Serving Southern Jefferson County in the Great State of Montana
Serving Southern Jefferson County in the Great State of Montana
Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 50
Hi Folks, We’ve had a few issues discussed at our regular meetings over the past couple of weeks. On April 25th we held a discussion about a locked gate on Rocky Road South of Boulder. We have had several requests to look at getting the road open again for Public use. It had been open and used by the Public for well over 100 years. This discussion will continue for the next few weeks. We designated Polling Places and appointed Election Judges for the Special Election on May 25th. We appointed Fire District Trustees and appointed the Election A...
Hi Folks, Last Tuesday after we reviewed claims at 9:30, we met with Road Supervisor, Rory Parsons for his weekly update. The Whitehall crew has finished redecking the Williams Bridge. Parrot Castle Road is having some issues but it seems to be getting better. We also met with Public Health Nurse Karen Wandel. We spent some time going over financials for some of the grants she deals with. At our regular meeting, our new Events Coordinator, Bruce Binkowski, gave us an update on what he has been doing and presented us with some options to...
Hi Folks, Last week we met with Road Supervisor Rory Parsons for his weekly update. We are scheduled to get another several thousand yards of millings off the Interstate between Basin and Boulder this summer. We will have several miles of roads that we will be able to hard surface in the Boulder area. We are looking at also putting millings on Capp Lane. The State would then use that as a detour while the new bridge is put in across Pipestone Creek. We also met with Candice Bell, our Solid Waste Manager. We are looking at having three separate...
HI Folks, At our last couple of meetings, we gave final plat approval for the Phillips Minor Subdivision near Jefferson City and approved an amended plat for Lot 4-A Cox Creek and Lot 4 of the Clearwater Estates Subdivisions near Whitehall. We approved Resolution 10-2017 Calling for a Special Federal Election to replace Ryan Zinke. By having to hold a Poll Election instead of a mail-in election we will spend nearly $20,000 more. We approved a $3,200 expenditure for Event Coordinator Bruce...
Hi Folks, At last week’s meeting we reviewed claims and then met with Road Supervisor, Rory Parsons. The Road crews are cleaning up things from the winter. The crew is going back to working four tens for the remainder of the spring, summer, and fall. They will be working from 6:30 am to 4:30 pm Monday through Thursday. We also met with Candice Bell, our Solid Waste Manager. We are still discussing what options might be available for Solid Waste moving forward. We would like to come up with two or three different options and then present them to...
Hi Folks, At our meeting Tuesday morning, we met with our new Event Coordinator, Bruce Binkowski. He has been very busy talking with a lot of people. He has commitments from several groups that do events in Jefferson County, but have never acknowledged us, to include information about Jefferson County in the future. Some of the groups agreeing to put a link to the Jefferson County Website on their Websites are Country Jam, Butte 100 Cycle Race, Elkhorn Endurance Run, Wulfman CDT (14K trail race), and Tizer Garden. Some of the groups will also...
Hi Folks, At last week’s meeting we reviewed claims at 9:30 and talked with the County Sanitarian, Megan Bullock about water and sewer issues in Clancy. Megan has contracted with Montana Tech to do water sampling and testing within the Town site of Clancy because of some test results that showed high levels of Nitrates in the well water. Road Supervisor, Rory Parsons updated us on what is going on in the Road Department. Kip Harris from the Boulder shop has left to take another job. We are currently advertising for that position. County T...
Hi Folks, At our regular meeting last week, we met with Road Supervisor Rory Parsons. The crew has been very busy trying to keep up with winter and spring maintenance issues. One of the big issues this time of year is trying to keep culverts flowing. They generally tend to freeze up and then when the water starts to run there is no place for it to go. They try to get out and unthaw the culverts before we get big flows but that doesn’t always work. We have had some closures on Milligan Canyon Road because we just couldn’t keep ahead of the fre...
Hi Folks, Last week was the Montana Association of Counties (MACO) mid-winter meetings in Helena. Monday, I attended the Agricultural Committee meeting and the Coalition of Forest Counties. Both Committees had speakers that talked about various issues. One of the discussions in the Ag. Committee continues to be the threat of Brucellosis spread through buffalo and elk. I don’t think we have any good answers to the problem. One of the biggest issues in the Forest Counties Coalition is Secure Rural schools (SRS) payments, or more accurately, l...
Hi Folks, At our regular meeting last week, we heard a presentation from Joe Willauer, Executive Director of Headwaters RC&D, about a Community Economic Development Strategy. We brainstormed a number of different projects or events that could help with economic development in Whitehall, Boulder, and Jefferson County. We heard a presentation from Lori Ladas, Executive Director of Rocky Mountain Development Center in Helena. We discussed their two year work plan and talked about Head Start in Whitehall. At the current time Whitehall Head Start...
Hi Folks, Last week at our regular meeting, we open bids for a couple of projects in the Whitehall area. We received ten bids, which ranged from $360,000 to just under $32,000 for the Blowout Project on Pipestone Creek. We will probably award that bid to the lowest bidder at today’s meeting. We received nine bids for the Sugar Beet Row Sewer Project. These bids were fairly close, with the low bid of $216,825 being about $32,000 over the Engineers Estimate. There were also higher than anticipated costs for Bond Counsel and engineering s...
Hi Folks, A couple of weeks ago, I attended a conference in Helena put on by a group called the United Property Owners of Montana. One of the speakers was an attorney from Wyoming named Harriet Hageman. She talked about Regulation Without Representation. Harriet pointed out that when Congress passes a law, it is often fairly broad and vague, so the agencies interpret the laws and come up with regulations to enact the laws. In January 2011 President Obama announced an Executive Order to review; regulations already on the books and to remove...
Hi Folks, At our regular meeting last week, we gave Final Plat approval for the Elkhorn Crossing Minor Subdivision near Montana City. We chose Cory Kirsch to be the new Presiding Officer (Chair) for 2017. Resolution 02-2017 was approved to keep all the office hours for the Courthouse the same as they have been. We also approved Resolution 03-2017 which sets the Per Diem and Mileage rates. A Special Committee of the Rocky Mountain Development Council, based in Helena decided to shut down the Head Start Program in Whitehall. When Commissioner Bob...
Hi Folks, At our regular meeting last week we reviewed claims and met with Road Supervisor, Rory Parsons in the morning. Snow plowing has been pretty steady this year and as is par for the course, we have had some issues with snow plows. Over all things are going fairly well in the Road Department. In the afternoon we approved a subdivision amendment for the Cox Creek Minor and Clearwater Estates Subdivisions. These are southwest of Whitehall and the amendment basically consists of a boundary adjustment. We approved Resolution 40-2016 which...
Hi Folks, At our regular meeting last week, we started by reviewing claims for the week at 9:30. At 10:00, Road Supervisor Rory Parsons gave us his report for the preceding week. The crew has been doing general winter maintenance and thawing out culverts. County Treasurer, Terri Kunz, gave her report. Tax collections are going good. At our afternoon portion of the meeting, we heard another presentation about AirMed Care that would cover the residents of Jefferson County for transport by their air craft if they are in Jefferson, Silver Bow, or...
Hi Folks, I hope everyone has a merry Christmas and a happy New Year. We have some projects that are going to be moving forward early in the year. The bids for the installation of the Sugar Beet Row sewer system will be going out in early January, with construction in early spring. The bid to repair the “Blowout” on Pipestone Creek should also be going out in January. This is the area where the Jefferson Canal drops into Pipestone Creek on the Capp Ranch. Also the bid to reconstruct and do other work on the Jefferson Slough should be out fai...
Hi Folks, At our regular meeting last week, we approved Resolution 36-2016 which creates the Sugar Beet Row RSID. We also approved Resolutions 36 and 37 which rescinded Resolutions 25 and 26 that set up the referendum on the Ambulance District and set the powers of the Board. We will hold the Public Hearing for the creation of the Ambulance District next week at 2:00 during our regular meeting in the Clerk and Recorders Building. We are in the process of reviewing Proposals for contractors to do the stream work in the Jefferson Slough. We will...
Hi Folks, We have had several phone conferences over the past couple of months to finalize the loan and grants for the Sugar Beet Row sewer project. The final step will be the creation of the Rural Special Improvement District to take place on December 13th. The request for bids will go out shortly after the first of the year and construction should take place this spring. I had several calls this weekend because of an article and ad in the Whitehall Ledger from North Western Energy saying they were going to close Kountz Road for ten days,...
Hi Folks, At our regular meeting last week, we held a Public Hearing and approved Resolution 34-2016 which amends our Budget. This became necessary after the Department of Revenue reached a last minute deal with Northwestern Energy to resolve some assessment issues. We requested the DOR recertify all of our values for this year. We were able to absorb most of the change by reducing some of our cash reserves. As a result, the tax bills went out late so the due date changed from November 30th to December 9th. We approved Resolution 35-2016 for...
Hi Folks, Well, the election is over. Some of it went the way I wanted and some of it didn’t, but that’s the way it generally works. Even though I was running unopposed, if I spent any money, even encouraging people to vote or to thank them for their support I would be required to open a bank account and fill out a bunch of paperwork. This had to be one of the strangest elections I can ever remember. I still can’t believe Donald and Hillary were the two best people we could find in this whole country. But, if you think about it, who in their...
Hi Folks, At last week’s regular meeting Resolution 37-2014 Creating Sunlight Business Park RMD was amended. Resolution 31-2016, Resolution Forming the Jefferson County Mental Health Local Advisory Council was approved. Wednesday and Thursday I attended the Montana Counties Forest Summit in Missoula. It was sponsored by the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, the U.S. Forest Service, and the Montana Coalition of Forest Counties. I was on one of the panels Wednesday afternoon talking about the collaboration process that we...
Hi Folks, This morning (Tuesday) the weather looks pretty nasty. It’s a good reminder that winter is just around the corner. At our regular meeting last week, we gave final plat approval to the Huntley Minor Subdivision near Montana City. We had some discussion about the Martinez Gulch Rural Maintenance District and who is responsible for what. We awarded the contract to replace the two culverts across Pipestone Creek on Kountz Road with a bridge to Tamietti. They will probably start the project the first part of March. We will try to get as mu...
Hi Folks, At our regular meeting last week we opened bids to replace the culverts on Kountz Road across Pipestone Creek with a bridge. The low bidder was Tamietti Construction for $213,730.50. We are going over the bid documents and will award the bid at our meeting this week. We held a Public Hearing and adopted Resolution 28-2016 to create the Mockel Road Rural Maintenance District near Montana City. We adopted Resolution 29-2016 Declaring October Breast Cancer Awareness Month in Jefferson County. The resolution encourages all County...
Hi Folks, We didn’t have a meeting last week because we were all in Billings at the MACO convention. Parts of the convention are interesting and informative, while other parts get pretty long. We generally have some good discussions about public lands, wildlife, forests, mining, budgets, and a host of other topics. My two year term on the Board of Directors ended this week, so Sunday’s BOD meeting was my last. I left early Wednesday morning and got back in time to attend the North County Business Roundtable in Montana City. We heard a presentat...
Hi Folks, At our regular meeting last week, we discussed a proposal from an air ambulance service to provide coverage for Jefferson County residents for about $49,000 per year. They had presented this to us a few weeks ago, but we wanted to do more research before we made a decision. Tuesday, we decided not to participate. A couple of reasons I decided against it were that there will be some type of legislation introduced during the 2017 Legislature regarding air ambulance service. The biggest reason was that if we contracted with this company...
