J.P. Gallagher had only been Butte-Silver Bow’s chief executive for a few days in January 2021 when he walked into a Butte restaurant packed with local business owners angry about COVID restrictions.

He didn’t promise to lift or ease the orders then, saying they were county Health Department directives designed to save lives, but he listened politely, absorbed the darts and said he’d try to help everyone get through the crisis.

Butte-Silver Bow Chief Executive J.P. Gallagher is photographed at his courthouse office.

COVID hit in March 2020 when Dave Palmer, the chief executive Gallagher later defeated in the November election, was still in office. But the pandemic was still roaring nine months later.

“People wanted answers and they were hurting,” Gallagher said.

The county refunded local business licenses to help some, was a key part of a vaccination campaign funded by the Town Pump Foundation and worked with the Butte Local Development Corp. in supporting economic recovery, he said.

“All those things helped unite us as a community instead of really being polarized by COVID like a lot of other communities,” Gallagher said.

Gallagher was parks director when he defeated Palmer with 60% of the vote in late 2020. Palmer became the third consecutive incumbent chief executive to lose a re-election bid, following Matt Vincent in 2016 and Paul Babb in 2012.

Gallagher faces longtime Butte sportswriter and columnist Bill Foley on Nov. 5, and like many incumbents, he says there are numerous successes and key initiatives he can point to during his first term.

“I think in the last four years, we’ve seen more economic development in Butte-Silver Bow than we’ve seen since the 1920s,” he said. “Population has been increasing and it hasn’t been unsustainable like the population growth in Gallatin County and Missoula. We have the infrastructure in place to take care of those individuals coming in.”

Gallagher said in February, the county had seen about $400 million in permitted building and construction work in the previous three years. It’s upwards of $600 million now, he said.

The Montana Connections Business Park continues to be a hotbed of development and commercial activity, Gallagher said, and he encourages residents to go see it for themselves.

“I don’t think people realize the scale of the development that’s gone on there,” he said. “The National Guard armory is being built out there, there’s Empire Building (Materials), Murdoch’s finished up. We have continuous meetings of people that are looking to come and locate there.”

On the government financial front, Gallagher said the county lowered mills levied to mitigate the big property tax increases that resulted from statewide reassessments.

And thanks to former Budget Director Danette Gleason and current director Karen Hassler, he said, the county has adequate reserves and solid credit and bond ratings that are “ultimately a savings to the taxpayers.”

Gallagher realized early in his first term that all the fallen timber in the forests around Basin Creek Reservoir posed serious fire dangers that could wipe out Butte’s largest and most efficient source of drinking water, he said.

County officials secured grants, started clearing deadfall on county-owned land around the reservoir and worked with state and federal agencies on more expansive clearing operations underway now.

Gallaher said the county took federal COVID-recovery stimulus funds and leveraged addition grants that are now funding multimillion-dollar upgrades to the Basin Creek and Moulton Reservoir dams, water plants and the Metro Sewer Plant.

There have been setbacks and challenges, Gallager said, including the fentanyl epidemic and homelessness found in places across America.

The county helped launch a media blitz on the dangers of fentanyl, Gallagher said, and, “I think we’re addressing the homeless issues in a really proactive fashion.”

“We haven’t set up encampments for the homeless to congregate in,” he said. “The Butte Rescue Mission, Action Inc. — we have a team of people that works to really address those issues.”

Foley has made transparency and public participation major issues in his campaign, saying both are sorely lacking in Butte-Silver Bow government.

As just one example, he says Gallagher visited the Dublin Gulch area knowing it was being considered as a repository site for mine waste but wasn’t forthright about it. Foley penned a column on the matter and says that’s the reason folks in the area and the rest of Butte found out about it.

Gallagher disputes those specific accounts and secrecy claims in general.

“I know that has been the narrative out there but we’ve been transparent on everything we have done there,” he said.

Gallagher said he’s pushed the EPA, DEQ and Atlantic Richfield to open meetings and he encourages public participation. He said not every conversation can be a public meeting but in private talks, he and his team put Butte’s interests first.

“Sometimes people make the accusation that there’s something nefarious that’s happening or backhanded that happens but there is nothing further from the truth,” he said. “We are fighting every single day to do what is right for the cleanup in Butte.”

Looking ahead, Gallagher said he’s confident a planned retail and restaurant plaza on South Harrison Avenue will become reality, and in general, “I think we are going to see economic activity still continuing to grow.”

“We’re going to need to really focus on workforce housing and affordable housing within the community,” he said. “We need to make sure we can support the people that are coming into our community.”

He said an overhaul and modernization of Butte-Silver Bow’s zoning laws should be completed soon and that should help drive more economic development.

Growth, Gallagher said, is a good thing.

“One of the things I am so proud about Butte is the loyalty to the community,” he said. “People in Butte will give you the shirt off their backs. But we also need to realize we need to have growth in the community to keep surviving.

“We need the new tax base and we need to embrace some of the changes that come with growth in the community.”