MTFP, citing the strain that the community backlash has already had on him and his family. But in a brief interview after a city council meeting in early March, Waggoner described all of his and Markegard\u2019s communication with the state as a fact-finding expedition to better understand the facility it intended to build.<\/p>\n \u201cHonestly, we questioned. And all the emails and the phone logs, we were questioning, \u2018What are you going to do?\u2019\u201d Waggoner said. <\/p>\n The mayor, who was elected in November to serve a second term, acknowledged he was also originally intrigued by the prospect of bringing jobs to Laurel.<\/p>\n \u201cI was voted in to better the community. When I heard 130 jobs, I thought, you know, we\u2019re not getting them all. But if we get 30, 40, 50 of them, we are going to have some residents that are going to up their way of life,\u201d Waggoner said. <\/p>\n Local residents haven\u2019t found any indication that Waggoner or Markegard knew \u2014 or suggested \u2014 the 114-acre plot west of town as a possible location for the facility. The footprint is far larger than what the state originally said it was looking for. But the selection of that plot of land, many opponents said, took the situation from bad to worse.<\/p>\n GROWING PAINS<\/p>\n For some Laurel residents firmly dug in against the new facility, the opposition comes down to a basic equation about geography and taxes. <\/p>\n Laurel\u2019s development is hemmed in by a variety of man-made and natural boundaries. The sprawling city of Billings lies directly east. Iconic sandstone \u201crimrock\u201d cliffs border Laurel to the north. To the south, the Yellowstone River runs and industrial giants loom: the CHS Laurel Refinery and NorthWestern Energy\u2019s Yellowstone County Generating Station, a gas plant. <\/p>\n With those borders in place, some locals say the community\u2019s most direct path for development lies to the west. But if the 114-acre property near a large swath of Laurel\u2019s western edge becomes a site for a state-run, tax-exempt mental health forensic facility, Vogele and others point out, a future source of revenue that could be derived from residential homes and commercial businesses gets drained.<\/p>\n Without expanded tax revenue filling Laurel\u2019s coffers, city services for everything from the fire department to sidewalks will suffer, opponents say. <\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s a death-blow to Laurel. I do,\u201d said Steve Krum, a retiree whose family sought to block NorthWestern Energy\u2019s gas plant for several years. \u201cThat is the direction that they can go and reasonably create a tax base to help fund the operation of the city. There\u2019s no other way to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n Some of the most vocal opponents say they\u2019re not fighting against the psychiatric facility because of what it is, but because of where it is. In addition to residential homes, the future facility is not far from an elementary school \u2014 a fact that spurred the local school board to oppose its construction. <\/p>\n