Bozeman is more than just a place to live—it’s a community built by long-term residents, families, and homeowners who’ve invested years into making it what it is. Yet today, Bozeman faces a political power grab, driven by transient interests, ideologically charged organizations, and a compliant City Commission, that threatens to upend everything that once made this place special. This isn’t about “affordable housing” or “inclusivity”; it’s a calculated power grab by a vocal minority aiming to alter Bozeman’s governance and character to suit their temporary needs. If we don’t act now, the Bozeman we cherish will be lost.

The Architects of Influence: Bozeman Tenants United and Deputy Mayor Joey Morrison
At the heart of this movement is Deputy Mayor Joey Morrison, co-founder of Bozeman Tenants United (BTU). BTU claims over 200 members and 130 dues-paying supporters. It pivoted from its roots in racial justice to housing activism, capitalizing on Bozeman’s “housing crisis” to build a political machine. BTU actively backed Morrison’s mayoral campaign, supported by out-of-state donations from groups like the Sunrise Movement. Despite knocking on 15,000 doors, Morrison won with just 5,402 votes—13% of registered voters. An underwhelming result, but a win in an extremely apathetic and fatigued city, nonetheless.

Morrison and BTU push for Tenant Right to Counsel, a program offering free legal representation to tenants facing eviction. Framed as aid for vulnerable renters, it’s a strategic move to entrench BTU’s influence within Bozeman’s legal and political systems. In May, the City Commission, with Morrison’s support, advanced this program despite his undisclosed ties to BTU. While promoted as preventing homelessness, it holds the potential to burden small landlords with higher taxes and legal hurdles, leading to increased rents and squeezing the housing market. This policy favors renters, often transient, over property owners who rely on rental income, signaling a bias against Bozeman’s long-term residents.

The Airbnb Ban: Rhetoric Over Results
BTU’s tactics mirror a national playbook, trained by groups like the Kansas City Tenants Union, and backed by the National Housing Law Project. Their influence was clear in the City Commission’s 2023 ban on non-owner-occupied short-term rentals (Ordinance 2149), sold as a way to “free up homes for affordable housing.” Yet, nearly two years later, there’s no evidence these homes became long-term rentals. The ban enabled hotel proliferation and harmed homeowners who relied on rental income to offset taxes and mortgages. This move prioritized ideology over evidence, setting a dangerous precedent.

Amplifying Transient Voices:
Commissioner Emma Bode’s Agenda
Appointed Commissioner Emma Bode, a former employee of Forward Montana—a group focused on climate, housing, and DEI issues, and who the city is consulting with on its update to the UDC and Community Plan—pushes to amplify student and renter voices. She advocates for MSU students, who make up a significant renter population, to have seats on every city advisory board. While framed as “inclusion,” this dilutes the influence of permanent residents. MSU’s enrollment, now 17,144 with 51% out-of-state students, strains Bozeman’s housing, with only 5,485 students living on-campus. The city’s 2019 Housing Needs Assessment projected a need for 5,405–6,340 units by 2025, met largely by apartments (3,700 vs. 969 single-family homes). This subsidizes the university while eroding neighborhood character.

Bode and Community Development Board member Mark Egge also propose “recalibrating” city survey data to overrepresent renters and students, aligning with Forward Montana’s advocacy. This manipulates outcomes to justify policies favoring renters, ignoring that homeowners, with long-term stakes, naturally dominate surveys on issues like the Unified Development Code. Forward Montana pushes a radical UDC update, including citywide upzoning and a square footage cap on new homes over 2,500 square feet to fund “affordable housing.” These policies threaten property values and infrastructure, dismissing homeowners’ concerns as “status quo bias.”

The Ultimate Power Play: Re-Engineering Governance
BTU and Forward Montana won’t stop at housing. Their next move will be to influence the Local Government Study to reengineer Bozeman’s entire political structure. BTU, a 501(c)(3), and its side group, Represent Bozeman, want to divide the city into wards drawn based on the percentage of renters—not neighborhoods or infrastructure. Rio Roland, a BTU-endorsed study commission candidate, shared the goal in a public comment: create wards where 60% of residents are renters. His vision is to “balance” city power toward renters and away from homeowners. This isn’t theory—it’s a deliberate scheme to establish a permanent political majority based on transient demographics. The comment makes it clear: they believe the system is rigged in favor of homeowners and that “poor and working-class” renters need their own system to level the field. But what they really mean is that they want control.

The Time to Act is Now
These policies—right to counsel, Airbnb bans, manipulated surveys, zoning overhauls, and rigged wards—are not random. They are coordinated steps in a larger strategy to permanently shift power away from long-term residents and homeowners and hand it to renters, students, and national ideological groups. Bozeman faces a critical juncture with the UDC update, upcoming elections, and the Local Government Study outcome.

Homeowners & concerned renters need to:

• Get Informed: Read city reports, learn about the proposed UDC changes, and attend meetings.

• Speak Out: Submit public comments Counter the narrative.

• Engage the Study Commission: Oppose renter-heavy wards; advocate for boundaries based on neighborhoods.

• Hold MSU accountable. Stop subsidizing its growth through city housing and parking.

• Vote. Local elections matter. Know the candidates. Scrutinize candidates endorsed by BTU and Forward Montana. Show up to vote this November.

• Organize. Homeowners must build coalitions to counterbalance well-funded, highly trained activist groups.

• Be ready for pushback. You’ll be called names. You’ll be labeled. But push through. This is our city.

Bozeman’s future hangs in the balance. This isn’t just a fight over zoning—it’s a fight for who gets to shape our community: the people who built it, or those just passing through.

To read the expanded version of this and other articles, visit our website at: https://www.thegvsentinel.com/

The mission of The Gallatin Valley Sentinel is to inform on issues and events taking place in the valley, advise on how we can achieve the change the majority desires, initiate important community discussions, restore the framework of what the size and scope of our local government ought to be, and to protect the land, people, and values.