Wheels of justice need trained driver

Two people will be elected as Flathead County justices of the peace this year. Whoever they are, they'll bring law degrees with them.

The Flathead County commissioners have changed the qualifications for the judges and increased the part-time status of the second judge to full-time.

It's a change for the better.

David Ortley and Dale Trigg are the current judges. Both are attorneys, and they follow a 15-year term by Stewart Stadler who is also an attorney - but they didn't have to be.

Up till now, Flathead County has held to a long tradition of keeping the court a layman's court. That worked for more than a century and conformed with the idea that a Justice Court is a kind of court of the people, where common-sense justice is meted out in lower-level criminal and civil matters. Since common sense was what we were after, there was a strong appeal to the notion that anyone with a level head could do the job.

Those days are gone.

Flathead County has the third-busiest justice court in the state, with an increasingly complex caseload that grows by 10 to 20 percent a year, Ortley says.

There is simply no time for on-the-job training for justices. In the time it would take a layman to learn even the basics about the rules of evidence, cases would jam up worse than traffic at Main and Idaho during rush hour in the summer.

It's complicated business, judging people's affairs, and we agree with the county commissioners that a legal education is necessary to do it right.

What a difference a year makes.

At this time a year ago, the mountain snowpack in the Flathead River drainage was 60 percent of average (and things got worse as winter went on in 2005). Today the snowpack levels are healthy and impressive: 104 percent of average.

While the valleys are mostly clear of snow, the mountains are benefiting from storm after storm that have piled up the white stuff at higher elevations.

That snow is plenty welcome at our local ski areas, which have fantastic skiing this winter, especially compared to the dismal downhill season a year ago.

Blacktail Mountain, for example, has 95 inches of snow at midmountain, a big change from the 28 inches in early February 2005.

There are similarly impressive snow levels on Big Mountain, which has 119 inches piled up at the summit and 50 inches at the village area. A year ago those numbers were 65 inches and 14 inches.

One more number underscores our weather turnaround: Glacier National Park had its wettest month on record in January when the park was drenched with 7.66 inches of precipitation.

Let's hope the good numbers - and the great snow - continue.

Snow also is at center stage halfway around the world with the Winter Olympic Games beginning today in Torino, Italy.

The strong United States team has a chance to equal or better its record haul of medals in the last Winter Games in Salt Lake City.

Although it seems like Olympics fervor is somewhat muted so far (perhaps because the games come right on the heels of the Super Bowl), it's a safe bet that over the next two weeks there will be plenty of drama, a few surprises and more than a few compelling moments on snow or ice.