County Commission Update

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 and burros. It is, however, something that we need to pay close attention to, because there is a lot of talk about moving some of those wild horses and burros into Montana.

We awarded the Jail meal bid to Farmer’s Table in Boulder. I voted against the award because I didn’t think they did enough due diligence in their bid preparation and they have only been in business a couple of months. Hopefully, they can make it work. We awarded the County banking bid to the First Boulder Valley Bank. The bids between Rocky Mountain Bank in Whitehall and the Boulder bank were very close. Each bank had a great proposal. For me, the cost of the fees and how we would handle the cash was the decider.

The Sugar Beet Row Sewer Project is nearly complete. It is operational at this time, but we need to replace a couple of sections of old line with new. That probably won’t happen until early July.

FYI: Ronald Reagan; “Government’s first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives”.