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Fox, Gianforte, Olszewski square off in GOP governor primary: Albert Olszewski

State Sen. Albert Olszewski, M.D., of Kalispell is facing Montana Attorney General Tim Fox and U.S. Rep. Greg Gianforte in this spring's Republican primary race for Montana governor.

"I'm running because of what I've learned as a state legislator is that the agencies, our bureaucracy does not serve at the pleasure of a state senator," he said. "I've worked on oversight committees, especially on the Department of Public Health and Human Services, and have learned very quickly that the branch, our legislative body is tolerated and they will respond to us until ... the 90 days we are in session and once we sign the budget we are ignored until the next session. ... I've also watched our agencies basically not follow the law or interpret the law on their own, and then make rules and procedures to what the agency wishes."

He said for the past 16 years, the last two governors of Montana let the agencies run themselves and that every agency has had some instance of "doing something that is not constitutional or unlawful."

The agencies, he said, need a governor who is going to reset the culture, so it remembers the government does not serve it, it is a public servant for the people of Montana.

"I believe I am the best

candidate on both sides of the party, for the main reason is that is as a state legislator, some who's had experience and I understand what it takes to pass law, to repeal law

and I've also personally experienced the things the agencies need to approve upon," Olszewski said. "As we travel into the future of the next governor's term, we see right now that our state is in disarray, we are dealing with a pandemic of a virus that people are afraid of or fearful of because they don't understand it."

As a military officer, who is trained in responding to natural disasters and man-made disasters, he said, as a physician, who has responded to public health issues such as the pandemic, and a state legislator, he has a spectrum of experiences and leadership "that can realistically bring the state, us forward, bring us back to business through the after effects as well as the multiple waves that may occur from pandemic and do so in a way where I understand the science,  I just don't have to trust the experts, I am an expert."

He added that the mission of dealing with the pandemic and getting through this is allowing healthy people to naturally become affected and recover, so they develop immunity, and when 80 percent have developed immunity to this virus then that protects the most vulnerable.

"I think, overall, things were reasonable with exceptions of where we have a taking on constitutional rights such as the right to worship," he said. "And issues determining what is essential and non-essential, there was some arbitrary nature to that, that I would do differently, especially if we just go back to our constitutional right to our religious liberties. As a governor, I would've asked our businesses, like our beauticians and our barbers and our places of worship to say 'Please, use physical distancing, encourage your parishioners or your customers that are sick to stay home or who are elderly, have them shelter-in-place,' find a different a way to educate them or provide their services."

He said on personal hygiene, he would've had people be using face masks earlier if they are elderly and vulnerable due to chronic conditions.

Right now, because of the pandemic, he said, his top issue and priority would be to make sure the state doesn't go bankrupt and doesn't collapse.

"We've watched as we've sheltered-in-place, we've shut down businesses, oil prices have collapsed, coal prices have greatly gone down, our natural resources, and what that means is we are going to have a huge economic tsunami to the state in 2021,"  Olszewski said. "In 2017, we dealt with a similar issue when the oil prices and the coal prices basically collapsed for a short period of time and not to the same degree, and as a result when we came into 2017 we had like a $60 to $70 million shortfall, actually it would've been higher, but we had to ratchet down our belts, we had to make a lot cuts."

In 2021, he said, there won't be people producing income as individuals and that is the major revenue share, through individual income tax, and the corporations, small businesses are not producing as well.

He said if revenue drops again as it did in 2017, he is going to look at the state's priorities and rank them in partnership with the legislative branch, the House and Senate, then fund them based on the most important priority.

"My plan in that situation if we need more revenue, we are going to then seek to open the coal trust and we're going to break into the body or the corpse of this $1 billion fund that we have used," he added, "and we have said that is there, we will only use it's interest for projects unless we have a future crisis."

He said right now, if he would change state policy he would reform property taxes by disconnecting how it's paid for K-12 education, and where he would use all the revenue from the natural resources, from the lottery, from gaming to be put in an account for education.

The governor is part of the land board, so he said, in means of protecting public land or expanding it that public lands belong in public hands.

"The truth is, our state and our federal government have been locking us out of our own public lands for over 15 years and destroying our road access to public lands, so what I'm going to do is fight to re-open up our state lands, especially our state forest lands and make sure that you get older and you live in Montana, the benefit of living in this rugged, frontier state is your access to public lands," he added. "... Public lands should be open to all Montanans, regardless of our ability."

One of the biggest problems of bringing in manufacturing, he said, is the business equipment tax which has been a barrier.

He said that people want to live here with the land "relatively inexpensive" compared to other places and ample energy is here, adding that if he was elected as a governor he would get rid of the business equipment tax.

"If you look at our tourism and especially follows over the last 20 years, we have been a go to state now for almost two decades," Olszewski said. "I live in Kalispell, we see almost two plus million people come through Glacier Park every summer and when I sat with the Montana Tourism and Hospitality Association and look at the numbers, we are spending over $40 million a year using our bed tax and tourism."

So much money doesn't need to be spent on the Flathead Valley, he said, adding that the state needs to look at other counties and educate not only the residents, but people outside of the state about how beautiful the Hi-Line is and eastern Montana is.

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Al Olszewski

Born Aug. 26, 1962, Great Falls,

Bachelor of Arts in biology, Carroll College, 1984; Medical degree, University of Washington, 1988; fellowship in sports medicine and total joint reconstruction 1997; internship certificate, general surgery, Wilford Hall Medical Center at Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio, 1989. Residency in orthopedic durgery, Wilford Hall Medical Center, 1995, residency in orthopedic surgery, Wilford Hall Medical Center

1984-1997 U.S. Air Force flight surgeon and rapid mobility trauma surgeon, orthopedics 1998, partner of Flathead Orthopedics in Kalispell, sports medicine and total joint specialist, orthopedics specialist till 2018, now solo practitioner doing orthopedic consultation in Kalispell 

Montana state senator since 2017

Married to Nancee Olszewski for 33 years, father of six children 

 

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