City Club Presents ‘State Of The Community’ On Monday March 13

For the last four years, City Club Missoula has been presenting the 'State of the Community' event, and the 2017 edition is this Monday, March 11 at The Doubletree Hotel on Madison Street.

Chairman of the Board of City Club, Larry Brehm, said the event will feature University of Montana Interim President Sheila Stearns, Mayor John Engen, and County Commissioner Jean Curtiss.

"Each of those governing people will give a 10 minute message, followed by what we call 'Table Talk'," Brehm said. "That's 10 minutes at each table with about 10 people coming up with a common question, and this gets the civic engagement going, so nobody can just manipulate the microphone. Then, we open it up for questions after that. We're taking an hour and a half to entertain up to 200 people."

Brehm said City Club is membership driven.

"We like memberships because they get the meal at cost, which is $16," he said. "If you're a visitor, it's $20, and for $10, you can come and have some coffee and dessert and just be a spectator, and you can still participate in the Table Talk. When we started, we only had two sponsors, but since then I've got some good people on the board and we now have 18 sponsors."

Brehm said discussions at City Club can be...spirited.

"It's contentious at times, but we always like to keep things balanced," he said. "We invited Gianforete to speak during the election, but we couldn't get Bullock on the same day, so we were able to get them each one month apart. If there's somebody with an issue, we get the other side a chance to comment, too."

City Club meets on the second Monday of every month.