Yellowstone County News asked House District 39 candidates five questions for its October 9 edition. Here are my answers as submitted, with a short note on where the candidates in this race stand.

Introduce yourself and why you’re running

I’m Melissa Smith, and I’ve lived in the Billings Heights for more than 25 years. I’m a parent, an artist, and a small business owner. Since 2001 I’ve run eSmiths, a technology and marketing business that builds websites and digital tools for businesses and organizations in Montana and beyond. Twenty-five years of that work taught me to keep a budget, deliver what I promise, and answer to the people paying the bill. That’s how I’ll treat every taxpayer dollar.

I’m running because the people who represent us should know us. The decisions that shape our property taxes, our power bills, and our schools get made in Helena, and they work best when the person casting the vote lives here and hears directly from the neighbors who live with the results. I want to listen first, carry what I hear to the Capitol, and come home to report back.

This year I’ve knocked on doors across House District 39, from the older streets near Main to the rural edges out toward Shepherd. Those conversations shaped every position I hold. Property taxes are the concern I hear most, followed by rising power bills and the large data center proposed near Broadview.

What I’ve already done shows how I’ll work for taxpayers.

I’ve put my professional skills to work for community organizations in Billings and across the country, building websites and improving communications for groups that support veterans, children and education, environmental stewardship, and vulnerable neighbors who need a fair shot. That behind-the-scenes work helps good organizations reach the people they exist to serve, and it’s the same approach I’ll bring to Helena.

I serve on the board of Access Billings, a local nonprofit working to make public spaces in Billings usable for everyone, including neighbors with disabilities. It’s practical, hands-on work: finding the problem, finding the fix, and getting it done.

I’m your neighbor, not a career politician.

How important are individual property rights and to what degree should they be recognized as government regulates in your elected position?

Property rights sit near the heart of what it means to live in Montana. Owning a home, a ranch, or a business means the freedom to use it, improve it, and pass it on. A legislator should treat that freedom as the starting point and require government to justify any limit on it.

Property rights also belong to the neighbors. A landowner’s freedom to use their land comes with a responsibility to leave the neighbor’s well, field, and power bill whole. Good regulation protects one owner from carrying costs another owner creates.

Data centers. Ranchers and neighbors near Broadview have property rights too. When an out-of-state developer proposes a project on about 5,000 acres seeking up to about 7,000 megawatts of power, the neighbors deserve to know how much water it will draw, who pays for new power lines, and what it means for their land, before anyone breaks ground. I’m already working with neighbors and local groups on these protections, and I’ll keep pushing for data centers to pay their own way.

Property taxes. Keeping a home depends on affording the tax bill. In 2025 the Legislature expanded data centers’ reduced tax rate, and it applies automatically. Relief for homes came with a form, a deadline, and a way to fall through the cracks. I’ll fight for a system that protects the family home first, and automatically.

Personal data. In 2022, 82 percent of Montana voters put electronic data and communications into our constitution, right alongside our homes and papers. Information about a person belongs to that person. I’ll support funding to enforce the privacy protections Montana has already passed.

My test as a legislator is simple: protect the owner’s freedom, protect the neighbor’s rights, and keep the rules clear and known in advance so families, businesses, and neighbors can plan with confidence.

Should the State be able to impose a forensic mental health center upon Yellowstone County even if the community rejects it?

Only as a rare last resort. My answer matches the one I give on the data center proposed near Broadview: the people who live there deserve a real say before anyone breaks ground.

The need is real. Montana’s only forensic hospital, in Galen, has carried a waitlist of more than 70 patients since 2022. Defendants waiting for a court-ordered evaluation are held in county jails, including ours. A facility in eastern Montana would serve Yellowstone County’s own courts and detention center.

How the State builds it matters just as much. The State should start with willing hosts, as Hardin and Miles City offered to be, bring local governments in at the beginning, and answer every water, sewer, staffing, and safety question before choosing a site.

Laurel learned it had been chosen after the decision was made. In August, a Yellowstone County judge paused construction and ordered the State to take a closer look at the water supply. Questions about water, sewer, and the site’s proximity to an elementary school deserve full answers and a clear justification.

In the Legislature, I’ll push for siting rules that guarantee early local consultation and public hearings, and for the community mental health and crisis services that keep people out of the justice system in the first place.

Solving one person’s problem is a good day. Fixing the thing that keeps causing it is a better one.

Identify three challenges facing Yellowstone County in the coming decade and how your elected office can help meet those challenges.

Fair taxes for working families. Property taxes are the number one concern I hear from neighbors, and they’re climbing faster than paychecks. I’ll push for relief that protects primary homes automatically and a circuit breaker that ties relief for fixed-income seniors and working families to what they can actually pay. The proposed flat income tax pulls the other way. Most Heights households already pay the 4.7 percent rate, so they would see no change. Every dollar spent on that cut is a dollar unavailable for property tax relief, and it raises the pressure for a sales tax, which falls hardest on working families. I’ll fight for taxes that are fair to the people of House District 39.

Protecting our power, water, and land as large data centers arrive. A developer is proposing a data center on roughly 5,000 acres near Broadview. Projects this size raise fair questions: who pays for the new power plants and lines, how much water they draw, and whether the neighbors get a say. My approach: welcome the jobs, protect the ratepayers, and make data centers pay their own way. I advocate for a separate utility rate class so their power costs stay off residential bills, strong Public Service Commission oversight, open contracts, full disclosure of water use, and county authority to decide whether a project fits.

Mental health, addiction, and public safety. Our detention center runs about 50 percent over capacity, and some of those beds hold people whose real need is mental health or addiction care. Yellowstone County has more people waiting for a state evaluation than all other eastern Montana counties combined, and they wait in our jail at local taxpayers’ expense. Montana has made a real start with a $300 million behavioral health investment and new community clinics launching this fall. I’ll push to finish that work here: round-the-clock crisis response, timely care close to home, and a forensic facility that moves people out of our jail. I’d rather get ahead of a problem than pay for it later in a jail cell.

My job is to bring House District 39’s concerns to every hearing and every vote, and to work with anyone, of either party, who wants the same results.

How are you different from your opponent in this general election?

I encourage every reader to compare our records and our priorities. Here is what I bring.

I take my direction from House District 39. My priorities came from thousands of conversations with neighbors over the course of this campaign: property taxes, power bills, public schools that are every family’s first choice, and the data center proposed near Broadview. Those conversations will come with me to Helena, and I’ll keep coming back to the Heights to report what happened and ask what comes next.

I’ll reach across party lines on Yellowstone County’s problems. Our county sends one of the largest delegations to the Capitol. I’ll work to form a bipartisan Yellowstone County caucus, so our legislators meet regularly, share what they hear at home, and work together on property taxes, water, and mental health services, issues where good ideas come from both parties.

I bring a career in technology. For 25 years I’ve built websites and digital systems for Montana businesses and organizations, which is exactly why I’m skeptical of the largest data centers, and why I care who gets to see Montanans’ personal data. I know which questions to ask.

I’ll return the call. A parent with a question about a child’s school, a senior worried about a tax bill, a rancher worried about a well: each deserves an answer from the person they elected. I built this campaign on showing up, and I’ll serve the same way.

Government belongs to us, and we reclaim it when we show up. I’d be honored to earn the vote of every House District 39 reader, whatever their party.

On the record: When Medicaid expansion came up for renewal in 2025, the current representative for House District 39 voted no.