Former MSU student wins Bozeman mayoral race

Joey Morrison recently beat out former mayor Cyndy Andrus to become the next mayor of Bozeman. He’ll serve for another year as deputy mayor and then enter into the role of mayor in 2025. 

Just five years ago, Morrison was an MSU student finishing his degree in anthropology and history on a pre-medicine track. He also minored in biochemistry and global health. 

During his time in school, Morrison worked nights at the Human Resource Development Council [HDRC] Warming Center. “Throughout my time at MSU, I worked for MSU Extention doing public health survey analysis, and I also worked for the [HRDC] Warming Center,” Morrison said. “That was one of the most impactful, long-term jobs that I’ve had.”

He said it wasn’t easy to balance everything. “It entailed sometimes getting done with class at 6:00 and going to open up the shelter at 6:30, and then working all night and then getting up the next day and going back to class at 8:00 in the morning,” Morrison said.

“For myself and other students who were also workers at the [HRDC] Warming Center, we were sometimes not sleeping for two days at a time. Sometimes we were sleeping like 10 to 14 hours in a week, all while trying to be exceptional students and trying to do fulfilling work that set me up for my career — as well as pay my bills,” he said.

Morrison has always strived to make a positive impact on Montana, and his time at MSU was just the beginning of that effort. “The world that we need and that we deserve is not going to be given to us and we have to work and fight for it, and that kinda keeps me going,” Morrison said. 

Not only is Morrison a born and raised Montanan, he’s one of the youngest current elected officials in the state. He has continued to use his high-energy personality and work ethic to make real change in the community.

His current passion project has been helping to organize the Bozeman Tenants United (BTU) group. The mass amount of short term rentals in Bozeman affects the housing market because it limits the number of rental units available to locals.

 Morrison reflected on his canvassing efforts in the past few years and recollected that at the top of everyone’s minds was housing. Bozeman is a very renter-saturated town with over two-thirds of the population renting their housing. Morrison helped to organize the BTU in 2021.

“Housing is something that touches every identity, it’s hard to differentiate anything from housing right now,” Morrison said. 

He said that he recognizes himself as someone who is directly affected by the housing crisis, having grown up in Miles City in a single-parent household. “If you aren’t directly affected by the housing crisis and cost of living, you aren’t going to act with the swiftness and the urgency that it takes to solve these issues. We see real material change when you put people into office that feel the struggle every day,” he said. 

Morrison would like MSU students to be aware that the BTU is involved in the Unified Development Code [UDC] rewrite that’s happening in Bozeman right now, according to the City of Bozeman website. The UDC lays out the regulations of what kind of development can occur in zoning districts. The code rewrite will directly impact building construction requirements: meaning less million dollar high rises and more affordable student housing. 

The meetings about code rewrites are dominated by well-established homeowners, and Morrison emphasized the importance of student voices at the meetings. “The housing crisis in Bozeman is a decades-long fight that I won’t solve in four years. But I want to make the impact that I can,” he said.