Walkerville Grocery partners allege anti-Butte bias sabotaged state grant application

Older folks warned Clark Grant that anti-Butte bias could hamstring applying for state grants for projects in Butte and the surrounding vicinity.

Yet Grant helped to secure funds for KBMF-LP radio, for the Carpenters Union Hall and the Walkerville Grocery.

But then he and grocery partner Dan Hogan applied for a grant for the Walkerville store project from the Montana Agriculture Development Council. Among other discretionary duties, the council can award grants via the Growth Through Agriculture program.

During a December meeting, council member Dean Folkvord, former owner of Wheat Montana Farms and the Sacajawea Hotel in Three Forks, immediately dubbed the project suspect and shared his thoughts about Walkerville.

"Is that what we're set up for, to set up a little grocery store in the middle of a kind of blighted community that's hooked up to Butte?" Folkvord asked. "I mean, you go up to Walkerville and you go to Pisser’s Palace. That's the only reason you go to Walkerville, right?"

Pisser’s Palace is a bar on Daly Street. It’s been described as a quintessential Montana dive bar.

Folkvord described Walkerville as a "very low-income, very rough-and-tumble community."

He added, "I guess I wondered if [the Walkerville Grocery is] the kind of business that we want to be involved in.”

Yet some council members said they felt the request for funds resembled projects previously supported by grants from the group. They said the Walkerville Grocery could add a steady brick-and-mortar market for farmers and better food access.

Christy Pickett, an alderwoman on the Walkerville Town Council, shared her thoughts about Folkvord’s comments.

“That is an unfortunate, antiquated view of Walkerville and should not be represented by appointed officials in a public setting,” said Pickett, who has purchased and renovated two houses in Walkerville.

On Tuesday, Folkvord reflected on his remarks.

“Those comments were probably a little bit harsh,” he said.

Folkvord said grant applications for Agriculture Development Council vie for limited funds. Applications can yield disappointment or jubilation, he said.

“It gets to be a pretty tough competition,” he said. “We do award more points for rural projects.”

Folkvord said the council weighs a project’s potential for economic viability.

In November 2023, Gov. Greg Gianforte appointed Folkvord to the Agriculture Development Council.

Logan Kruse, a spokesman for the Montana Department of Agriculture, emailed a statement to The Montana Standard.

“Mr. Folkvord’s comments are under no circumstance reflective of the position of the Montana Department of Agriculture,” he wrote. “Mr. Folkvord is a volunteer board member of the Agriculture Development Council, which is a Governor-appointed position.”

Grant said ClarDan — an abbreviation for Clark Grant and Dan Hogan, a partner in the Walkerville Grocery — had submitted a grant application to the Growth Through Agriculture program asking for $40,549.50 to build out the hood vent, fire suppression system and walk-in cooler for the grocery’s commercial kitchen.

In late March, the council rejected the grant request from ClarDan LLC.

Grant, an alderman on the Walkerville Town Council, and Hogan asked the Montana Department of Agriculture to reconsider the grant application. The pair cited Folkvord’s disparaging comments about Walkerville as evidence of bias.

In a three-page letter to ClarDan dated April 9, Anna Kecskes, legal counsel for the Montana Department of Agriculture, said ClarDan’s application would not be reconsidered.

“In sum, while some of the comments include the characterizations about the community of Walkerville, it does not appear that any of this alleged bias against the town itself affected other council members’ views,” Kecskes wrote.

She said the council had legitimate concerns about the business’s viability and referenced related questions: “Your business model prioritizes Montana-grown products, which often carry higher costs than products available at large retailers. How do you plan to balance supporting local producers with keeping prices affordable for Walkerville residents who may be price sensitive?”

Kecskes said council members also questioned the need for a neighborhood grocery in a community close to a city and wondered whether the Walkerville Grocery planned to accept SNAP benefits. The answer to the latter is “yes.”

By most measures of a community’s income and its distance from a grocery store, Walkerville qualifies as an urban food desert.

Meanwhile, Grant wrote about the dilemma in a column he pens for The Shaft, a monthly newspaper in Butte.

He described Folkvord as a multi-millionaire from Three Forks and wrote that Folkvord, also a Gianforte-appointed member of the Montana Board of Regents, should not dismiss a project for Walkerville because the community is poor.

“In fact, our economic status should demonstrate a genuine need for assistance from programs such as Growth Through Agriculture,” Grant wrote.

Folkvord, an accomplished Montana entrepreneur, said Tuesday he hopes the Walkerville Grocery will move forward in the wake of his being “called on the carpet” about his comments.

He said he will try to stay abreast of the project’s progress.

“I might even invest,” he said.

Both Folkvord and the Montana Department of Agriculture noted that ClarDan can reapply next year for a Growth Through Agriculture grant.

“The Department is appreciative of the work being done to improve access to fresh and nutritious food in Walkerville,” Kruse said. “Growth Through Agriculture is a highly competitive program with a scoring rubric that takes several factors into consideration, and this year was especially competitive.

“Furthermore, in many cases, unsuccessful applicants often apply in years following with higher success rates,” he said. “It is always encouraged that if applicants aren’t successful the first go-round, to apply again in years following.”

Grant said ongoing efforts to establish the Walkerville Grocery are carrying on.

“It definitely would have been very helpful to have assistance building out our commercial kitchen, but we will persist with our own fundraising and potentially other grant sources, should they arise,” he said.

Grant, Hogan, Rodney Norman and others have brought back the circa-1880 building on North Main Street in Walkerville from imminent collapse. Grant and Hogan paid $27,000 for the building in 2017. Funding sources to date have included the Montana Department of Commerce, the Montana Department of Agriculture and the Superfund Advisory and Redevelopment Trust Authority, or SARTA.

As planned, the store will feature a commercial kitchen, café and coffee roastery in addition to groceries.

The Walkerville Grocery has held at least two public fundraisers to date, including one in early 2024 that packed the Knights of Columbus hall in Butte.

Grant was asked for a potential opening date for the Walkerville Grocery.

“July of 2027 will mark 10 years of working on the building, so that would be a nice target by which to open the store,” he said. “If all of our remaining fundraising and financing works out like we hope, we see that date as a realistic goal.”