I'm going to call the Butserbo Council of Commissioners regular meeting to order for Wednesday, November 19th, 2025.

Clerk, please get provide roll call.

One presiding, ten present, one absent.

Let the record show that Commissioner Morgan is absent and excused this evening.

Commissioner Walker, would you lead us in the prayer and the pledge?

Thank you, Commissioner Walker.

At this time, I would like to call for any public comment on any items on the agenda.

Public comment on the agenda.

Please state your name and address for the record.

Ready for us, 2000 Roberts Avenue.

So I just have a random comment on presentation, which is communication number seven, twenty twenty-five-five four five.

I'd like to know how much water the uh the golf course uses up during the year.

That would be I feel like we'd all like to know that.

Um during the drought season they have very green lawns, but I I get it.

Um and then also communication number nine, twenty twenty five-five five five.

Um I'd just like to commend the City of Butte for signing an agreement with the Anaconda job courts, because that's awesome.

Um and I believe that's all of the comments I have.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Frost.

Um is there any other public comment on any matter on the agenda?

Seeing none, we'll move to the approval of the minutes.

Commissioner Shea.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

At this time, I'll make a motion to approve the minutes from the November 5 2025 meeting.

A motion's been made and seconded to approve the meeting minutes from November 5th, 2025.

Um would Commissioners please vote.

Would anyone like to change their vote?

Clerk, please record the vote.

10 yay zero nay.

Moving on to items not addressed on the agenda.

We do not have any tonight.

Or um Chairman Morgan.

So we will just forego that and move on to Section One, bid openings, public hearings and or presentations.

Um let's see.

Uh County Attorney Ann Ruth, for these bid openings this evening.

Do we have proof of publication?

Chairwoman Thatcher, yes, we have proof of publication.

They're attached to the bid packets.

Thank you, County Attorney Ann Ruth.

Um, starting with number one communication number 2025-500.

Angie Mullikin, Public Works Budget Manager requesting Council of Commissioners to schedule a bid opening on November 19th, 2025 for Silver Lake Industrial Water System Improvements Project.

Um Director Neary.

Uh thank you, Madam Chair.

We have two bids for the Silver Lake Project.

The first bid is from Swank out of Missoula.

We have a bid bond and the amount of ten percent of the bid.

Thank you, County Attorney Enrique.

Director Neary.

Uh Madam Chair, Commissioners, the total lump sum is two million five hundred sixty-three thousand three hundred and ninety dollars.

Two million five sixty-three three ninety.

Um reading this back to you, the bid for swank is two million five hundred sixty-three dollars, five hundred and sixty-three thousand three hundred ninety dollars.

Yes.

Okay.

The second bid is from Slutton from Great Falls.

We have a bid bond amount and ten of ten percent of the total amount, but thank you, County Attorney Enrith.

Director Neary.

Three million six thirty-six.

Um the total bid for slat and construction is three million six hundred thirty-six thousand dollars easy.

Yes.

Thank you, Director Neary.

Commissioner Shea.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

At this time I would make a motion to refer these bids back to public works for their review and recommendation.

A motion's been made and seconded to refer the these bids back to public works for their review and recommendation.

Um would commissioners please vote.

Would anyone like to change their vote?

Clerk, please record the vote.

Ten, yay, zero, nay.

Ten, yay, zero, nay.

Motion passes.

Moving on to number two, communication number twenty twenty-five-five three six.

Mark Neary Public Works Director requesting Council of Commissioners to schedule a bid opening on November nineteenth, twenty twenty-five for one new skip loader for the Butes Verbo Public Works Roads Department.

Um County Attorney Enrith did say, you did say for all of them, is that correct, County Attorney Enroath?

Chairwoman Thatcher, yes, we have publication for this one as well.

Thank you.

Um Public Works Director Neary.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Uh looks like we have three bids for the skip loader.

The first one is from RDO out of uh Bozeman.

Chairwoman Thatcher, we have a bid bond amount and the amount of ten percent of the bid.

Thank you, County Attorney Enrique, Director Neary.

Uh Madam Chair, Commissioners, the total lump sum is one hundred and thirty-eight thousand.

Even the total for RDO equipment is one hundred thirty-eight thousand dollars.

Okay.

The second bid is from Torgerson's equipment out of Belgrade.

Chairwoman Thatcher, we have a bid mod amount and the amount of uh 10 percent of the overall bid.

Thank you, Kenny Attorney and Director Neary.

Madam Chair, Commissioners, the lump sum total for this is one hundred and thirty-one thousand five hundred and twenty dollars.

One thirty-one five twenty.

The total amount for Torgerson's equipment out of Belgrade is one hundred thirty-one thousand five hundred twenty dollars.

Yes.

Okay.

Next bid is from Western States Equipment out of Missoula.

Chairwoman Thatcher, we have a bid bond amount uh and the amount of ten percent of the bid.

Thank you, County Attorney Andrew, Director Neary.

Madam Chair, the total uh lump sum is one hundred and forty-six thousand even.

One forty six hundred and forty-six thousand.

Thank you, Director Nary.

The total for Western State's equipment company is one hundred forty-six thousand dollars.

Yes.

Thank you, Chairwoman.

I mean Commissioner Shea.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um at this time I would make a motion to refer these bids back to public works for their review and recommendation.

Second.

Motion's been made and seconded to refer these bids back to public works for their review and recommendation.

Um is there anything on the question?

Would commissioners please vote.

Would anyone like to change their vote?

Clerk, please record the vote.

Ten yeah, zero nay.

Motion passes.

Number three.

Communication number twenty twenty-five-five three seven.

Mark Neary Public Works Director requesting council of commissioners to schedule a bid opening on November 19th, 2025 for one new five-yard single-axle dump truck for the Butte Silverbow Public Works Water Department.

County Attorney Anruth, is there approved of publication on this one?

Chairwoman Thatcher, yes, there's proof of publication.

Thank you, Director Neary.

Adam Chair, we have three bids for the uh five-yard dump truck.

The first one is from Trans Source.

It's out of Phoenix.

This is Trans Source One.

Let's check.

Yeah.

Uh Chairwoman Thatcher, we have a bid bond on the amount of uh 10% of the overall bid.

Thank you, County Attorney Anne Ruth, Director Neary.

Madam Chair, the total price on this truck is $136,484 and six cents.

$136,484.06.

Uh for Transforce number one, it's $136,484 and six cents.

The second bid is from Trans Source 2 from Phoenix, Arizona.

Trans source, their number two bid from Phoenix, Arizona.

Thank you.

Thank you, County Attorney Andrew.

Director Neary.

Madam Chair, Commissioners, the lump sum total is one hundred forty-seven thousand two hundred and fifty-six dollars and thirty-two cents.

147, 256.32.

The number for trans horse number two is one hundred forty-seven thousand two hundred fifty-six dollars and thirty-two cents.

Yes.

Thank you.

The next the next bid is from I State Truck Center.

I think it's uh out of Missoula.

Oh, Chairwoman Thatcher, we have a bid bond amount in the amount of ten percent of the overall bid.

Thank you, County Attorney and Director Neary.

Madam Chair, Commissioners, the total lump sum is one hundred and thirty-nine thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine dollars.

1397.

The total amount for I State Truck Center is 139, 799.

Yes.

Perfect.

Is there anything to any commissioners have any questions?

Chair Commissioner Anderson.

Thank you very much.

Uh Chairwoman Thatcher.

Uh Director Neary, could you tell uh tell us the difference between Trans Source 1 and ?

I imagine it's a model of truck there will supply.

Director Neary.

Madam Chair, Commissioner Anderson, yes, it's two different trucks.

It must sell two different brands.

Okay.

Did it state what brand was which on those two bids?

Uh the first one was a Mac.

Oh second.

Both Mac trucks.

I'm not exactly sure what the difference is.

But there must be I can when I come back with my recommendation.

I can let you thank you.

Commissioner Callahan.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr.

Neary, sorry, I was going to call you prior to this.

I got busy, never caught up with you.

Um in the past, we've always had these single axle trucks with the low bid.

And they haul their this is for haul all in the mud and stuff from when we uh fix water leaks.

Yes.

So the loads are wet and muddy.

And usually you could follow the trail from the the old crusher all the way to where the find the leak was because it lot leaked water all the way in mud, and you could just follow the trail.

Uh I was curious if we're still using that type of bed, or are we did we get it with the bid like we use for our solids for Metro Sewer?

Dr.

Neary.

Uh Madam Chair, uh Commissioner Callahan, it does come with the high box forils with that, but you can't stop the water from coming out of these ones.

But we like you to know where the leaks were.

Transparency we're all about.

Do any other commissioners have any questions?

Commissioner Shea.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

At this time I'll make a motion to refer these bids back to public works for their review and recommendation.

A motion's been made and seconded to refute refer these bids back to public works with a recommendation back to council.

Is there anything on the question?

Would commissioners please vote?

Clerk, please record the vote.

10 yay, zero, nay.

Ten yay, zero, nay.

Motion passes.

Moving on to number four.

Mr.

Neary was busy this week.

Communication number 2025-538.

Mark Neary Public Works Director requesting Council of Commissioners to schedule a bid opening on November 19th, 2025 for one new three to four cubic yard wheel loader for Butsoverbow Public Works Water Department.

Uh County Attorney Anreth, is there approved publication?

Uh Chairwoman Thatcher, yes, we have proof of publication.

Thank you, County Attorney Ann Ruth.

Director Neary.

Madam Chair, it looks like we have five bids.

The first one is from RDO out of Bozeman.

Chairwoman Thatcher, we have a bid bond amount in the amount of 10% of the bid.

Thank you, County Attorney and Ruth Director Neary.

Madam Chair, the lump sum price on this is two hundred and forty-eight thousand.

Even uh the number for our RDO equipment is two hundred forty-eight thousand dollars.

This would be a John Deere loader.

Excuse me, what?

This would be a John Deere loader.

Oh, okay.

Thank you.

The second uh the second bid is from Trans Source Truck and Equipment out of Belgrade.

Chairwoman Thatcher, we have a bid bond amount to the amount of ten percent of the overall bid.

Thank you, County Attorney Enrique.

Director Nary.

Madam Chair, Commissioners, the lump sum for this loader is two hundred and seventy-seven thousand nine hundred and thirty-six dollars.

277-936.

Dollar amount for trans horse truck and equipment is 277,936.

Yes.

Madam Chair, the next bid is from uh Bob Cat of Helena out of Helena.

Madam Chair, we have a bid bond amount on the amount of 10% of the bid.

Thank you, County Attorney Energy.

Director Nary.

Madam Chair, Commissioners, the lump sum for this load is two hundred and seventy-two thousand two hundred and thirty-five dollars.

The dollar amount for Bobcat of Helena is two hundred seventy-two thousand two hundred thirty-five dollars.

Uh the next bid is from Torgerson's out of Belgrade.

Yep.

Madam Chair, we have a bid bond amount on the amount of ten percent of the bid.

Thank you, County Attorney Enrith.

Director Neary.

Madam Chair, Commissioners, the lump sum is two hundred sixty-eight thousand three hundred and forty-four dollars even.

Two hundred sixty-eight, three hundred forty-four.

Uh the dollar amount for Torgerson's equipment is two hundred sixty-eight thousand three hundred and forty-four dollars.

Yes.

The final bid tonight is from Western states out of Missoula.

Chairwoman Thatcher, there's a bid bond amount in the amount of ten percent of bid.

Thank you, County Attorney Anne or Director Neary.

Madam Chair, Commissioners, the lump sum for this loader is two hundred and sixty-four thousand even.

Um the dollar amount for Western States equipment is two hundred sixty-four thousand dollars even.

Um do any commissioners have any questions?

Commissioner Shea.

Thank you, madam chair.

At this time, I will make a motion to refer these bids back to public works for their review and recommendation.

Second.

Motion's been made and seconded to refer these bids back to public works for their review and recommendation.

Is there anything on the question?

Would commissioners please vote?

Uh would anyone like to change their vote?

Clerk, please record the vote.

Moving on.

Thank you, Director Nary.

Uh moving on to public hearings.

Uh this evening we have two.

County attorney Enruth, is there approved of publication for the public hearings?

Madam Chair, yes, we have proof of publication for both of the public hearings that are on for tonight.

Thank you very much.

Um, communication number 2025-519.

A donation from Town Pump.

Sheriff Lester.

Madam Chair, thank you.

My name is Ed Lester.

I'm Butte Silverbow Sheriff.

This is the time set aside uh for a public hearing uh regarding uh authorization to expend unanticipated revenues for gas masks for our tactical team uh based on uh donation from town pump.

Uh they wanted to donate seven thousand dollars toward the purchase of new chemical agent masks for our department.

Our current masks are about somewhere between 16 and 20 years old, they are functional, but as you can see that tremendous advances have been made in the last 16 years so of in filtering and and uh fit.

So this would just allow us to have state of the art masks uh issued.

We need chemical agents or irritants or something that we would introduce into a tactical situation, and the town pump has graciously donated seven thousand dollars toward the masks.

Thank you, Sheriff Lester.

Do any commissioners have any questions?

Sheriff Lester, what happens to the old masks?

Do you keep them?

Do you donate them?

Yeah, they're they're still functional, so we would keep them in the event of some kind of crazy incident, but uh they'll probably be in the armory and till long after I'm retired.

Okay, sounds good.

Um, if no commissioners have any questions, I'm gonna open the public hearing.

Uh first call for proponents.

Proponents, first call.

Please state your name and record for the address.

I mean, for the record.

Yeah.

Ready for us, 2000 Roberts Avenue, uh, beauty, Montana.

Um, I am a proponent of this.

Stockpiling equipment is always good to have.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Frost.

Second call for proponents.

Second call.

Third and final call for proponents.

Moving to opponents.

First call for opponents.

Second call for opponents, third and final call for opponents.

We'll close the public hearing.

Number six, communication number 2025-535.

Angie Mullikan, Public Works Budget Manager requesting Council of Commissioners' authorization to schedule a public hearing for November 19th, 2025 for the purpose of soliciting comments on the unanticipated revenues from the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation DNRC.

Mrs.

Mullikan Thank you, Chairwoman.

This unanticipated revenue is from the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation.

It's two grants each for 75,000.

It's for the remedial investigation and conceptual site planning for the Father Sheehan Park.

Um total amount of the grants is 150, and there is no match.

Thank you, Ms.

Mullikan.

Do any commissioners have any questions on this?

Okay, I will open the public hearing.

First call, proponents.

First call, proponents.

Ready for OS, 2000 Roberts Avenue.

Um I am in favor of making our parks better.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Frost.

Second call for proponents.

Second call.

Third and final call for proponents.

Okay, we have moved on to opponents.

First call for opponents.

Second call for opponents.

Third and final call for opponents.

We will close the public hearing.

Moving on to presentations.

Number seven, communication number 2025-535.

No, five four-five, excuse me.

Sean Fredericson, Parks and Recreation Director requesting Council of Commissioners authorization to schedule a presentation on November 19th, 2025, to provide an update on current operations and projects related to parks, Highland View Golf Course in Ridge Waters Water Park.

I see Parks Director Frederickson here.

So the floor is yours when you're ready, Director Frederickson.

Good evening, Commissioners.

For the record, I'm Sean Fredericks, Parks and Recreation Director for Butte Silverbow.

Just want to thank you for the opportunity to present on parks.

Per our charter.

The Parks Department is required to give this body an update annually.

So here I am.

So we'll move into some notable projects that we've we've completed this year.

If you remember last last year, we were I presented on the Clark Park gazebos, those have been repainted.

If you've been down there, it looks really good.

The uh according to ex-commissioner Joe Lee, it was painted by him probably 30 years ago.

So it really needed it.

That project turned out really nice.

Some of the other notable projects that we've we've completed is the headframe lighting.

We've that's the Lexington head frame right there.

So there's one head frame that's not lit up, that's the Bell Diamond.

Um I'm not really sure what's in the works so to light up one that I know that they would like to, but there's some uh radio equipment up there, so they need to work out those details.

Uh we rem we moved um dinner in the park from Emma Park to Staden.

That was really uh a popular uh night, and I think we'll we'll probably do that again.

We still are planning on doing lunch in the park at Emma Park.

Um and that's all ran by the Bute Parks and Trails Foundation in cooperation with the Parks Department.

Um then the last project that we just completed at the end of the year was Skyline Park.

We did some bridge upgrades to the end of the trail.

Um we'll now be able to get back there to plow that that trail.

Um, and we did some other work um within that park.

Along with Skyline, we uh added new parking lot lights, the trail work and some tree planting.

Um we're looking at getting water into the uh dog part.

That was one of the requests that Commissioner Shea and I met with some of the the folks that use that dog part every day, um, and that was one of their requests was to get water into the actual dog park.

Um, we're working with our water division to to make that happen.

Um, and we just kind of ran out of time, but that'll hopefully uh start at the beginning of the year.

Um other future projects that we have uh are to highlight on 2025.

There's uh added trails to Big Butte Open Space Park.

That was provided by start a Sarda funding.

Um and then we added uh two new pickleball courts at Sodden Park.

We now have a total of six there.

The Pickleball Association.

Um, there's a new pickleball association they organized, um, and we've been working with them quite a bit on what they want to do.

Uh some future projects.

We applied for a grant for new playground equipment at Clark Park.

Um we're still waiting to hear back from from that, but the we're hopeful that we would get that.

That would be a 40,000 upgrade to uh the small children's toddler playground at Clark.

That's like the ages from two to six or seven.

Uh we're looking to do some stormwater improvements uh down at Father Sheehan Park.

You can see that photo.

We have we've had issues with storm water in that park since it's been a park.

And then we're looking at improvements to Basin Creek Park.

Um, and we're hopeful that we'll be able to announce uh a grant to that, and we would we would start to um really improve that park.

We still have a lot of work.

The dam just got complete, but there's a lot of logging that's still going on.

Um they're gonna start logging up up there tomorrow or or Friday.

So um once that kind of gets wrapped up, we're we're gonna start fixing up that park and and really making it nice again.

So here's some of the numbers uh that uh I kind of wanted to share.

Uh we had um 255 pavilion reservations.

Of course, our our our pavilions are um first come first serve unless they're reserved.

We have an online reservation system.

Generally it's it's 25 dollars for um uh in four-hour increments, so 10 to 2, 2 to 6, 6 to 10.

So we had 255 uh folks make reservations at our pavilions that's up from 11 from 2024.

Uh so those numbers continue to rise, and um and then fitness classes.

We had 76 fitness classes this year, and uh compared to 58 in 2024.

Um, and so that's a that's a plus 18.

And as I get into this numbers, I probably should have before I talked.

When you the commissioners get their the performance budgets, that those numbers are gonna be different from what I'm presenting to you right now.

So I I just wanted to make that clear when you looking through your performance uh booklet, these numbers are gonna be different because that's on the fiscal year.

So those numbers that we provided to the budget and finance office was from um July 1st, 2024 to June 30th, 2025.

These numbers that I'm presenting right now are our 2025 season.

So this is when the first pavilion was rented in April, and uh compared to September is generally when we last start to see our last reservations.

Oh, special events, that's 24.

I don't know why it looks like that.

Um, and oddly enough, we had 24 special event permits go through the parks department, 24 and 2025, 24 and 2024.

Uh so on to Ridgewaters.

Um we had a pretty good season at Ridgewaters.

We had a lot of weather.

We had to close for a week because of the control panel um going out.

So that's so some of our numbers are uh are down, but overall admissions are were up.

Um we had 32,579 admissions go through on 2025.

That's compared to 32,071 for uh 508 more folks that went through the water park from June.

Water park closes around August 20th because the kids start going to school.

Uh so overall, even with the the weather and um and it being closed for a week, emissions were still up.

Uh the um lap swim, river walk, and water aerobics.

We added water aerobics this year.

That was uh 15 water aerobics classes.

That's continues to see an uptick of you know 1313 people.

The water, the lap swim starts at 9, goes from 9 to 11, and then the water park opens generally to at noon.

Um so that continues to see to see great numbers.

And then you know, deck admissions that's two dollars if you're gonna go into the water park and not swim.

Um so I don't know why those numbers are down, but and then adult emissions is the same.

Uh cabana rentals.

So we started on online submission this year, and it took a little bit of time for the public to get it figured out, but towards the end of the year they they had it figured out.

It's the same system.

You go onto our website, you can reserve your cabana long before you know.

I think we do uh two or two or three weeks out.

I I can't remember the exact number, 15 days or something.

And uh so you can go in and reserve your cabana beforehand before you would call at 11 o'clock before it opened.

It was really hard on staff, it was really unorganized.

Uh so our our our I think the the overall consensus is that's uh a better system.

We did have 23 cabana rentals that were down.

Um we changed that system also on the cabanas, so it's it's 50 dollars for each session, and then there's uh an option for a pizza party where you get three pizzas and soda and 10 admissions.

Um so that continues to to be booked out, you know, but we did have to give some um refunds on the cabanas because of of weather.

Um we had a lot a lot of lightning this year and and um in rain.

And but uh this year pretzels were up, last year pretzels were down um up by 101.

Um, and then on the flip side, hot dogs sold were were down by quite a bit.

Um if this commission will remember, uh, you approved a new pizza oven last year, that really helped concession staff, and we were had the ability to have better pizzas.

It takes them seven minutes to cook compared to the the old system, which was 20 minutes, um, and now we're able to sell slices.

So we we pizzas sold were down compared to 2024, but um we sold pizza buys, we sold 1,959 slices of pizza.

So I think pizzas sold were down because people have the option to buy a slice rather than a whole pizza.

Um, and in turn, people aren't buying as many hot dogs.

Uh swim scholarships, we continue to see swim scholarships.

Uh the need for swim swim scholarships, we gave 152.

That's income-based to um you know underprivileged families.

Uh, we had we had seven more passes, and that's a total of eighteen thousand two hundred and forty dollars.

The swim scholarships, if you if the the kids qualifies for the the scholarship, they get two uh two a week.

Um so that that continues to rise of the request for for swim soon scholarships.

We're always looking for scholarship or uh uh donations into that.

That's the scholarship fund, the rotary makes a very good donation.

I know that this council has a uh the option to give a donation.

So I said that last year, but I don't know.

I'll say it again this year.

Um Highland View Golf Course.

Um I have Keith Oglin here, he's the manager at Highland View Golf Course.

Um he did a phenomenal job.

This is his second season, full season at the golf course, um, and he did another incredible job.

But just before we get into it, I just want to address the the water and the gallons that was um during public comment.

So we I don't know exactly how many gallons we do use at the golf course, but the golf course is all ran off of wells.

There's two wells that fill that pond.

So it's not coming from Basin Creek, Moulton, or the big hole, it's not potable water.

Um but I don't know exactly off the hand uh off the top of my head how much it it uses.

Um I don't even know if it's it's probably not even metered, would be my guess.

But um uh and and just on that other note, the uh irrigation system is a newer irrigation system that was installed five or six years ago, so it's it's about as efficient as we can get it.

Umbs all across the board at Highland View Golf Course were were great.

Uh carts, um the the golf course number or the carts numbers were were up by quite a bit.

Um let me see here.

Uh $14,000 on the the golf course, that's uh trails fees, store cart storage, single cart, couple call, daily trail fee, 18 holes, nine holes.

So that's that's how much uh revenue we bring in on just the carts.

Um simulator continue to rise by another seven thousand dollars.

Simulator continues to be popular, the league filled up, the winter league filled up pretty much immediately.

Um, and then concessions were were down a little bit.

Oh, I got that screwed up.

Uh concessions were concessions were actually uh so that the 2024 should be 2025, so I apologize for that.

Concessions were up by about 500.

Uh overall revenue on the the golf course, you know, eight to ten percent from 2024.

Um all rentals, pass holders all increased, simulator was up, pro shop sales were up.

Um and the only the only decline that we saw was was beer and wine.

And uh, and it if you have any questions, greens fees were were up by quite a bit um compared to 2024.

Uh overall, the golf course is a really popular place and a great thing for our community.

We have over 400 pass holders.

Um it's hard to get a tea time most of the time.

Uh and so that's that's all I have for right now.

Um one slide that I I thought I put in here.

Um as far as what sales were down within the concessions, um, they were down uh $53,000 from 2024.

Uh and the reason for the the decline in concessions at Ridgewaters was well the week that we were closed and all of the the rain delays that and closures that we had to do for weather.

On average, we we bring in on uh when the water parks fully functional, we bring in around $35,000 a week.

So you can so that $53,000 kind of aligns with what our our average um concession sales are with that I'll take any questions.

Thank you very much, Director Frederickson.

Um do any commissioners have any questions?

Commissioner Fisher.

Thank you, Chairman Thatcher.

Thank you, Sean.

Appreciate all you do.

Uh I think things are going real well with the golf course and uh ridgewaters and things like that.

It seems to be going good.

I do have a question that is kind of off of this before a little bit.

With the grants that are going into Father Sheehan Park, you have a lot of people questioning you know how that money's being spent, and I know it's kind of off the bubble a little bit, but some are worried that they might be losing the ball field.

They're concerned about registration of team members and teams, you know.

I'm sure you've heard all this before.

It just comes through me a little bit, and I told them I'd bring it up, and uh I'm sure you can address it.

Thank you.

Yeah, no, uh Commissioner Fisher or Chairman.

Director, yeah, you're good.

Commissioner Fisher.

Uh no, thank you for that question.

Uh yeah, I've certainly heard uh uh a few different rumors out there.

There are no plans to relocate any ball fields.

There's no um we're still finalizing awards for Father Sheehan Park.

Um nothing's official, and but there's no there's no plans to relocate ball fields.

There's no money to relocate ball fields.

Uh there's no um yeah, we wouldn't we we don't we don't have any we would if we were to get this this money for the stormwater we would need a a plan well well I think that we we probably do need uh you know uh more ball fields I just got a request today uh for a group that wants to have traveling baseball tournament and they want to use 11 the fields which is all of our fields um so we're not looking to take away any for sort of fields and we don't have anywhere to put said fields so follow-up commissioner Fisher.

Uh thank you Chairman Thatcher.

Thank you, Sean.

I'm calling Sean McBifra's okay.

So yeah, and you know they're talking about things that kind of gets off a little bit about registration and how the parking rec interacts with the apparently the little league association over there, whatever it is.

So I appreciate your answer to the question and look forward to uh uh prosperous fruit yet.

Thank you.

Yeah, and just Commissioner Fredrickson, if you if you don't mind.

Right now we our our little leagues don't pay any sort of registration fee into the parks and rec department.

Um we're in constant communication with Mile High Little League and Northwest Little League and the Legion, uh Copper City Softball.

We have really good relationships with all of them, but we don't charge any sort of fee to any of the little leagues, which is a whole nother discussion that we won't we won't go into right now.

Um but the relationships are all great, and this anything that's gonna happen down to Father Sheehan, if it happens, we'll become will become to this body very first and foremost, and Mile High Little League will be definitely a part of that conversation on what we do.

Thank you, Dr.

Fredriksen.

Commissioner Healy.

This is for Father Sheen as well.

Concerns.

This is based on the um let me I wrote myself some notes, so let me find.

Um on August 11th.

This has to do with the slideshow that wet did.

And I have the slideshow here.

So the so the question is uh also regarding the tennis court.

Is the tennis court going to be eliminated permanently or is that gonna be um fixed?

Director Fredrickson?

Yeah, Chair Thatcher, Commissioner Healy.

The tennis court, so from some of the analysis that we've done, the tennis court is in the middle of the floodplain at Father Sheehan.

Uh the last time they upgraded the the tennis court.

Uh I I don't know, I was I wish Chief Executive Gallagher was here because I think he was the parks director.

Um it was a quite uh a lot of money.

Um to even sort resurface a tennis court um when we looked into it at at Whittier with the school district, it was like a hundred thousand dollars.

Uh so to to answer your question, the tennis courts are coming out.

It it become a uh a safety hazard with the fence, the fence is already down, and then our road division is gonna come in and and um take out the tennis court.

That being said, we're looking at options on um if we can resurface the the tennis courts up at West Elementary, which are Buttes Over Rows.

The tennis courts at Whittier are the school districts.

Uh so yeah, we we are looking at all of our options.

Um but we we've decided to not put more money into the tennis courts if they're just going to become destroyed in a few a few years.

The ground is just not stable and it'll so I I I don't know, I just hate to throw money that we don't want we don't have a lot of money.

We well want to respect the taxpayers' money, and we don't want to put money into things that aren't gonna be.

I guess the question was are you gonna put it somewhere else or could it be placed somewhere else?

Dr.

Fredrickson.

Uh yeah, Chair Thatcher, Commissioner Healy.

Uh we would love to put in more tennis courts, and uh, but it's it all comes down to finding that finding the money to build them.

Thank you, Director Fredrickson.

Follow-up, Commissioner Healy?

Thank you.

Commissioner Thatcher.

Um this is also um from the slideshow that was presented, showing that there's going to be um several large-size ponds that are gonna be in Father Shean Park now.

And that's so that's where the concern about losing some of the ball fields are because it they're also asking if they're gonna be eliminating the batting cages.

Um the concession building, they don't see that, they didn't see that on the slideshow.

It looked like they were eliminated because of the ponds that are going to be put in place to you know hold some of the water.

So ball fields, buildings, batting cages were not shown on the slideshow.

Uh Chair Thatcher, uh Commissioner Healy, I I'm I I think you're referring to the the slideshow that we presented to the Western Montana Conservation Corps, just so everyone else knows.

Uh so that was when we were applying for that grant.

We went in front of that commission.

Everything that was in that slideshow was just conceptual and nothing, nothing has gone to design.

We haven't been awarded any money.

Um so that was just a uh rendering of what we were showing to the commission on storm.

So it was I would almost say it was it was just like a um a generic plan at that point on on what it was.

But like I said to uh on Commissioner Fisher's question, there are no plans to remove anything at Father Sheehan as far as fields or um I think that in the the perfect world it would be uh there would be some collection ponds to take some of that feel.

This is how I envision it.

I'm not an engineer, but how I envision it and talking to the the smart folks, if we can get that water that's coming off of Edwards into the park, I think there was 15, 14 different points of entry from from Father Sheehan that are coming from the neighborhoods, my neighborhood included where I grew up.

Uh and so that if we can take that water, move it away from the fields and place it into an area where it goes into the pond and then into the creek is the overall goal if this project happens.

It's not to remove fields, it's not it's to actually take water away from the fields.

So they're not constantly maintaining them.

But there are no plans, and and I will repeat if anything that's gonna happen down to Father Sheehan will be coming here first, and Mile High Little League will be definitely a part of that conversation 100%.

Thank you, Director Fredrickson.

Thank you, Director Fredrickson.

Commissioner Larry, did you have a question?

Thank you, Chair Thatcher.

Thanks again for the presentation.

This is good.

I had a couple notes that I just wanted to talk about.

Good to hear more investment in uh in the Basin Creek Park.

It's the only park in my district, and uh appreciate that.

At some point I'd still like to go out there and and uh walk through the park with you.

Yeah.

Uh I didn't see any mention of Rock Park.

I know that there was a bunch of ongoing work up there, wondering if that all got finished and and where that project is at.

Director Fredrickson.

Chair Thatcher, uh, Commissioner Larry.

Uh yes, thank you for the the comment on um Basin Creek.

And I'll leave that as an uh uh invitation to any of the commissioners if you ever want to go looking at parks or I I would love to spend an afternoon walking in parks.

Um to answer your question on rock park.

Rock we did have some challenges with Rock Park.

That was a um, and this is before some of you were on here when we were on the commission.

We awarded the four Cs came in with money wanting to to build an interpretive park.

Um the original request was down at the Civic Center.

This commission said no that that wasn't uh uh an appropriate location for for this type of um interactive park.

It was agreed to to go to Rock Park.

That project was through the four C's.

Um and so they're the ones that hired the contractor, they're the ones that paid the contractor, and really the the parks department didn't have a whole lot of communication with that contractor.

The contractor didn't uh finish what they were supposed to do, and it was left as a mess uh for quite a few times.

Our crews tried to go in there and tidy it up the best we could, but we also didn't feel that we should let the contractor off the hook.

So that project went way longer than it should have.

Um the project is complete, and um we will be reseeding and looking at the irrigation and hopefully the irrigation is still working, and we'll be able to reseed it and start growing there.

The plan will be to make it a little bit more um accessible with the bus stop there at crosswalks so people can um because the old whole idea when the four C's came and uh to um refresh refresh our memories was they wanted it close to a bus stop.

So as folks are waiting for their for the bus, they can their kids can play.

Um, and that's the original idea that why it wasn't supposed to be why they wanted it down at the civic center.

So the bus stop is really an important part of the part of that piece and the uh the overall spirit of that project.

So um next year we'll be making that a little bit more walkable crosswalks and um I don't know if we'll actually have a the bus stop, but benches and that sort of thing.

Follow-up uh Commissioner Leary.

Thank you, Chair Thatcher.

And uh one last comment, appreciate the answer on that.

Uh one last comment.

I know there was a question about the golf course and water.

It's my understanding that we're installing a water line uh from the metro area over to the park to use Silver Lake water.

Can you just give us a quick rundown about that?

Chair Thatcher.

Director Fredrickson.

Commissioner Larry.

Yeah, so uh the that water line has been installed, but it's it's the reclaimed water from the from the wastewater treatment plant.

Um so it's the effluent water that can be piped in there and then into the pond, and then we can irrigate with that.

So we would have the wells, the water coming from Metro that's reclaimed and safe.

Uh or we could I mean it's my understanding, and and Commissioner uh Director Neary, uh you know, more knows more about that project, but we they the way they installed it, we we have the option for all three.

I mean, I I think we'll we'll probably just stick to the wells until we we actually need that water.

Um, you know, but I guess overall it was it's a great project because we can um you know we can turn it on and off and use whichever one we want, but I don't I can't anticipate we're gonna be using Silver Lake water unless yeah.

Well we have many options, which is good.

Well we have many options, which is good um Commissioner Callahan.

Thank you, madam chair.

Thanks, Sean, for giving us the option to come and hear how the parks and everything's going.

Uh I got a question for you about an incident that happened back in August.

Um Montana Tech had their orientation of all the freshmen, and they normally go to school the week before the rest of the classes, and the the first week of school they do all kinds of events and activities for them to get them familiar with the campus and everything.

And one of the the events was it was they all hiked up to the big M.

Uh they had several hundred students, it was our largest freshman class, you know, in school's history, and they got up there and they couldn't get in.

They the kids were told that you know, once you get up there, we'll have refreshments and uh beverages and stuff for you, and whatever.

And they called, they spent two hours calling every number in the park and rec department.

No uh no answer.

Then they finally had the residence life provost called the chief executive, and that's when they finally got somebody to come and open the gate.

You know, you and I had had a discussion about this back in probably April, and I had mentioned to you that I've gone up there numerous times and the gates was locked, and you said told me it wasn't going to be unlocked.

Can you explain that?

Who made that decision and how why we're doing this?

Dr.

Fredericson.

Yeah, Chair Thatcher, Commissioner Callahan.

Uh I'm not I'm not sure about not getting a hold of us.

Once once we did get the the phone call, I went up and unlocked it.

Um, gave them my number, um, and and I gave them my cell so cell number.

Um, and so I guess it was just a communication.

Um, but you know, uh safety is uh most important uh in my mind, and um I decided to that that lot that gate should be should be locked.

Um we have quite a few incident issues at the Big Butte.

Um we have to have someone go up there and clean it every single day.

Uh the only day it doesn't get cleaned is on Sunday because we don't have anyone working.

Uh we placed a garbage can up there.

The guard you lift the garbage can up right now, and it's probably empty.

Um we don't really have the manpower to to clean that spot.

Um and so I I was the one that made the decision to to close it.

As far as I know, it wasn't it was locked last year also.

Um and after speaking with Chief Executive Gallagher, who was the one that had that gate installed, he uh said to me that he rarely had it open.

So I don't I think that this this has been closed for the most part um for the for the the last few years.

We did have another incident up there uh a few months ago.

A uh intoxicated individual ran through the gate, tried to get through the gate, he didn't run into it like he was driving.

He purposely took out the gate.

The gate is still out of commission.

Uh it's gonna cost 17,000 to fix.

He was trying to get up to that spot at the M, and it was 4:30 in the afternoon on a Saturday.

Um so this wasn't at night.

This was in the middle of the day on a weekend.

Law enforcement found him pretty much immediately.

I'm not sure where the where that that case is, but um I guess my point is it's a small area, there's no fencing, there's no curbing.

Uh you get about three vehicles up there, and you'll have to back all the way down.

Uh the trail is accessible from two spots to get up to the M around the back, or you can walk up to the road, up the road.

So we're not keep keeping people out of there.

Uh we just feel it's unsafe to have vehicles up there in the middle of the day.

Um I'm worried that there's nothing preventing someone from the houses down below.

Uh and it's just it's it's a great view, and you could you can go up there and you could ride your bike up there, you can walk up there.

Heck, if you really want to drive up there, call me and we will open it and we will light you up there.

And I said the same thing to the the folks at Montana Tech.

I said, here's my cell phone number.

Next time you plan this, call me and we will have it open for you.

Um so it's it's it's and they were they were fine with that, and everything everything went went well.

So thank you.

Follow up, Commissioner Callahan.

Thank you, Chairman.

Well, I will disagree with you because that has always been opened.

And the agreement was, and it was back when you were on the council, and I believe you were probably the vice chair at the time.

When Chief Executive or when Mr.

Gallagher came to the council because they were having some issues up there, and we agreed as a council that they could put that gate up because that is open parks, that's open lands park.

And that road's been up there since long before you and I or our parents.

And when you're talking, you know, we're worried about this and worry about that.

Go back and check the records.

None of those people have had any issues with anything happened to their homes and things like that.

They've got they've gone up and maintained that road.

They put a berm there, you don't need a fence.

They go up there and do the fireworks every year.

And when they came to the council to get that done, we agreed that that could be still open, and you would open and close it like the rest of the parks.

And you and I had a discussion back in April when I called I questioned you on it, and you said I made the decision it's not going to be done.

I said we did a resolution when they asked to put that in.

And I have talked to other commissioners that were here, and they remember that.

And I think I believe at the time you were the vice chair.

So if that resolution didn't get done, maybe we need to look into why it didn't get done.

And the comments on you know, we have nothing but trouble.

You haven't had any of that trouble up there.

That's on the lower part.

And that's a police problem.

They need to get some police officers up there and take care of the problems up there.

But to lock people out that are uh aren't able to walk up there, that's quite a walk.

And that's one of the best views of our whole community.

So to turn around and use that as an excuse to keep the gate locked, just isn't acceptable to me.

And like I said, Montana Tech uses that a lot.

And with the incident they had that day, they were furious.

I mean, they actually called the chief executive, and that's how they got a hold of you.

And I was talking to them today at a staff senate meeting, and she said they tried for two hours.

They called every number on your website, and they couldn't get anybody to answer the phone.

Commission Director Fredericson, do you have anything?

Chair Thatcher, Commissioner Callahan.

Uh after our conversations, I looked for resolutions.

I looked for anything, and I did not see anything.

So uh just leave it at that.

Okay.

Follow-up uh Commissioner Callahan.

I I got one more comment.

Two years ago, Montana Tech did a reconstruction on Park Street for the tunnels.

Uh, there was a group of people up there that they had to take the statue down, the Marcus State statute.

There was a group of people that wanted to do some restoration of the statue, clean it up.

So we had visited with Aubrey and uh the girls up at the archives.

We had the visit with the uh historic preservation Cape McCourt, and the mining department was the one that took the statue and stored it while it was down.

So we were getting everything ready, they researched it to make sure what it was made of, so we didn't do any damage to the statue, and they cleaned it up and everything.

And they were told that Beauty Silver Bow owns the statue that they couldn't do anything to without Butte Silverbow's permission.

So Aubrey and uh they were supposedly asking GP for that, and the construction company was ready to put it back up, and we were ready to get the work done before they had put it up.

Only makes sense to do it while it's down.

And they got the facilities director got an email from you saying, do not touch the statue, we will take care of that.

Um he fairworked the email to me.

So we didn't do nothing to it.

That was a year and a half ago, and there's been nothing done to the statute.

Director Predickson, do you have anything you'd like to add?

Uh Chair Thatcher, Commissioner Kellyanne.

Uh yeah, you're exactly right.

We were um sorry.

Well, uh I can I kind of forgot about that, but yeah, I'll I'll work with uh I'll talk with Aubrey and or uh Director Japan and we'll we'll see if we can get it clean.

Yeah, I apologize.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Do any other commissioners have any questions?

Comments, uh Commissioner Shay.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um, I I just a couple comments.

I've had the pleasure of sitting on the parks and rec board um for the last about a year, and um I I'm consistently impressed by the work that gets done at Highlands and at Ridgewaters.

We mostly talk about that, but um, but also the in the other parks, you know.

I know that there's a lot of open space in Butte, and we don't have a ton of money, you know.

Um, and I can just say from the parks and rec board standpoint, we do look for ways to um provide more accessibility and make improvements um where we can and where we can afford them, and um hopefully you feel supported by the board.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Macins.

Thank you, Chairwoman Um Thatcher, and thank you, uh Director Frederickson for coming here and presenting on the parks and recs and the Highland View Golf Course.

I also want to do uh a thank you to Keith Oglin.

Um it seems like Butte Um Silver Bowl is entrusted yourself, Director Fredericson, with some money, and we've continued to promote and put some investment into parks and to the golf course and different parks, not only at Staden Park, but then into the golf course, and the people that we have sitting in front of us have done a phenomenal job from the numbers.

We always are critical of different things throughout that what isn't there, but looking at the positive when we invest in something, and then we put the right people in the place to make sure that they are managed and at a really top-notch um you know product that we have out there.

We hear it more and more with the golf course and with the highlands in the Stoddon Park that how many people come here from out of town.

So the more investment and looking back at Father Scene, um the vision is there, and like um Director Frederickson said in the parks, you know, nothing's going to be done without you know this approval of the the commission.

So um what we've invested in and what we've approved and what we've liked, the same thing is going to come alight when that vision and I would say probably the money is there.

But I thank um Mr.

Oglin and um Director Frederickson on what they've done to this point and the last few years.

So it's very much appreciative, and everybody should be appreciative.

And I think on a personal note um with these two with um the golf.

Um I coach golf at uh Butte High School and Junior, and the way that it has prospered in our community from these two gentlemen here allowing the junior programs.

Um it is a wonderful sport, and it's um people think it's not affordable, but um our county makes it affordable for the youth.

So kudos to you guys so much.

Very much appreciative.

So thank you for both of you what you've done.

So I appreciate you both.

Commissioner Mankins, appreciate that.

Any other commissioners have any comments?

I just have two quick ones.

I wasn't able to make it to the pool, which is why I think you're down 11 pizzas.

That makes complete sense to me.

Uh and then the only other thing is that I think you guys do a great job.

Um I love going, I love hanging out at Stoddon.

I hit the links a couple of times, which was embarrassing, I'm sure Keith saw, but uh I just I it's something to admire.

You guys give our community something to admire, like Commissioner Mankins said, and and and it's um they're wonderful places for even outside um out of town people to come into.

So just thank you very much for that, and for both of you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Here we go.

Section two consent agenda.

Um are there any friendly amendments or segregations?

Commissioner O'Leary.

Thank you, Chair Thatcher.

I'd like to segregate uh communication number 24, 2025-570.

Commissioner Fisher.

Thank you, Chairman Thatcher.

I would like to say great number 1425 sixty.

2025 number 252560.

Okay.

Any other uh friendly amendments or segregations seeing none, Commissioner Shay.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

At this time I will make a motion to approve the consent agenda A committee reports one through four and B communications one through feels like 500.

Um one through 27, with the exceptions of number 14, 2025-560 and 24 2025-570.

Motion's been made and seconded.

Um is there any or do any commissioners have any questions?

Would commissioners please vote would anyone like to change their vote?

Clerk, please record the vote.

10 years nay.

Ten yeah, zero nay motion passes.

Uh we're gonna jump to number 14.

Communication number 2025-560.

Kate McCourt Historic Preservation Officer requesting Council of Commissioners authorization to have Chief Executive Gallagher sign an agreement for Basin Creek Caretaker's House, Wastewater Construction Administration.

Umisher.

Thank you, Chairman Thatcher.

You've opened the door once again.

As you know, uh this basin creek house has been on the agenda numerous times.

I've been on the commission 13 years.

This has come up 12 of the 13 years probably.

You know, this was back when JP was a park director.

So now I see we want to get a survey from Wett, which I have no problem with.

Get it to see where the drain fields are and see how the you know the uh septic system is gonna work.

But the thing about it is is I just want to remind everyone that we're probably in that house with everything we've done, well over 500,000, probably approaching a million dollars of different grants and different things that we've done and everything.

So I went out there and took pictures of it, and anybody wants to see them.

Here they are.

It looks the same way it did 10 years ago, except for now they tell me there's windows behind the boarded up windows that somebody we paid to put in.

Then we paid somebody to do some other stuff there, and uh the fence is still the same.

It's been the same fence, it's been there for 10, 12, 15 years, whatever it's been.

So I mean we talk about uh financial, you know, stuff in conservativeness.

Whether it's grant money from the federal government, the state government, or local government, we all pay it.

And I mean, I can see spending money, but this isn't even in the historical district.

You know, we got two demolitions on the agenda tonight.

We're paying 5,800 out of a fund that uh of my good friend former Commissioner John Reardon got set up to demolition buildings.

So we're giving one person 5800, another 3800 to tear down a couple buildings, but yet we keep feeding notes to a dead horse out here.

When is this gonna stop?

When are we gonna do something with that building?

We've got one now out at the big hole, you know, out at the big hole.

No one wants to rent, no one's living there.

We're putting exterminator out there to keep the the rats out of it.

You know, we gotta start thinking better about what we're doing with these things.

And I mean, the Base Creek Reservoir, when we were all kids, it was a great place to be.

It's not a great place to be anymore.

I seen the logging trucks go out there today, which somebody referenced it might have been uh commit uh director Fredericson.

I've seen the logging trucks go out there today to still cut timber.

But if you've been out there, they got the most beautiful piles of firewood so up on the mountain you can't believe it.

But the the lawn's in terrible condition, the trees are rotten, the house looks terrible.

I mean, I'm just gonna get on my groundstand and you know let this go again.

But when are we gonna do something with it or make the decision to chop its head off?

One of the two.

We should either fix it or chop its head off.

We can't keep going like we're going right now.

So we're gonna have a vote on it tonight, and I'm sure it's gonna pass.

But I for once will be going red once again.

Thank you.

There's the pictures.

Do any other commissioners commissioner Callahan?

I certainly would like to, Madam Chair.

Uh I certainly haven't been on the commission quite as long as you, Mr.

Fisher, but I've been here a good long time myself.

And you heard Mr.

Fredericson say that they got grant money to bring that park back up to what it was years ago.

When that park was out there, even when we had the Columbia Gardens, that was the most second most used park in the whole city of Buton.

That was a very good park.

The hot water company, or the Anacon Company owned it.

They had people caretakers in the houses, they took care of it.

What happened was when the water company sold, the houses were vacant.

That house out there hasn't got anywhere near a million dollars spent to it.

It hasn't got anywhere near a half a million dollars spent on it.

But even if it did, why would you walk away from that if it's that close to being somebody living in it?

The whole goal since I've been on this council is to have somebody in that house to take care of the park.

You heard Mr.

Fredericson say how the kids vandalize stuff.

Well, if somebody's out there, they can call the cops and take care of the problem.

You tear the house down, why would we have a park that far out?

That's just another place for them to go to cause their trouble.

So I have to disagree with you.

And it I've done tons of volunteer work on that house.

That house is in very, very good shape.

The kids did go out and do a lot of vandalism on it.

That's all been repaired.

They just have to uh, in order to be able to use it again, they have to get the septic system and the well and stuff back up.

And I I'm assuming they have to put the well back in, but originally it was off of the the water company water.

So I just wanted to make that comment to respond.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Callahan, Commissioner Fisher.

Commissioner Fisher.

Thank you, Commissioner Callan, and respectfully saying.

It's just the time frame that we're going through.

You know, it's been a long time.

And the thing is, we've got another house out there that somebody's living in.

They're supposed to be taking care of it.

I don't know if anyone's living in that other house up there that's on the side of the hill or not anymore.

There was someone living there that worked at Metro the Water Company.

And I'm not going to discuss this issue anymore because I've been on my groundstand enough about this place, and it's a minute issue to me anymore.

But I mean government would do something like this.

Private entity would never do something like this.

Commissioner O'Leary.

Thanks, Chair Thatcher.

I guess I uh generally agree with you.

I think we should finish the project and do something with it.

It has been far too many years.

Uh this is my district.

I love that park.

It's a fantastic place.

I think that park is an integral part of the what makes that park so great.

So I'd really hate to see it ever get torn down.

But uh, you know, maybe next year in our budget we should uh put some money aside to actually finish the project.

Thanks.

Thank you.

And I I guess I'll just offer my um opinion on this.

Uh I understand the you you say to either fix it or tear it down, but obviously that's a process we're working towards is fixing it, and so I think it'd be silly to to do anything but fix it now.

And I understand the frustration when it comes from grant money because that is taxpayer dollar taxpayer money.

But in my opinion, if it's federal money, state money, you know, somebody's gonna apply for that.

It's gonna get spent one way or another.

So why not let it be us?

And why not let it be our community and our citizens reaping that benefit?

So that's my little stance on that.

If there are no, Commissioner O'Neill.

Thank you, madam chair.

Um, the power of Fisher getting the bathrooms done next year when the budget gonna motivate you, we're gonna get you know eight hundred grand in this thing and get this thing rocking.

We're gonna change your whole thing around fish, and we're gonna get this thing back to what it used to be.

Well, I'll talk to talk to you after that.

Thank you, Commissioner O'Neill.

Commissioner Shea.

Um, I will make a motion to concur in place on file with communication um number 2025-560.

Second.

A motion's been made and seconded to concur in place on file communication number 2025-560.

Um is there anything on the question?

But Commissioners, please vote.

Would anyone like to change their vote?

Clerk, please record your vote or that vote.

Nine, yay, one nay.

Nine, yay, one nay.

Motion passes.

Moving on to item number 24, communication number 2025-570.

Karen Burns, community development director, requesting council of commissioners' approval of recommendation to award the RFP for sale of 305 West Mercury Street to Jeff Riggs and Keith Waring.

Commissioner O'Larry.

Thank you, Chair Thatcher.

Uh, the reason I segregated this is because we obviously had presentations last week, and I appreciate the presentations from the two respondents and uh on the business development center, and I think it shows that there's continued interest in doing business in Uptown Butte.

That said, I'm I'm concerned with a couple things with this proposal to sell the building.

First, the price, I just today, earlier today, I I pulled about uh 15 uh commercial sales from the last four years in uptown, and they range these buildings range from about 11,000 square feet to 26,000 square feet.

The lowest sale price per square foot was $19.

Uh that's for a building on Broadway that was that has one store on the main floor and it's vacant or uninhabitable on the upper floors.

The the highest price was $52 a square foot, and that's for a building with a restaurant on the main floor and the upstairs uh is vacant, uh gutted, uh gutted above above.

So even using the lowest number on this list that would put the value of this building at 627,000 on the high end it'd be 1.7 million.

So the the proposal here is to sell this building for $450,000, which I just think is is uh cutting the the taxpayers short.

Second, my understanding is that the courthouse is currently full.

Our government study commission is in the middle of looking at possibly changing the structure of our government.

And if we end up with a smaller full-time council, we're gonna need to find five to six offices.

And I'm not sure exactly where those folks will go, but this is one of the the few buildings that we have that has office spaces in Uptown Butte.

We also use the heck out of that um boardroom over there.

We just used it for the TED TED board meeting on Friday, and I know that you know it gets used for all sorts of of other things, you know, fire trainings, etc.

So I I just have a lot of concerns about selling this building.

I just don't think it's a good idea.

I think it's short-sighted um as much as I appreciate the presentations.

It just is I think not the right decision for the council to be making at this time.

So I'd like to make a motion to deny and place on file uh communication 2025-570.

A motion's been made and seconded to deny in place on file communication number 2025-570.

Uh is there anything on the question?

Commissioner Callahan.

Thank you, madam chair.

You know, I was the original originally I voted no not to for us to put this up for sale, and I I know how much we use that building.

I've used it many a times for committee meetings and stuff, and I uh I dealt with that building for a number of years, and I really appreciate the people that put their effort and time, and I thought they had some great proposals after their proposals last week.

You know, I thought, well, this could be good for the building.

But I also agree with Mr.

O'Leary, just because Mrs.

Burns said that she's a poor property manager is a poor reason to try to sell a piece of property that's an asset that we should be using.

So it's a tough decision both ways.

I think these folks both did a great presentation, and I think they could do the building some good.

But on the other hand, you know, we already own the building.

Why do we need to go invest in more places to put offices and stuff?

And so uh, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna vote with Russ today, but I do appreciate the people, and I I it's a hard decision because I think they could do some good things for the for that building.

But on the other hand, I think Few Silver Bow should keep the building.

Uh it's they've put a new heating system in it.

There's it's completely full.

If we maybe if we manage the building right, maybe it wouldn't be such a a problem.

Thank you, Commissioner Callahan.

Commissioner Fisher.

Thank you, Chairman Thatcher.

I wasn't here last week to hear the presentations, but um I hear from the public a lot.

I mean, I'm in the main thoroughfare out there and people stop.

The biggest question to me that I'm getting from everyone is why are we selling that building for 450,000 without getting an appraisal and marketing the building in a proper way rather than just doing an RFP on it?

This is what I'm getting from the public.

You know, in my mind, I'd probably say sell it, you know, let's get it back on the tax rolls.

But when I hear from the public, they're telling me that it's not a good idea to sell that building the way Butte's going right now.

I mean, things are booming around here, things are selling.

So my constituents and many of your constituents that's come and visit me, tell me it's not a good idea to sell that building for 450,000.

So I'm really not sure what I should do or how I should do this, but I mean, I just uh I just can't see selling a building for 450,000 that has a market value of uh at least 20 percent more, you know, 15% more.

So just my two cents, thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Fisher.

Commissioner Boyle.

I don't know for sure which way to do on this either in a lot of aspects, but the one aspect I have a issue with is we voted on this how many months ago to allow the county to put up the RFP for the 450,000 dollars.

Here we are again, last minute changing the rules.

You know, we all agreed and said we put it out for that.

We got the bids in for it, those people put out their work, their effort to plan it, and the county people put out their work and effort into it.

Now we're saying now let's change our mind again and do it.

I I just don't think that's fair to the general public at all.

If we're going to do this, let's do it before we put off the RFPs or before we allow people to put out their quotes on buying it, not at the last minute.

Why didn't this get brought up last week?

Why are we waiting until this week?

That's my feeling on it, and I am going to vote for the sale of it.

So thank you, uh Commissioner O'Neill.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um Commissioner Boyle, I I agree with you on that part.

It is a tough um situation.

We've gone through the RFP and um I don't know, obviously it gives us time to think about what we're gonna do, and you know, I I don't know.

These decisions definitely aren't easy, but my my guess my feelings on this building.

Um it is a good building with a lot of potential.

Um and I don't want to hate to be the building that the one that got away.

Um I know we're not we we say we're not in the real estate business, but we truly are.

Um we could name numbers of buildings that we do um we have with rentals or release and so on and so forth.

Um others we can do a better job on or we're doing a great job on, so on and so forth.

But um I do have a time a tough time with that number.

So when we did the RFP, yeah, we did agree with it for sure.

Um however um just because we granted it then doesn't make it right if we not feel in that way.

So it is um I do appreciate the presentations.

They would it would be in good hands either which way.

Um I'll blab again later if I have anything, but uh thank you.

Thank you.

Um I of course have a very opposite stance on this.

Um 450,000 for a building that needs a lot of repairs.

I'm not sure who toured the building, if anybody I did uh needs a significant investment, one that I'm frankly I don't think the taxpayers want to put up with.

So if we want to be concerned about taxpayer dollars investing into a building that is where we don't generate a whole bunch of income from out of rent, doesn't make you know much sense to me.

Um to Commissioner O'Leary's point about office space, that's a huge if there.

Uh you want to say if the study commission decides to go this way, that's if the voters decide to go that way, not the study commission.

The study commission can make whatever recommendation.

That's if the voters decide that.

So that's a big if to weigh the sale of a property on.

Whether it's 450,000 or 1.2 million dollars in the long run, we generate that tax revenue, and I'll stand by that.

Additionally, I I understand that we all watched the same presentations last week.

Um, Mr.

Riggs and his partner, I believe they said they paid $80,000 in taxes on the properties that they own in Uptown View.

So in my opinion, um, I would think that we would, you know, take that under consideration and you know maybe generate a longer term return than uh 450,000 building that needs a significant amount of repairs, and that doesn't seem like a good investment on beats for beautiful part.

And lastly, I without sounding crass, the last recommendation we received from Commissioner O'Leary is still sitting out at Mammoth Park vacant and will remain so because that um failed.

So thank you.

Commissioner Callahan.

Thank you, madam chair.

I just want to correct the tax dollar deal.

This building does pay taxes.

Every renter in that building, part of their rent is assessed for the tax that that building would have took.

And so would have taken they would be paying.

So to turn around and say that we put it back on the tax rules, they're already paying taxes.

Uh thank you, Commissioner Callahan.

Yes, not in the amount that we would with um great improvements to the building and under a private owner.

Uh Commissioner O'Leary.

Thank you, Chair Shay.

Just a couple clarifications.

So there's a another very similar building um on Galena Street that I pulled up that sold a couple years ago for 450,000, 18,000 square foot building.

Uh the taxes on that building are currently $8,600 a year.

So I think in kind of the best case scenario, you're talking $15,000, 10 10 to $15,000 a year in taxes for this building.

So it would take uh considerable amount of time to make up the difference between the sale price that's uh being suggested here and and what would uh we'd you know pick that up in in future years, especially considering that all the tenants currently pay some uh marginal amount.

Second, I the other thing that I didn't mention before is that the communication just recommends that we approve the sale, and the original RFP for this had a lot of uh indications that there was gonna be some stipulations on the sale about what these folks were gonna do with the building, and I don't see any indication in the communication uh that they will be held to any particular standard uh in in how they treat this building, what they do with it after after we sell it to them, what uh you know the the expectations generally are.

And I don't see any indication in the communication uh that they will be held to any particular standard uh in in how they treat this building, what they do with it after after we sell it to them, what uh you know the the expectations generally are.

You know, I I was kind of expecting that there would be some kind of uh operating agreement that would come with this and that we would be able to review that prior to approving a sale.

So again, I just don't I don't think that this is a good, I think it's a short-sided decision to sell this building, and um, you know, I again I don't think this is well well considered.

Thank you, Commissioner O'Leary.

Director Burns, do you have can you touch on a little bit of um Commissioner O'Leary's concern on what he just talked about?

Thank you.

Uh thank you, uh Chairman Thatcher, members of council, Commissioner Larry.

Yes, and so uh I sorry the communication wasn't detailed enough um to explain that that resolution of sale, if you were to concur tonight um with the sale, we would then draft the resolution.

That resolution would include all of the criteria that you just spoke about that were included in the RFP.

Um I'm following the same process that we followed when we sold through an RFP process 123 um through 135 East Park.

The resolution contained all the conditions.

So that way they are completely um they're in the record, they're part of the agreement, they're part of the resolution of sale.

Um and so those are all would all be included in that.

And so that resolution, if this council voted to sell the building tonight, we would draft that resolution to introduce it to you at the next council meeting, and then that resolution could be discussed, things could be added, things could be changed, but with that's the exact process we followed the last time we sold a piece of Butsa Rebo property, and those conditions are often put in the resolution.

And so that's the the path I was following again.

Um and then I also want to just recomm remind everyone that we did had two professional commercial market um analyses done on the building.

I know that some of the this body does not agree with those analyses.

Um but we chose the midpoint of those analyses to put our RFP out, people uh 450,000, and so that's how that price was established.

Two professionals, two different professionals gave us opinions of value.

We chose part of that as the value to put it out the RFP, so that was thoughtful.

Um and I think the word short-sighted had been used a couple of times that this is a short-sighted decision.

Uh this is a very long-sighted decision.

We've been talking about the possibility of selling this building for many, many years.

Um and talking with uh the leaders of our administration, the budget director, the fill facilities director of Parks and Rec, um, public works, my office.

I think it was indicated that maybe I'm not a very good property manager.

Well, it's not just me.

There's a team of us that manage this property, and that's why it is hard for a local government to manage a pub or a private office building.

And that's what I want to remind everyone that's how it's functioning right now uh with a public kind of stint to it.

And so we do have two common spaces in that building that we utilize.

Part of the criteria that was um talked about is allowing for public kind of benefit of that building.

Mr.

Riggs did speak to that.

He wants to allow us to still be able to use those public spaces for our meetings and for the benefit of the public.

So I just want to kind of reiterate that.

And also the budget director did just remind me that this is an enterprise fund building.

So if we want to invest more into this building, we have to borrow it from the local government.

So it's not something that just comes with making a motion to say, hey, we want to put more money into that building.

It has to, we have to borrow it.

Um as just as when we did our heating system, we depleted our cash reserves and had to borrow money back from the general fund to make sure we had heat in the building for the tenants.

So just some points to to think about.

Thank you.

Uh thank you, Director Hassler.

Commissioner Fisher.

Thank you, Chairman Thatcher.

Thank you, Karen.

I might have a few questions for you, I'm not sure.

So you stated there was two people that gave you a mid-range on it.

Can you name who they are?

I mean, I know they've got to be local realtors of some kind.

So the two commercial market analysis value opinions of value, one was provided by Mike McLeod, and the other one was charter realty out of Belgrade.

Follow-up, Commissioner Fisher.

So you said this is an enterprise fund.

If this building sells, and it's a 450,000 dollar cash sale, where does this money go?

Director Hasser, would you come up and take that one?

So thank you.

Um Madam Chair, members of council, uh, Commissioner Fisher.

It would go back to that enterprise fund.

Um at that time, there would no longer be rents coming in.

We would have to see how we would close that out and it how it could be liquidated back to the general fund.

But operating as a as an enterprise fund is no different than the water or the landfill.

They the general fund does not support those those functions at all.

They um the business development center um as it is right now is required to raise revenues to cover all of its expenditures.

And when the boilers were replaced, they didn't borrow from the general fund, they borrowed from a bank.

Follow-up, Commissioner Fisher.

Thank you, Chairman.

Thank you, Karen.

I appreciate that.

So if this is an enterprise fund, is it a sole enterprise fund or do we have others buildings that are an enterprise fund?

This is new to me.

This is a new enterprise fund I've never heard about.

I knew that the landfill, I knew the water company, I know all the enterprise funds.

I've studied them for 10 years.

This is a new enterprise fund.

This shocks me that this is an enterprise fund on a building like this, and we're talking about selling it on an RFP.

If it's an enterprise fund, it probably shouldn't have been sold on an RFP.

It should have been sold in a different process, I would think.

I mean, I don't know the rules and regulations, but common sense in in doing things.

It just don't seem like you sell enterprise funds on an RFP.

So that's just my thoughts.

Thank you.

Yes.

Uh Madam Chair and members of council, uh, Commissioner Fisher, if you look in the budget book, all of the 5,000 funds are enterprise funds.

So that's the water system, Silver Lake, Metro, Landfill, Community Facilities, which is our health department, they pay rent.

Um to Butte Silverbow, that is uh 5711.

Um the armory or the the Don Peoples Center now as well as the old um what the the facility that the head frames is renting, um where the super fund or the Department of Reclamation used to be housed is also an enterprise fund, as well as uh the business development center.

Any any fund that's listed with the 5,000 in our budget book is considered an enterprise fund.

Follow up, Commissioner Fisher.

Okay.

So I understand that part now, which is news to me, but so how can this money be spent?

If we collect 450,000 for selling this, excuse me, for selling this building, we have 450,000, right?

How can this money be spent?

Director Hasler.

Uh thank you, Madam Chair, members of council, Commissioner Fisher.

I do believe that we would when that enterprise no longer exists, that it would be liquidated, I'm assuming I would have to find out for sure, um, back to the general fund because there wouldn't be a business to support there anymore.

So the asset would be gone.

That's I have to say that if you were to look in the financial statements, that's pretty much the only asset that exists for that enterprise fund is the building because it doesn't generate enough money to pay for itself.

Thank you, Director Hasler.

Commissioner O'Leary.

Thank you, Chair Thatcher.

I I guess one additional thing is I think one of the mistakes that we're making here is that we're continuing to operate this building as a losing proposition.

I mean, it hasn't really functioned like a development center for many years.

And we don't do that with any other buildings that we own and lease in Butte Silver Bow.

I mean, we we Butte Silverbow owns the CCASP building on a long-term lease to them uh for a substantial amount of money.

All the buildings that are out of the TIFIT that Butte Silverbow owns, those are you know, market rate or near market rate.

We don't do that anywhere else, and I don't really understand why we do it on this one besides momentum.

You know, it's just the way that it has been for many years.

Back in August when we were considering this RFP, uh I I brought a bunch of information about the the lease uh amounts, the the rent amounts that were paying that the that the tenants up there are paying.

Uh I believe that they're about 50 percent of what they should be.

So, you know, in the world of real estate, when you want to sell a building, you don't you you raise your rents and you figure out you know what the actual market rate of of your building is uh based on current rents, you don't value the building based on rents that are 15 years old or 15 15 years behind what is the norm.

Uh I so again I I think if we keep this building, uh, which I think we should, I think we need to rethink how we operate the building and you know, raise the rents a little bit so that we have some money in that enterprise fund to to continue to to invest in the building, and maybe we get creative and figure out some other way that we can do this.

But I think selling this at a at a huge discount to somebody uh, especially before we have any kind of information about exactly what the the criteria is gonna be is is a mistake, and I I hope that uh everybody votes yes on this deny.

Uh thank you, Commissioner O'Leary.

To your point, I believe most of what you're talking about is in terms of private real estate when you're talking about rents and and stuff like that.

I did um have a question for Director Burns on some of his statements, they didn't necessarily seem fully accurate to me.

I think you were kind of listening.

Could you just touch on maybe some of the things that didn't sound thank you?

Uh thank you, uh Chairman Thatcher, members of council.

Um so I think you mentioned the CCAS building, um, and that was the case.

It was a leased building to a private company where they had full responsibility for all the maintenance and all of everything in that building.

They no longer lease that building from us, they purchased it from us um a few years ago um under when after they became Montana Precision products.

They now have a loan from the Montana Board of Investments that they did for a huge expansion.

So the Montana Board of Investments required that they transfer ownership of that building back to us as they're using it as collateral through the state loan program.

So we have our names on that building again, but it's only for the term of the loan, and it's because the Montana Board of Investments requires that to happen.

And but they did buy that building from us.

Um and that is you know, we don't have any responsibility for maintenance or anything else that goes on with the building.

We have one building out in Montana Connections that is a con in the condo development that we constructed with German Gulch Development.

We lease that building to one private individual company, and they um they do all the maintenance and manage that building completely themselves.

So just a slightly different different different uh situation.

Thank you.

I was important to set that record straight.

Um just a couple other things too.

You know, in my opinion, Mr.

Riggs and is his business partner have very much proven across Uptown Butte that they are very good stewards of these buildings, but also very good community partners.

And so the concern about us not being able to use the boardroom or do anything like that seems like a moot point to me because that isn't going to be the case, and if we need that in writing, I I mean I would assume that that could probably be written into the resolution, but also it's okay that Mr.

Riggs stood up here last week and said, hey, I mean he's he's not lying, he's done it every other place he has invested in.

The second thing is you know again in my mind, here we are hindering Butte Silverbow.

And here we are, whether we think that I mean I understand that Mr.

Commissioner Larry's in the business of real estate, but so is his boss who performed the appraisal.

And you know, he said 450,000 was a fair fair rate on that.

First thing, and second thing is, you know, I hope that we all before we vote on this, take into consideration that with now the knowledge of this being an enterprise fund, and with the knowledge that we would have to borrow potentially from a bank, is that being a good steward of taxpayer money?

Is that being a good steward of taxpayer money?

I just want people to think about that because in my mind, I would hope my commissioner my constituents come and rip me apart if I vote to go to a bank and get a loan on behalf of them.

So thank you.

That's my only point.

Thank you.

Commissioner O'Neill.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um that kind of um being the enterprise fund portion of that kind of changed my mind just a little bit about about the things because if we if we keep if we keep this property, we're gonna have to spend some money on it.

Every time we come up here and we we have to spend money on stuff, it's always an issue, right?

I I don't know if it's an issue, but it's a concern, right?

You know, every time when I'm out on the streets, it's it's amazing how many people realize or not they follow the budget pretty well.

There are people listening.

So that that's a concern to me too of where do we come up with the money, how do we do that?

Because we'd have to change the whole program, right?

Um it kind of makes me think of I hate to put it this way, we have uh a lot of other problems we could probably deal with.

You know, maybe we can try to this is gonna be so funny, you're gonna love this idea.

If we get the 450, we can figure out how to get that into the Basin Creek home for Fisher's bathrooms out there.

So I'm sorry to say that, but that's not a bad idea, really.

That's that's like a good idea, thank you.

Commissioner Anderson.

Thank you very much, Chair Thatcher.

Uh I'm kind of concerned about the inner uh prize fund of this too, because uh we're being told a couple different things.

We're told that it's uh enterprise building and that it's all this extra work for the county to deal with and that we're not in the landlord state and it's not really being used for what its purpose is and w we should do all of this, and but we want to have some kind of control end in the uh resolution that comes forth is gonna outline the control that we should have.

If we want control of this building, we should keep the building.

If we don't want this building, we should sell the building.

And if we're gonna sell it, we shouldn't be putting when I look at Southwest Montana, th there's a huge boom going on uh all around us in Butte right now.

It's growing like I've never seen before.

Uh Belgrade uh Bozeman.

I was over there this weekend uh visiting my uh nephew for his uh birthday and uh spent some time with them.

It it's growing like crazy.

I was up in the uh Kalis Bell, went through Missoula this summer.

Uh they're both growing like crazy.

So why would we put handcuffs on the potential development?

If we want to sell it and we should sell it, then we should sell it.

We should put it to a realtor and get the most bang for our butt as possible.

We should sell it and get the highest price, not submit point of a couple people.

Or we should keep it.

So the two things is sell it properly and not have control over it if we don't need control over it.

And if we do need control over it, why are we having somebody else run it while we're putting stiplications and conditions on it?

So for that I would uh concur with uh uh Commissioner Leary's thing to uh deny this place on five.

Um hold on, I'm gonna go to Commissioner Leary first.

He has hand up.

Thank you, Chair Thatcher.

I I guess one additional point, you know, uh I get that there's this desire to sell this and and you know, wipe our hands clean and say we don't have to deal with this anymore.

There's other options too, which we could get creative.

I mean, we already were just discussing how we have this building out in the TIFD that we have on a essentially a triple net lease where somebody else is responsible for it entirely, including maintenance.

We could do the same thing with this building.

We could continue to to hold the building and put it out on RFP for somebody else to take it over and operate it as a as a business development center, uh, but Silverboat continues to retain ownership.

There are other things that we can do besides just giving up control of this building.

I I do the reason why I brought up the the courthouse being full is that there is uh you know maybe I'm wrong on this, but I don't think that there's much additional space in the courthouse for for anything else.

I've been told by multiple people that the courthouse is full.

So, you know, that we're in the the process of of uh studying our local government, and if if that happens, we are cutting ourselves short.

We are we're making a decision before a very large decision may be made that we might be, you know, shaking our heads that we did this in a in a couple years.

So, you know, we can get creative with this.

We don't we can always revisit it in a year, we can revisit it in two years.

It doesn't matter.

This is an RFP, we don't have to make decisions, we're not changing any bo any rules along the way.

This is the process.

We got some proposals and and I think that the proposals were were good proposals, but I still think that the 450,000 sale price is not appropriate.

And just one reminder, uh the the appraisal or the the market analysis from from Mr.

McLeod is a four-year-old appraisal, I believe, three or four years old.

So it's not current.

And the one that was done by the other uh party is from somebody out of town.

So I'm not sure how familiar they're they are with our market.

So uh again, I think we can get creative.

I don't think it's a good idea to to sell this building, and to Commissioner Anderson's point, if we want control of the building and what happens there, then we need we need to retain control.

And additionally, like all of our other enterprise funds, when we have shortages in our enterprise funds, what do we do?

We go and we adjust the rates.

You know, we we increase the the water bills, we increase landfill rates, we figure out a way to make the enterprise funds balance.

And in this case, we have been shortchanging ourselves for many years by having the rent so incredibly low.

So again, let's think about ways to get creative before we rush this.

Uh thank you, Commissioner O'Leary.

I hope we're not encouraging a rate increase on our taxpayers just because we don't want to sell a building.

Commissioner Mankins.

Um thank you, Chairwoman Thatcher.

Um I I think just a few of the things.

Um I think have we seen more of the clarity with the RFP.

I know that uh Director Burns has stated that you know if this went through that there would be some more logistics with the RFP and to show what was actually going to be done with the gentleman's with Mr.

Riggs and Mr.

Waring.

Uh I again like uh Commissioner Fisher said I was not here for the presentations um from what I looked at that you know it seemed like everybody um one of the things that I found though that both of the bids came in at 450.

Uh I I don't that's one thing that the other um group that came in also had 450.

I don't understand why that's just like a tie that seems like we should have some kind of a uh option.

Do you have to go back and give us your best offer to get this?

Um we talked about you know Park Street.

Um there really wasn't an RFP there.

I think it's still a vacant lot.

Um when did that go through?

Nothing has been done with that.

Um so that's kind of one of the things with these when you're talking about this RFP.

So I I'm definitely seeing both sides of this, but it it just doesn't seem you know real real great what we've done with our RFPs and what we've done with sales.

Um I know I've been on the side of like uh Commissioner Thatcher continues to um bring it up with um the Mammoth Project, but I think the Mammoth Project is in a good place right now.

Um, and that's my own personal opinion with this also though.

I just think that there has to be more things laid out with this RFP to make sure that we are getting a better deal.

Um if this was to go through.

Um in our past, you know, we haven't had anything like I said.

I continue to go back to Park Street that there's nothing there, it's vacant.

And um we didn't put a it a detailed enough RFP.

I mean, in all reality, that land should already been back to us for 70 some thousand dollars, and we should be really reselling that again for about a half a million.

So uh I'm really conflicted on oh, yeah, for sure.

Um kind of conflicted on where to go with this.

Um thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh Commissioner Mackins, Commissioner O'Neill.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

So one good thing that if we do decide to sell it when we obviously can go to the RFP situation.

Okay, so the good thing about having the RFP in front of us is we can learn from our mistakes, whatever they may or may have been in prior things, even though that is a vacant lot down there on Park Street.

I'm definitely gonna stick up for that because I because whatever decision we make, I'm gonna eat it and love it, whether it's right, wrong, or indifferent.

And I think the vacant lot looks way better than it did prior.

It's on the tax show right now.

The investors in that are in process, things happen, whatever.

They could turn around and sell that.

Hopefully, I'm sure if they could get a half a million dollars for it, I'm sure they would sell it.

Commissioner O'Neill, let's just make sure we're talking about the property on tonight's agenda.

Thank you very much.

So the RFP thing, if we do sell it, allows us to throw some stuff in there that would make us feel warm and fuzzy to do that.

Either we're making money tonight for the county, or we're we'd have to come with some other creative ways to figure out what we would do to to keep the building and whatever.

But in trueness, that that's not our job to to do that.

I mean, I guess maybe it kind of is, but I don't know.

I'm having a hard time.

I'm 50-50 at this moment.

So uh thank you, Commissioner O'Neill.

Commissioner Boyle and then Commissioner Fisher.

I just wanted to make a motion that we uh concur in place this uh motion on and vote to pass it.

Um is is that in the form of a substitute motion?

Yes.

Fails for lack of a second.

Um so we're back to the original motion.

Commissioner Fisher.

Thank you, Chairman Thatcher.

Thank you, uh everyone for participating in this.

I think most of us are like right in the fans.

I'm 50-50, just like Commissioner O'Neill said.

I do agree with though with it being an enterprise fund.

Uh Commissioner O'Leary had a point.

You know, when the water rates, we raised the rate.

When we needed more money to dump, we raised the dump rate.

Why we had this enterprise fund for as long as I can remember, and still not making it pay like we did other enterprise funds.

That makes a lot of sense to me being that sense.

So I mean, I I don't look like we're gonna go with an uh concurrent place on file because we didn't get a second, so it's looking a little bleak on the side of the other one.

So it's probably time to call for the vote.

Um is that a motion?

Second.

He said it wasn't a motion.

Oh Director Burns.

Uh thank you, Chairman Thatcher, members of council.

I just wanted to clarify that as we have run this building over the years with our tenants in that building.

Every time, every year we raise we've not every single year, but um over the last 10 years we have raised people's rents every time they renew their lease because we knew we were in this situation.

We don't want to raise people's rates so high that we are kicking them out.

Um and so we have steadily increased rates um as people renew their leases, as tenants move out, new tenants move in.

Um this building used to house, I want to re remind everyone, it used to house the Butte Local Development Corporation and Headwaters R C and D.

And those two entities did function as a business sort of incubation atmosphere.

When those two entities decided to leave our building and go um rent space in another spot, that left a big hole there in the building, um, both as a rent generation and um you know as a uh and an incubator type space for businesses coming in.

And so we kind of lost the flavor at that moment.

Um and so to run a full-time business incubator takes a full-time person.

Um and so when this building was placed underneath community development as part of our responsibilities to help maintain, although I tell the told the council it is a team.

There's a all of our departments work together to maintain this building and keep it functioning.

Um it was not functioning very healthful in a healthy way as a business development center or as an incubator.

We've done the very best that we can.

Um and so also I wanted to just clarify the reason we went out for RFP is this body chose to do that.

Um I laid out multiple options of how we I was a proponent of doing the RFP because that does give us the ability to have some say and some criteria on the sale.

Um there are other ways to sell county property, that's in the county property sale ordinance.

We could have auctioned it, we could have done a lot of different things.

I recommended the RFP.

This body agreed with that, and that's how we moved it forward.

So I feel like we're kind of going back and saying, well, we want to talk about it again.

We really want to do it a different way now.

Um so that is truly this body's decision.

It's not my decision.

Um I do want to say that I am in favor of moving this forward tonight.

We've gotten two great proposals from people.

We have one before us that our committee is recommending from Mr.

Riggs.

He is in here in the room listening to this right now.

Um, and he would be happy to answer any questions people might have of him after the sale if it were to take place.

But I really do believe that this is the best that we can do for Butte Silver Bow and our taxpayers and the tenants of the building.

I really feel like this is the best decision we could make.

But that is again my opinion, it's your decision.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um he was up first and then let me come to you, Commissioner Healy.

Commissioner Anderson.

I'll make a motion to call for the vote.

Um a motion's been made and seconded to call for the vote.

So now, Commissioner Healy, you don't get your statement.

Okay.

Um motions been made and seconded to call for the vote.

Could Commissioners please vote?

Yeah, so this motion, thank you, Commissioner Callahan.

This motion specifically right now is just to call for the vote on voting for um Commissioner O'Leary's motion to deny.

This is not specifically the motion to deny.

This is just the motion to call for the vote.

So would Commissioners please vote?

Yeah, uh, would anyone like to change their vote?

Commissioner Mankins would like to change his vote.

We can just say it when you swap.

Okay, uh Clerk, please record the vote.

Okay.

So the motion to call for the vote passes nine to one.

We will now move to the motion made by Commissioner O'Leary, which was to deny in place on file communication number twenty twenty-five dash five six zero.

Um is there anything on the question?

Can I even do the Oh, I'm looking at number fourteen, I'm sorry.

Uh, number twenty-four, twenty or two to deny and place on file communication number twenty twenty-five dash five seven zero.

Um, Commissioner Shay.

Um, what would what happens to the communication if this motion fails?

Commission I mean County Attorney Anru.

If the motion to deny a place on file fails, then a second mo or a substitute, not a substitute motion, a new motion could be made at that point in time to concur in place on file if requested to do so.

That'll be my understanding.

We can review the rules real quick too, but other than well, actually, no, I take that.

Yes.

Yeah, yes, that's correct.

It wasn't seconded though, so you are correct.

This is when unless it's like a motion to hold an abeyance.

Um it would have to be, I guess, something along those lines.

The committee would the commission would still have to act on the communication.

Yeah, it's not.

Okay.

Um would Commissioners please vote?

I'm sorry.

This is for Commissioner O'Leary's motion.

Does anyone want to change their vote?

Clerk, please record the vote.

Um five, yay, five, nay.

Five nay, and then I'm the tiebreaker.

Okay, so County Attorney Enerr.

I gotta grab the rules.

Since we've been here for an hour, everybody takes five minute break.

Okay, we're gonna take a five-minute recess.

I don't think it requires a two third.

I'm the tiebreaker.

Yeah, but not on this motion specifically.

I'm the tiebreaker, which is what I said, and then we're not gonna have to get the

Let's just make sure, Commissioners, that we are not talking about the specific agenda item that we are on.

This is just a recess.

Um County Attorney Enrith, do you have an update for us?

I'm gonna call the meeting back to order.

Thank you, Commissioner.

I'm gonna call the meeting back to order.

Um I think everybody's back.

What's up?

Oh, would um commissioners check in, please.

Yeah, for the call call the order again.

Uh clerk, please record the role.

Thank you.

Um County Attorney Anne Ruth.

Uh yes, Chairwoman Thatcher, pursuant uh to the charter under section three point zero five D in the rules of this commission.

Um the presiding officer of all regular and special meetings of the council of commissioners shall be either the chief executive or other designee, uh, who shall be the tie-breaking vote under the specific motion that's placed in front of the commission.

It is not a motion to sell the property, it is a motion to deny it.

It does not require two-thirds votes because it's the secondary motion.

Thank you, County Attorney Enruth.

Um, I so this is just mine, right?

Because you had to, you already closed out the vote.

Is that correct, Caitlin?

Okay, thank you.

So this my motion is to no uh I just want to make sure I get this one right.

Um I don't think I want to motion to deny.

No, I don't want to deny.

Um okay, yes.

Come clerk, please record the vote.

Uh one nay.

No, the motion to deny.

I said no, right?

Yeah.

Don't scare me like that, Commissioner Shay.

Okay, so that motion then does not pass.

So now um procedurally, like a little I think we would have to make another motion, but um, since we already made the motion to concur in place one file, and that did not pass.

I think it would have to be separate, but Commissioner Shea.

I will make a motion that we hold this in abeyance.

Um okay, a motion's been made and seconded to hold communication number twenty twenty-five-five seven zero in abeyance.

Uh is there anything on the question?

Would commissioners please vote on the sorry.

Clerk, please record the vote.

Nine, yay, one nay.

Nine, yay, one nay.

Motion passes to hold in abeyance.

Okay.

Uh moving on to section three resolutions and ordinances introduced to the judiciary.

I did speak to Caitlin, and those just do have to be introduced.

Nothing has to be um said or read.

So then I would just move on to calendar of other meetings and events and just have everybody take a look at those.

Now I will call for any public comment on any matter uh not on the agenda.

Uh please state your name and address for the record.

Hi, my name is Sarah Bordoon at eleven twenty-seven Waxhaw Street.

I've been informed that my item is on the agenda, and so I will not be able to make comments tonight.

Um, however, I would have, and I will be here next Tuesday.

Um, I'm sorry for the misunderstanding.

Apparently, I was supposed to have talked in the open session prior to the starting of the agenda items.

So I'm sad to report that, but I would love to give you an update on uh my takeaways from the Montana connections TED board and what we learned there.

Um so we'll have to wait for next Tuesday.

Okay, and yes, as Ms.

Bordoon um noted, our next week's meeting is on Tuesday, November 20 something.

25th.

Thank you.

Um regular times, but yes, on Tuesday, November 25th.

If there is nothing else for the good order, I will entertain a motion to adjourn.

Uh a motion's been made and seconded.

All those in favor?

Aye.