Butte Silver Bow Council Meeting - December 11, 2025
Butte Silver Bow Council Meeting - December 11, 2025
The Council convened with a full complement of members, including Michelle Shea, Hattie Thatcher, Trudy Healy, and Dan Callahan, while Commissioner Tommy Walker was initially present to ensure a quorum but departed upon Callahan's confirmed attendance. The meeting addressed communications regarding tax deed land retention and a tax refund claim before adjourning with two successful motions and one hold action pending agenda corrections.
Consent Calendar
- Claim Approval: A motion was moved and seconded to approve a claim for Deluxe Enterprises in the amount of $4,633.76. The motion passed unanimously.
Public Comments & Testimony
- No members of the public provided testimony or comments during this session.
Discussion Items
- Communication 2025-486 (Lori Baker Patrick, Butte Silver Bow Treasurer):
- Proposal: The Treasurer requested the Council direct the County Attorney to prepare a resolution authorizing the holding of unsold tax deed land (specifically two small parcels near the Arco site and Orphan Boy Mine) in city and county ownership due to compelling remediation interests in the area.
- Speaker Positions:
- Lori Baker Patrick: Stated the land is in a remediation area (partially owned by Arco and Butte Silver Bow) and argued it is in the best interest to hold the property until further remediation is completed to allow for future tax sale.
- Commissioner Callahan: Expressed support for the retention, noting the property's location near the Orphan Boy Mine and Montana Tech, and stated it is in the best interest to keep the property.
- Deliberation: Council members discussed a discrepancy where a second reading resolution was intended for this agenda item but was missing or mislabeled due to an agenda error (a resolution for gas masks for police appeared instead). It was noted that the correct resolution for the tax deed classification had been sent previously but was not attached for second reading.
Key Outcomes
- Motion to Hold: A motion was made, seconded, and passed to hold Communication 2025-486 pending the correction of the agenda error and the attachment of the proper resolution for final introduction.
- Motion to Adjourn: Upon completion of the agenda items, a motion to adjourn was approved.
- Attendance Discrepancy: The transcript initially listed Dan Callahan as absent with Tommy Walker sitting in, but Callahan entered later, prompting the correction that Walker is no longer needed.
Meeting Transcript
Um present are Michelle Shea, Hattie Thatcher, Trudy Healy. Absent are Dan Callahan, Eric Minkins, and Bill Anderson, and Commissioner Tommy Walker is sitting in for us to have a quorum. Oh, Callahan's here. I've been hour. You can go sit down. Okay. Scratch that. I mean those sites. They sent to me. Commissioner Callahan is here. He said he doesn't give it a question. We do have a quorum, so Tommy will not sit in. Okay, item number one, communication number 2025-486. Lori Baker Patrick, Butte Silver Bow Treasurer requesting Council of Commissioners direct the county attorney to prepare a council resolution authorizing the approval of unsold tax deed land that should be held in ownership of the city and county of Butte Silver Bow. Certain parcels have been tax deeded and owned by the city and county of Butte Silver Bow, Montana. I see Ms. Baker Patrick here. Do you have something? Do you have anything for us? I think we're looking at questions in the Yeah, it might be good if you just want to come up and give a short explanation. You can even step to that mic there, Lori, if it's easier. Or you can sit here and use this one. Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee. That's in a remediation area. And so what's in blue is Arco, because when I tried to get this one on the cadastral, it just blew it up really big. The red is that little tiny parcel. Everything around it except for these two little parcels, Butte Silver Bow owns or Arco owns. So it's in a remediation area. So with the land sales committee, uh we determined that it would be in the best interest of Beet Silver Bow to hold the property until um further reading remediation could be done in that area, and then we could put it back on the tax sale. Thank you. That makes perfect sense, I think for everybody. Um so can you let me know? What do you need us to do with this communication? Um I wonder County Attorney. Madam Chair Council, the resolution was completed. Is the resolution not attached and in here? Barb Hey Barb. We sent the resolution to you for Lori's communication, but it wasn't attached to anything. Did you get that? Um it was sent to you a couple weeks ago. Is that because it went to it was it was on the regular council meeting and then it got right correct, and then we sent it down to judiciary. It should be here for you guys for second reading. So is it last week to refer to this? Do you have a last week? Yeah, it was. We sent it to you. So I was saying it was introduced last week. It should be here for second reading. Yes, it was because I read we were I read about that. Commissioner Thatcher has a copy of last week's agenda.
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