We can still be the
‘Can-Do City’
My Mission
As Chief Executive, I will give the Courthouse back to the people of Butte and Silver Bow County. I will restore transparency and accountability to our local government.
Donate
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A little bit can go a long way.
Let’s meet
Email foles74@gmail.com or call or text (406) 491-3022 to set up a neighborhood meeting.
Yard signs
Email foles74@gmail.com or call or text (406) 491-3022 if you want to place a sign in your yard.
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Why I’m running
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Giving a voice to the people
Last August, I attended a community meeting with the Environmental Protection Agency. This followed a similar experience I had in 2020 when citizens were left in the dark about Superfund decisions conducted in secret to put waste in one neighborhood’s back yard. There, I saw citizens literally in tears as they asked the EPA to…
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Restoring transparency
Like with Superfund, where the important decisions are made in the dark, transparency is at the heart of so many issues in the Mining City. Actually, it is a lack of transparency driving far too many problems. I was paying attention to Superfund issues when our own local government was proposing to put a waste…
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Listening to our rural neighbors
As we saw with the fight over a proposed gas station next to the Silver Bow Drive-In, our rural neighbors do not feel they are being listened to. It was not a “not-in-my-neighborhood” fight. It was not just a fight to preserve a long-standing local business. It was a fight about a way of life.…
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Improving our streets and roads
No, I am not talking about potholes. Our city crew does its very best to fill the many potholes that pop up each spring. That is an exhausting and thankless job that takes a ton of time to finish. Some of our roads have not been paved since John Kennedy was in office — or…
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Creating affordable housing
In Bozeman, they call it “urban camping,” as if the people living on the streets are on vacation. What it should be called is “working-class homelessness,” and it is a problem everywhere. If you think we are immune to that in Butte-Silver Bow, you are dead wrong. We are already seeing people who commute to…
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Fighting for every neighborhood
In 2020, some residents of the Timber Butte neighborhood found out by happenstance that Butte-Silver Bow, British Petroleum and the Environmental Protection Agency planned to dump toxic waste from the Consent Decree cleanup near their homes. Even though I live nowhere near that neighborhood, I led the fight to stop that from happening. I wrote…
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Looking out for our children
In 2009, I ran the New York City Marathon to raise money for Mariah’s Challenge. It was and still is a cause that is very near and dear to my heart. I quit drinking alcohol after Mariah McCarthy was killed by an underage drunk driver in October of 2007. I wanted to be a better…
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Providing accessibility
I have had multiple people with physical disabilities tell me they completely avoid Uptown Butte because it is not accessible. We have to work hard to make sure everyone can share in the history and beauty of Butte, America. We need to work with local advocates and some of our disabled citizens to make sure…
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Creating an animal shelter to envy
I am a dog person. I subscribe to the George Carlin theory that “life is a series of dogs.” My family lost our English Setter named Bandit in November. She went for a walk with me on a Sunday, and then could not get up on Monday morning. So, we had to make the difficult…
Get to know Bill
I will turn 50 years old on April 10, and I have lived in Butte almost my entire life. I attended Butte Central High School for two years before transferring to Butte High School and graduating in 1993.
After a school year at Montana Tech, I transferred to the University of Montana. I graduated in December of 1997 with a journalism degree and a minor in political science. In January of 1998, I took a job as a sportswriter at The Moscow-Pullman Daily News in Moscow, Idaho. I worked there until July of 1998. In September of that year, I started working for The Montana Standard. I worked as a sportswriter, columnist, editor and page designer until May of 2012, when I left for a job with Butte Broadcasting.
At Butte Broadcasting, I served as news director, and we developed ButteSports.com, an online sports page that covered all things sports in the Mining City. I worked as publisher of that website from August 2012 until August of 2022, posting at least one story a day for more than 10 years.
I have also served as the executive director of the Butte Sports Hall of Fame since June of 2016. I was given the unenviable task of trying to fill the shoes of the late, great Pat Kearney. We inducted Hall of Fame classes in 2017, 2019 and 2022. We will induct the Class of 2024 in July. During my tenure as executive director, I led the organization through the difficult time of the COVID pandemic. That included moving back a year and inducting classes every even year moving forward.
On Sept. 12, 2022, I debuted the ButteCast with Bill Foley, a podcast focused on the people of Butte. My first guest was former Butte-Silver Bow Chief Executive Don Peoples Sr., who is the most instrumental leader Butte-Silver Bow has seen in my lifetime. That venture includes the website ButteCast.com, where I write columns and other stories about the Mining City. My columns have appeared in The Butte Weekly for more than a decade.
I will continue to run that website and podcast during the campaign. The podcast will not be turned into a political tool. It will continue to be about the people of Butte.
On my 30th birthday, I married my wife Kim (Mulcahy). We are approaching our 20th anniversary, and we have two daughters and one son. Delaney, 20, is a sophomore at the University of Montana. Grady, 16, is a sophomore at Butte High School, where he plays baseball and football for the Bulldogs. Maizee, 14, is an eighth grader at East Middle School.
We have two rescue dogs, a Shih Tzu/Lhasa Apso cross named Boogie and our new Border Collie cross named Sage. I walk those dogs around the Big M at least once a day.
I was an avid runner until injuries to my hips prevented me from running. In 2009, I ran the New York City Marathon as part of the Miles for Mariah team. We raised money for Mariah’s Challenge, which is one of the most important organizations in my life. I decided to take a long look in the mirror, and I quit drinking after my good friend Leo McCarthy’s daughter Mariah was killed by an underage drunk driver in October of 2007. On Oct. 28, I will mark 16 years without a drop of alcohol. However, it is a date I cannot celebrate because it was also the worst day of my friend’s life.
I also ran the Missoula Marathon in 2010, the Billings Marathon in 2011 and the Governor’s Cup Marathon in Helena in 2014. I now focus on riding my mountain bike around the trails of Butte, or my NordicTrack bike when it is cold outside.
Also, after years of encouraging people to referee high school sports — a task I couldn’t take on because I was busy writing about those sports — I joined the Montana Officials Association in December of 2022. I refereed subvarsity games the last two seasons.
Bill Foley for Chief Executive 