Serving Southern Jefferson County in the Great State of Montana
Serving Southern Jefferson County in the Great State of Montana
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Dear Editor, It is difficult to respond to an anonymous letter writer. You don’t know if the person is truly a concerned citizen or someone that is just trying to stir the pot. I will try to take this opportunity to explain the Western Legacy Center concept, as briefly as possible. This project actually started as a rest area in Boulder after the State announced they were going to close the two rest areas at Jefferson City. The concept from the beginning has always been the same, get people to pull off the Interstate highways and get them i...
Hi Folks, I want to talk a little about COVID. During our first round of COVID-19 those with underlying conditions and the elderly were the populations most at risk from COVID. When younger, healthy people caught COVID their symptoms were fairly minor (like mine) or they got sicker and had some issues (like my wife Carole) but usually weren’t real serious. Unfortunately, our government had a knee-jerk reaction and put out a lot of information that turned out not to be accurate and imposed a lot of regulations that were probably not needed. T...
Hi Folks, The COVID 19 crisis can make everything else, including the Census, seem less important. But completing your Census form only takes 10 minutes and will benefit and influence our community for the next ten years. Census counts are used to determine how federal funding is distributed. Montana receives almost $2,000.00 every year for each Montanan counted in the Census for things like highway projects, health care, education, housing, and more. But for every person not counted, our...
Hi Folks We didn't have a regular meeting last week. I hope everyone had a very great Thanksgiving. Carole and I were able to go help with the free dinner at the Stageline Pizza on Thanksgiving Day. Event Coordinator, Bruce Binkowski and his wife Christina were also there. Bruce helped promote the event and they had a great turnout. I think they served over 100 people. Bill Pullman also stopped by and spent a lot of time visiting with folks and getting pictures. It was a great way to spend Thank...
Hi Folks, At our regular meeting last week, we heard the quarterly Tax Increment Board update from Tom Harrington. Both of our Increment Districts are doing well. The one in the North County is almost sold out. This past year has seen a great amount of new building for new businesses. The South District will have a new building under construction within the next few weeks. There will also be a major water project going in for Golden Sunlight mine. We awarded a bid for a couple of small paint jobs at the Fairgrounds. We approved the Parks,...
Hi Folks, I was in Butte at a training about Tax Increment Financing Districts, Targeted Economic Development Districts, and Urban Renewal Districts last Tuesday at the same time as our regular meeting. The information was great. Some of the types of businesses are different, but for the most part they are pretty similar. They all allow taxes on new improvements to stay in the District to support Public infrastructure needs. At the regular meeting last week, Bob and Cory adopted Resolution 34-2017which ordered abandoning a portion or the...
Hi Folks, I didn’t make it to our regular meeting last week, but Bob and Cory only dealt with a couple of items on the agenda. They canceled the taxes on a few mobile homes that are no longer functional and where we would have no opportunity to ever collect the back taxes. They also approved Resolution 39-2017 which cancels outstanding county warrants. I won’t be able to make our meeting this week either. I will be at a training session in Butte about Tax Increment Financing Districts. One of the items on the agenda for this week’s regul...
Hi Folks, At our regular meeting last week, we started at 9:30 reviewing the claims. That process consists of each of us looking at each claim that is submitted that week and initialing it. Most of the time the claims are pretty routine and straight forward. Occasionally, something will pop out to one of us and we all look at it a little better. If we still don’t understand it, we contact the Clerk and Recorder or the Department Head that submitted the claim. Usually the Clerk and Recorder staff can answer our questions, because before we g...
Hi Folks, At last week’s regular meeting we gave final Plat approval for the Ridge Minor Subdivision near Clancy and approved Resolution 37-2017 which created The Ridge Rural Maintenance District. We also had a lengthy discussion with a couple of Library Board members about maintenance of the Library Building in Boulder. The building and land are owned jointly by the City and County. The Library is responsible for the maintenance of the building and grounds, which includes lawn care and snow plowing. The Board members didn’t think they got all...
Hi Folks, At our regular meeting last week we were finally able to get all of the various levies in from the Towns and Schools so we could approve Resolution 32-2017, Fixing Tax Levies for FY 17-18. We also approved Resolution 33-2017, Declaring October Breast Cancer Awareness Month in Jefferson County. We encourage all County employees to wear pink on Tuesdays throughout October to show support. We had an appraisal done on a piece of property in Basin and we decided to advertise in the paper for anyone interested in purchasing the property....
Hi Folks, Interesting change of weather this past week. There wasn’t much easing into the change. It went from the 90’s to the 40’s in about three days. This should go a long way toward ending our fire season for this year, especially since we have more rain and snow forecasted for the next few days. At our regular meeting last week we gave final plat approval to the Amended Palmer Minor Subdivision. We approved having our Recreation Department submit a grant request to develop a new website that will highlight all of the recreation oppor...
Hi Folks, I hope everyone had a great Labor Day. At our regular meeting last week we held a series of four Public Hearings. The first Hearing was for the use of Title III funds that we have received over several years from Secure Rural School’s money. Since Congress has not reauthorized that payment the program is ending and we need to obligate the funds we have. The use of the money is very limited. We are proposing to use some of it to purchase a Curtain Burner, which would allow us to burn woody waste at our transfer sites without the d...
Hi Folks, At our meeting on the 22nd, someone said we had been pretty fortunate in Jefferson County that we hadn’t had any big fires since they were all around us and it was so dry. Thursday we got hit twice. The first fire reported was in the North end near Holmes Gulch. It was just above the base where the air tankers are stationed. It was also very close to Helena, and when it started it was headed toward Helena, so it got a lot of attention very fast. It ended up in the bottom or Holmes Gulch and was contained there within a couple of d...
Hi Folks, At last week’s regular meeting, we signed a contract with the First Boulder Valley Bank for them to provide banking services to the County. We approved Resolution 25-2017 which provides for a loan of about $300,000 from the Metal Mines Account to the South Tax Increment Financing District to cover some infrastructure needs. We also approved Resolution 26-2017 which provides a loan of about $80,000 to the North TIF District for infrastructure needs. We signed MOU’s with the Montana Wool Growers and the Montana Stock Growers for pre...
Hi Folks, We didn’t have our regular meeting last week, but we did end up having two Special Meetings. One of the meetings was to approve Resolution 24-2017 which puts all of Jefferson County’s private lands under Stage One Fire Restrictions. The following acts or uses are prohibited on all private lands in Jefferson County: a. Building, maintaining, attending, or using a fire or campfire unless noted in the exemptions. b. Smoking, except within an enclosed vehicle or building, a developed recreation site or while stopped in an area at least th...
Hi Folks, At our last meeting on July 25th we discussed some of the fees the Fair Board charges the Rodeo Club for events at the Fair Grounds. We appointed Commissioner Kirsch to represent the County on the Boulder Development Fund Board. We approved an $80,000 loan for the North TIF District for infrastructure improvements. We also approved a $300,000 for the South TIF District for infrastructure needs there. We spent a considerable amount of time discussing financing for the new Rest Area infrastructure at the Boulder interchange. We are...
Hi Folks, At our regular meeting last week we heard a quarterly report from Tom Harrington about our Tax Increment Finance Districts (TIFD). The North TIFD has seen a huge amount of growth so far this year. There have been several buildings constructed and others are started or planned. The South TIFD is also getting busy. LGT, the wind developers we have been working with have decided to sell their testing facility in Missoula and move everything to the Sunlight Business Park. Plans are underway for the construction of a 4000 square foot...
Hi Folks, At last week’s regular meeting, we approved a Large Group Function Permit for Rockin’ the Rivers, contingent on the Sanitarian giving her final approval. We decided to purchase a building on Main Street in Boulder that is owned by Goldfields mining and Montana Tunnels. The cost of the building will be used to offset some of the delinquent taxes that are owed from Montana Tunnels. We voted to put a lot that we acquired on tax deed in Basin several years ago up for sale. The lot will be appraised and then put in the paper to take bids....
We didn’t have a regular meeting last week. Tuesday evening we held a Public meeting to talk about the proposed rest area at the Boulder interchange. We have some interest in establishing a Targeted Economic Development District (TEDD) West of the Boulder interchange. The County is working with the State to have the current rest areas at Jefferson City moved to Boulder. The County would put in the infrastructure across the interstate to facilitate the rest area and for future development. The Public was mostly supportive. One rancher was c...
Hi Folks, I missed last week’s meeting so I could attend the National Association of Community Development Extension Professionals Conference in Big Sky. Community Development Extension Agents from around the country attended. Micky Zurcher, Tom Harrington, and Drew Dawson received first place for the “Excellence in Teamwork” award for the 11 state western region. They won for the work they have done for the “Making Boulder’s Future Bright” project, as a result of the coming closure of the Montana Developmental Center. They were also part o...
Hi Folks, At our regular meeting last week we tabled a Public Hearing and Resolution for a Budget Amendment and transfer of funds for the Museum in Clancy. We held a conference call with Ken Brown, the Executive Director of the Western Counties Alliance (WCA). WCA lobbies on behalf of Western counties. He talked about the PILT payments increasing by about 3% this year, but we still have little progress on the Secure Rural Schools (SRS) payments. One issue that we don’t have right now, but is big in many other Western Counties are wild horses a...
Hi Folks, At our regular meeting last week, we granted a road variance for the R.D. Marks Subdivision at Clancy and removed the requirement for dedicated park land at the Alhambra RV Park. We opened two bids for the Jail meal contract. We approved Resolution 13-2017 to increase the amount of the loan for the bleacher project at the Fairgrounds. We opened bids for the operations of the Emergency Broadcast System and opened another bid for the upgrade of the power supply for the Emergency Broadcast System. These are our seven DES radio stations....
Hi Folks, We didn’t have our regular afternoon meeting on Tuesday last week. We did meet with the Road Supervisor and as the Solid Waste Board. We had been talking about holding several Public meetings early this summer to talk about the possibility of raising rates or changing some of the operation of the Solid Waste District. We have decided to hold off on the meeting for the time being. We are looking at doing a detailed study of the whole process and coming up with two or three different scenarios of how the Solid Waste operation might l...
Hi Folks, We held last week’s meeting at Bordon’s in Whitehall. We approved the Pre-Disaster Mitigation Plan for Jefferson County. DES Coordinator, Doug Dodge has done a lot of work on this and has involved folks from all over the County. We held the final Public Hearing before we decide whether to put the creation of the Ambulance District on the ballot later this year. If we do decide to go forward, Clerk and recorder, Bonnie Ramey will open a 145 day filing period for folks who may want to run for the Trustee positions for the District. Bonn...
Hi Folks, At our regular meeting last week Boyd Andrews Community Services CEO, Amy Tenney and Elkhorn Treatment Center Director Dan Krause gave a presentation about their programs in Jefferson County. Owen Voigt talked with us about some mine reclamation that his company is doing. They are cleaning up some abandoned sites and hauling the tailings to Golden Sunlight Mine. Pete Novich gave us a presentation about the possibility of Novich Insurance Agency acting as our agent for our property-casualty insurance. Novich already is our agent for...
