Hollywood to Helena : Former producer seeks Former producer brings entrepreneurial energy to race

By Nate Rott

Most Montana legislative candidates don’t consider party affiliations “disenchanting.” Most candidates haven’t started an academic-based business run almost entirely by students. Most candidates haven’t produced a Hollywood movie. Even fewer have left Hollywood to become a ranch -hand in Montana.

Peter Rosten, Democratic candidate for House District 87 in Ravalli County, is not your typical candidate. And, he’s proud of it.

“I’m not your grandfather’s candidate,” he said. “I’m doing it my way.”

He calls himself a big dreamer and idealistic, but sees no problem with that. His dreams include tackling issues such as healthcare, education, forest management, employment, wages and the “broken” state of politics.

“I want to pay teachers more and someone might say there isn’t money for it. It’s my job to find the money,” Rosten said. “I’ll find it or die trying. But, ‘no’ is not something I want to hear right off the bat. I can outwork the nos.”

Rosten said he would put “country over party.” While he is running as a Democrat and is endorsed by fellow Democrats Gov. Brian Schweitzer and Sens. John Tester and Max Baucus, he doesn’t want voters to focus on party affiliation.

His way means putting “country over party,” an idea that, he claims, has excited many people, Republican and Democrat alike, in Ravalli County’s House District 87. So, while he is running as a Democrat and is endorsed by fellow Democrats Governor Brian Schweitzer, Senator John Tester and Senator Max Baucus, he doesn’t want voters to focus on party affiliation.

“We are so stuck in the partisan divide. I am very disenchanted by this whole red versus blue thing,” Rosten said. “People are sick of ‘You’re a this and I’m a that’.”

Rosten is challenging Republican incumbent Ronald E. Stoker, a fellow Darby resident, to represent House District 87 in the state legislaturein the HD87 race. Stoker, a self-proclaimed “die-hard conservative,” has held the position since 2002 and said he knows little about his contender, Rosten.

“Peter is an interesting, retired Hollywood producer who moved here and made the decision to run against the incumbent,” Stoker said. “Other than being a Hollywood producer, I don’t know.”

To fill in the blanks, after a year and a half of college at San Fernando Valley State College, Rosten decided that pursuing a law degree wasn’t for him. In 1969, he landed a job as a truck driver for a film company and thus got his start in Hollywood. “It was serendipity to land in the film business,” he said.

Rosten met the right people and worked his way up to producing movies such as “True Believer” in 1989 and television shows, “Eddie Dodd” in 1990. In 19851992, he vacationed in Montana and fell in love with the place. He bought a house in the Bitterroot Valley in 1992.. To make ends meet, Rosten only lived in Montana seasonally, working in California the rest of the year. In 2001, at the age of 52, Rosten At the age of 52, realized he “had more yesterday’s than tomorrow’s” and he quit his jobhe quit his job, moved to Montana and worked as a ranch hand for three years to o“find the agricultural roots and the heartbeat of what this state is all about,” he said.

In 2004, Rosten decided to get back to what he knew best: making movies. He felt noticed how the arts had been decimated in public schools and approached Corvallis High School administrators with the idea of teaching students how to make movies and commercials. Media Arts in the Public Schools (MAPS) was born.

MAPS has since become a money-making, student-employing program and expanded in the following years to other Montana cities. MAP students have, woninning national awards and producedcing statewide “Hungry for Knowledge, Go To College” commercials and later other national commercials. Recently, Rosten recently announced that MAPS was moving from an academic programwill leave the public schools and become a to its own business, MAPS Media Institute, which will be a production company that provides video production training to youth and adults alike TK. He said he plans on opening hopefully open in Hamilton in Sept. 2next fall.009.

For his work, Rosten was honored with the “Exemplary Service Award” by the Corvallis School District at the end of the 2008 school year.

Success didn’t come easy. Rosten said teaching was the hardest job he has ever had.as teaching was the hardest job he has ever had.

“I don’t recommend anybody at the age of 55 to start teaching. With all love in my heart, kids are energy vampires,” Rosten said. “MAPS was my baby and each of these students were my kids. It’s exhausting having that many kids.”

One of those students, Luke McLean, recently graduated from the MAPS program and has since started his own business, Circumference Productions, which specializes in post-production film editing. Under Rosten’s guidance, McLean started setting up his business before he had even graduated from MAPS.

“Peter helped me in terms of getting started, giving me guidelines, showing me the ropes,” McLean said. “Every lesson he’s given me I still use today.”

As a teacher, Rosten demanded the best from his students, McLean said. He ran the program like a business, but students looked up to him “as a mentor and an employer.”

“Peter makes people feel like human beings, he gets them excited and gets them involved,” he said. “He never lets you have an excuse. If the job was there, you had to get it done.”

Rosten believes these traits, honed by teaching and producing, will make up for his admitted lack of political experience. His ability to work hard, generate publicity and to move coalitions is what he hopes to bring to Helena.

When he decided to run for the Legislatureive position, Rosten went out to local community members:; police officers, doctors, teachers, ranchers, foresters and other issue makers. The goal was to have “a kitchen cabinet, people to reach out to,” he said. “My job isn’t to know everything. It’s to make things happen.”

Perhaps He said his most valuable resource , or at least the one who will always be within ear-shot, is his wife, Susan. Susan is Aa fourth- generation Montanan, Susan’s and her knowledge of the state and its people is invaluable, Rosten said.

Healthcare, education, forest management, employment, wages and the “broken” state of politics are all issues Rosten wants to address. He calls himself a big dreamer and idealistic, but sees no problem with that.

“I want to pay teachers more and someone might say there isn’t money for it. It’s my job to find the money,” Rosten said. “I’ll find it or die trying. But, ‘no’ is not something I want to hear right off the bat. I can outwork the no’s.”

Peter Rosten is not the average Montana legislative candidate. Yet, people who know him, like McLean, believe there is something regular about him.

“He’s a Montana man. The typical Montana man,” McLean said. “He has a background in Hollywood, but when you look at him you’d swear he’s from Montana.”
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“I need Peter Rosten in the State Legislature to work with me to move Montana forward. Peter brings fresh ideas and new energy; he’s proven this as a community leader and educator and I expect he will do the same in Helena.” (Governor Brian Schweitzer, 8/19/2008)

“Peter is a Bitterroot business owner who has created good paying jobs and improved educational opportunities for our kids. He’s a leader who will make a real difference for Ravalli County in the State Legislature.” (Senator Jon Tester, 8-8-2008)

Mr. Henry is also remembered for using the phrase “United We Stand, Divided We Fall” in his last public speech, given in March 1799. Then and now we are reminded unless the people are united and one people, it is easy to destroy them.

Americans are a resilient people. And the signature of this spirit is our ability to unite as one people regardless of race, color or creed. And let us not forget that ‘it is better to light one candle than curse the darkness” as we proceed…TOGETHER.

Here’s how we did it: MAPS was the right idea at the right time in the right place with the right people. Add to that hard work and we got results. In 2003 our goal was to educate and create quality jobs for Montana youth. Now four years later we are a nationally recognized and profitable business and we pay our student filmmakers very well. It is important to note that MAPS was funded without taxpayer dollars: we raised private start-up capital, attracted fee-paying clients and built our business from the ground up.

At the risk of stating the obvious, employment (with good wages) can cure a lot of the challenges that face families today. It’s true that money doesn’t solve all of our problems but it sure makes it easier to put food on the table, educate our kids, be able to afford health care and fill up our rigs. And at today’s prices - that’s getting pretty spendy.

So here’s what we’ve got to change - in Ravalli County wages have stagnated and the cost-of-living has increased. In the Bitterroot, 2005 Individual Income averaged $24,758 ranking 35th in the state. (Source: federal bureau of economic analysis, Julie Foster: ED Ravalli County Eco Dev.)

Can we do better? Absolutely. But it’ll take all of us working together to accomplish it and if you’re good to go, so am I.

Dear Peter -

I was rehired on the Black Hills National Forest in March of 2003 as a senior staff officer for the forest supervisor (I have 26 years of service in the FS and 5ive years in private industry). One of my duties was to serve as the committee management officer for the nascent Black Hills National Forest Advisory Board (A creature of the Federal Advisory Act Committee Act serving at the pleasure of the Secretary of agriculture and charged with advising the FS about key forest issues. I had nothing to do with its formation but I have been a key participant during the entire life of the Board to date.

The Board resulted from a combination of events beginning with the 80,000 plus acre Jasper Fire that threatened Custer, SD, and was the largest fire in the BH in recorded history. The march of massive killing fires that began in southern Idaho in 1986 finally found SD with a vengeance and people were quite shocked. This forest is small at 1/2 million acres and over a tenth has burned in stand replacing fires since 2000.

Forest and political leadership was reeling. The Governor in person showed up at fire camps during this and subsequent fires, state and Federal, to run the show in an astonishing lack of confidence in Federal firefighters and leadership. The situation deteriorated to the extent that Senator Dashle finally stepped in with the notion of bringing more citizen participation the FS leadership in the form of a group of people who would provide advice and counsel on our toughest issues which served a couple of purposes; first, it gave public concern a very public face in the form of these very prominent SD and WY Board members, people like the former speaker of the Wyoming House, the man who led the charge for gambling in Deadwood, the guy who saved Ellsworth AFB, prominent business, American Indian, and environmental leaders, and others who represented a wide band of SD and WY opinion including local government. Second, the Board became a sounding board, literally, to help us consider our most difficult issues with a heavy duty focus group, as it were, and surface land mines before they blew up.

The way the Board works is, we asked for nominations and got over 300, both from individuals and groups, and then selected a 15 member board, now 16 members to include WY natural resource agencies, and those people were vetted both by us (Senator Daschle and the SD and WY delegations informally), and the Secretary of Agriculture. We then proposed to the Board that the issues we needed the most help with were with what the Chief of the Forest Service called the Four Threats; fire and bugs, the loss of open space, invasive species, and uncontrolled off highway recreation.

You may recall that at this time Senator Daschle and others were looking for a solution to an impasse in which environmental groups had stopped FS efforts to manage a serious outbreak of mountain pine beetle (some of the environmental groups were from the Bitterroot Valley). He passed legislation that allowed us to go forward with our plans, but it was too late to do much more than clean up the bodies in the morgue. People were tired of the complete failure of various sides to agree, especially in the face of the disastrous fires and insect attacks we were experiencing, and were growing increasingly alarmed at the OHV situation. The BH is open to cross country travel unless closed and we have around 10,000 miles of user created and forest system routes on our forest now, over 3 miles of routes per square mile, a situation that cannot be sustained.

In this environment, the Board has been (my opinion) strikingly successful in identifying and then communicating with the public about what has happened and what needs to happen to achieve balance in forest management.

For example, after recommending sustained action to get out ahead of fires and bugs by thinning aggressively, especially around our communities, serious challenges to our planned timber sales and fuel reduction plans stopped (not entirely…the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance and the Audubon Society continue to hold us to high standards where our projects are concerned, especially when they are in the open forest, further away from communities) and we have been able to achieve remarkable success in thinning overcrowded forests and creating a much better picture for fire and bugs in selected areas.

More remarkable still, the Board recognized early on that the off highway vehicle issue was huge and took action to begin public involvement on OHV issues in 2004 and especially beginning in 2005, holding their own well advertised and well attended public meetings, taking testimony from anyone who wanted to participate, and then forming a subcommittee on travel management which made 11 recommendations to the parent Board which then passed those recommendations to us. Those recommendations and the intensive public involvement formed the basis for our current travel planning effort, scheduled for decision in the Fall this year.

Applicability to Montana or other States?

I have worked in five FS regions and for five years as a lobbyist and communicator for a forest products company in two states, and I have to say that I believe this Board may offer the best hope yet for breaking some of the intractable issues of forest management. Citizen boards made up of respected members of the community and key groups and local and State govt. can vet issues and FS approaches to issues, push them out on the stage to see how they are received, and then make recommendations that are already well supported by most people.

Of course there are still considerable differences in people’s views and the Board often has dissenting votes (we break log jams by majority votes), but the record of success when honest people of goodwill and high purpose gather to help manage the public forests speaks for itself.

by ANTHONY QUIRINI - Ravalli Republic

Ravalli County barely received a passing grade in a recent report that linked the cost of rent to what people earn. The 2008 Colorado College State of the Rockies report card gave Ravalli County a C-minus for being a place with affordable rent. The recently released report profiled states and counties throughout the Rocky Mountain region.

The formula the report used to rate affordable rentals took the difference between fair market rent for a two-bedroom unit compared to the rental rate that is affordable for county residents with a median household income.

The data from the study was derived from the Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. From 2000 to 2005, the Rockies region experienced a population growth rate 4.5 times the national average, Wiley Rogers wrote in the study. Although growth and the regional appeal have stimulated the regional economy, they have also taken a toll on housing availability and affordability, creating an affordability crisis in many Rockies communities.All four of Montana’s fastest growing counties, Missoula, Ravalli, Flathead and Gallatin, received low scores. Of those counties, Missoula County received the lowest score, a D.

According to the study, current rental prices in Ravalli County for a two-bedroom unit was $44 more than what is considered affordable for renters who make a median income.
Statistics show 80 percent of renters in Montana paid more than 30 percent of their income on rent - making saving money to buy a home more unattainable. According to 2007 data, the average median income for Montanans is $29,156 annually, while the average median dual income is $48,158 - the 43rd lowest in the nation. The average cost of a home in the four fast-growth counties is more than $200,000.

Communities in the Rockies suffer as policemen, bank clerks, street cleaners, cappuccino makers - members of the working class - are pushed out, unable to afford housing in their own communities, the study says. Protecting the vibrancy and social health of Rockies region communities means providing adequate housing for residents that support these communities.

Montanans working at minimum wage need two jobs to afford median rent, the study says. An influx of people migrating from expensive housing markets, particularly from California, is one reason housing prices are going up, the study says.

“Population growth in the Rockies is making it increasingly difficult to provide affordable housing,” Rogers wrote. “Renting a typical apartment in the Rockies with a minimum wage salary is nearly impossible.” According to figures, 33 to 50 percent of households in Montana spend more than 50 percent of their income on housing, which leaves fewer opportunities for renters to save their money. Without being able to save money, a person’s borrowing power, economic prosperity and the chances of qualifying for a mortgage decline.

Montana is one of six states that does not offer any state funding to provide for affordable housing.

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For younger people, seventeen years seems like a lifetime. But to those of us who have been around awhile, those years will go by very quickly.

Now I don’t know all the answers…I don’t even know all the questions. But one thing I feel strong about is that a Montanan’s quality of life is a most precious natural resource - no matter how old you are.

April 14, 2005

Senator Jim Elliott

Now that we’ve all filed our income taxes for the year, and thereby paid our share of keeping America great, it seems like as good time as any to reflect on the fairness of the Montana income tax system . I don’t know what you made last year, but if you had to pay any income tax at all I bet you paid more than fifty bucks. For comparison there were 78 out-of-state corporations that paid $50 in 2005 Montana Corporate Income tax.

They wouldn’t have had to pay even that much, but $50 is the minimum corporate income tax in Montana. This and the following tidbits of information are the results of a recent information request I made to the Montana Department of Revenue. It’s based on 2005 figures because that’s the most recent year for which we have complete corporate income tax data.

Those 78 out-of-state corporations had 2005 sales in Montana ranging from $5,000,000 to around $900,000,000. I find it curious that a company with $5 million in sales only has to pay the minimum tax, but it beggars the imagination to understand how a company with almost a billion dollars in Montana sales winds up paying the $50 minimum. It staggers the imagination to find out that it paid that same 50 bucks from 2001 to 2005 five years in a row as did all the remaining 77 corporations.

That’s right; 78 out-of-state corporations with Montana sales between $5 million and $900 million paid $50 in tax five years in a row. The average tax paid by Montana’s working families is around $500.

Something seems a little off here, and I bet you’d like to know what it is so you can call your state legislators and get them to fix it. But I bet your state legislator doesn’t know what it is either; in fact, I can guarantee it. I have been studying corporate taxes for years, and I don’t know why they pay so little. Come to find out, the Montana Department of Revenue is pretty much in the dark, too; however they have a leg up on us at least, because they know the names of the companies involved. But I don’t know them and you don’t know them, and we’re not allowed to know them because Montana law, like almost every other state, does not allow citizens or legislators to look at corporate income tax information.

You might be wondering how or why we legislators write laws that allow large multi-state corporations to pay so little tax. Well, for the most part we don’t write them because we base our corporate income tax on a percentage of federal corporate tax, so Congress writes the laws that permit corporations to skate on taxes. Actually, I think the mega corporations write the laws and just get Congress to rubber stamp them. However we can write laws that change the way corporate tax is figured in Montana. Some of us have been trying to do that for years, but have had little success getting them through the Legislature

I expect there will be a reaction to this column by the Defenders of the Status Quo, and one of the arguments in that reaction may be that these could all be corporations undergoing unusual financial difficulties, or just using legitimate deductions. They’re guessing, of course, because they have no more ability to know which companies these are than do you or I, but I will grant you that there may be legitimate reasons why companies that large are paying hardly any income tax. And I’d really like to know what they are so I can either put my cynical suspicions to rest or have them confirmed.

Another argument will be that income tax isn’t the only tax corporations pay, they pay property tax too. But so do I, and so do you, and so does every homegrown Montana business and we still pay our income taxes. The point is not that out-of-state corporations don’t pay taxes to Montana, or that they don’t create jobs, or contribute to the community. The point is that the people of Montana deserve to know what’s going on, and legislators need to know because they are supposed to write laws that protect us “little people”.

“Only the little people pay taxes,” was the philosophy of a very rich lady named Leona Helmsley. A couple of years after making that statement Leona was carted off to jail for tax evasion. A tax system that gives a tax advantage to the very wealthy and to large corporations at the expense of the “little people” is not fair and should be changed.

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“Peter’s history in public service combined with an ability to create quality jobs
for Montana youth is an impressive track record and testimony to his ability to
get things done.” (Senator Max Baucus, 7-28-2008)