Most people are always interested in the races at the top of the ballot - but what about the races receiving a little less attention?

We looked into the races for Neighborhood Councils in Great Falls, and learned that there are a total of 45 positions on the several councils. But only 29 people have filed for positions, which means that only two councils have enough people running to fill the spots.

Patty Cadwell, the Neighborhood Council Coordinator says the councils were started 12 years ago, and is not sure why filings are down this year.

But one reason could be a lot of existing members have been serving for a while and decided not to run again.

Cadwell says that being a council member is a small commitment and yields big results: "I think if more people knew about it, they would run because this is grassroots. This is where people get to talk about what is important to them. They get to talk to the commission about what's important to them. This is really the citizen's link to city government through these neighborhood councils."

Cadwell says the councils have had various successes, including improvements to parks all around Great Falls; and raising money and a matching grant to install play equipment in Russell Park. When complete, it will be some of the only equipment in town geared towards young kids age two to five.

Another success was neighborhood pools; they were in bad shape and the city was looking to close them, but Council Three put together a campaign to get a mill levy to fix them.

And Council Seven has been focused on crime prevention downtown. Council Seven members also collected signatures to keep a grocery store downtown, and the owner of Everyday IGA says it was big reason he decided to open the store.

The council commitment requires just a two-hour meeting once a month.

To learn more, click here to visit the Neighborhood Council page on the City of Great Falls website.