You still have them?

So you don't have my mom, you can pass it off, so you don't want like that.

Oh last time.

Do you ever have meetings?

Uh meetings for your constituency, just your district.

Use it.

You know people show up.

And how do you advertise it?

I was thinking of an hour a week at the library.

You just have to sit here and watch Anderson all the time because it makes us feel guilty because we don't know if you see it with Matthew.

We don't know if he's got ice with them, but what's going on?

Yeah, nice ladies.

I'll bring the Butte Silver Bow Council of Commissioners Committee of the Whole Meeting to order for Wednesday, January 28th, 2026.

Can we please have a roll call?

One presiding, ten present, one absent.

Okay, please let the record reflect that Commissioner Healy is is absent tonight.

Commissioner O'Neill, I uh you're here, so we're gonna count that that is green.

So um thank you.

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

Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God and divisible with liberty and justice for all.

Next item on tonight's agenda is any public comment on any items that's on tonight's agenda.

If there's any member of the public that would like to speak on any item that's on tonight's agenda, um now would be your opportunity.

If please uh come up to the podium and state your name and address for the record, we do ask that you keep your comments to three minutes.

Okay, there it is.

Uh yeah, my name's John Search, 1820 Wilson.

Uh beat Montana.

Say I this is uh regards to a presentation communication number 2621 on the uh siding committee.

You know, I sat on that siding committee for three years, and I believe we did a lot of good work.

I believe that technical team has found a wonderful place to put that soil.

And just I think I'm just speaking to the choir, but you know, without a without a place to put that soil, there is no cleanup, and I think it's loud and clear what people want.

Let's get the cleanup going.

Thank you, Mr.

Sorich.

Is there any other member of the public that would like to speak on any item that's on tonight's agenda?

Please state your name and address for the record.

Ms.

Chair and members of the commission.

Uh my name's Evan Barrett, 807 West Silver Street.

I want to uh briefly comment on the communication uh 2026 21, which is the repository report.

Uh quite interesting and its movement forward.

I think, of course, we all recognize the need to be nice to get something going on this.

And I know I think that'll be part of the impetus on this.

Why don't we get something going?

It is important, however, that we do it right.

And so I'm eager to hear the presentation.

I've looked at it and I've read it, and I'm eager to hear the presentation.

It's a pretty significant change from where we were a few months ago, which was Berkeley Pitt.

And I think it's the time frame of getting Berkeley Pitt prepared or knowing it would work is the reason we're looking at an alternative site here now.

I am intrigued by the site.

Uh I told uh the representative from from our co Josh that the other day that I'm I'm willing to be persuaded that this is a good site.

And so it's important that we take a look at it and see if it if it meets the needs of the community.

There's been a lot of progress made of taking it out of uh certain places that it really didn't belong.

So the site change is uh is an opportunity here, and I'm uh eager to see how they advance it.

I would say, however, that this is going back to our all of our previous discussions.

The committee, two things about the committee, their process is flawed, and I don't know if we'll ever be able to fix that, but basically we have had a series of public meetings that have had no public notice, that have had no public agenda, have had no minutes that were produced for that, and no invitation for regular folks to attend.

And that has not changed, and there's seven of those meetings that are listed in the report, and I know at least six of them uh did not have anybody there.

Uh so the process is flawed, and it it's a violation of the right of participation in the Montana Constitution.

A right for the citizenry to participate, not at the last vote, but during the process of developing the stuff.

Now that can't be fixed, and I don't know what we do about it, but we better recognize it for the future.

And now, again, I'm willing to be persuaded that this might be a good choice.

In addition to the process, uh there is the site, and the one thing that never came out the last time, and I pointed out repeatedly to you as a uh uh legal entity and also to ARCO that they should be looking at the opportunity ponds, and notwithstanding some statements here, uh we're not restricted.

In fact, a lot of waste from Butte Silverbow is over in the Anaconda opportunity ponds.

All the streamside tailings waste is from there.

All the waste from Missoula is over there.

It's owned by ARCO.

It's fully available.

There's a railroad from the center of Butte to that site that can take the waste there without touching a road at all, without being in town or touching the road at all.

It was eliminated before the last the group of meetings, and it's now gone.

Uh it's still not considered, not considered at all, and I think their process is was flawed, and now because of that flaw and the lack of considering opportunity ponds, uh, it has not been duly considered.

Uh and I'm a little worried, but I hope that maybe what they're recommending is good.

Thank you very much.

Sorry for the extra time.

Thank you, Mr.

Barrett.

Is there any other member of the public that would like to speak on any item that's on tonight's agenda?

Okay.

Seeing none, I'll move on to yes, sorry about that.

Please uh you you're okay.

And I also apologize.

I don't have the uh communication number for the uh flop cameras.

I didn't make a note.

Uh I do have a statement to read, and I brought a copy for all of you if I can leave that behind.

Yep.

Please state your name and address for the right.

My name is Jason Rackham.

I live at uh 2234 Grand Avenue here in Butte.

So my name is Jason Rackham.

I'm writing in uh I I wrote it as a letter.

I'm writing in regard to the proposed discussion, presentation, or any pure procurement momentum related to the AI-powered surveillance cameras in Butte Silverbow, specifically Flock safety systems, including automatic license plate recognition and related search alert tooling.

I teach networking and cybersecurity and work with technology personally.

I am not anti-technology or anti-AI.

My objective is government, governance.

Montana's constitutional privacy standard is high, and Flock style systems invert that standard by collecting broadly first and searching later.

Constitutional baseline that must govern this decision.

Montana's constitution is explicit that privacy is essential to the well-being of a free society and cannot be infringed without a compelling state interest.

That standard requires narrow tailoring and enforceable limits, not vendor assurances.

A persistent networked camera system that collects location linked data on the public by default is not narrowly tailored.

It creates a generalized tracking capability first and invites searches later.

At the federal level, the Fourth Amendment is anchored in reasonableness and particularity.

When a system enables routine backtracking of a person's movements, pattern searches, broad time window searches, and cross jurisdiction queries, it creates a search for justify later capability.

Excuse me, I'm sorry, I'm a bit dry.

This is fundamentally different from a limited tool use.

Uh under a constrained case-specific investigative standard.

Uh rights, impacts in practice.

Alright.

Apparently the podium is not my friend.

You're okay.

My apologies.

First Amendment chilling effects are expected outcome when movement to sensitive places can become logged and searchable.

People self-center when they know lawful associations can be reconstructed later.

In Montana, this includes constitutionally protected activities, such as attending political meetings, civic gatherings, going to gun shows, firearms-related events, traveling to and hunting fishing access points, and attending church.

Fifth and 14th Amendment concerns arise in practice when a system output is treated as certainty.

Automated hits are probabilistic, but under time pressure, they are treated as authoritative, increasing the risk of wrongful stops, wrongful questioning, coercive burden shifting, and unequal impacts driven by where the cameras are placed and how queries are conducted.

Sharing expands across agencies, the weakest policy outcomes become your outcomes.

So I have a bit more here.

That's why I brought some.

I would love to leave those behind.

And uh have a chance if you have uh any other questions.

I'd be happy to uh follow up.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Is there any other member of the public that would like to speak on any item on tonight's agenda?

Welcome.

Please state your name and address for the record.

Good evening.

My name is Finn Guerin.

I live on 642 West Granite Street.

Uh I currently attend Montana Tech, pursuing a degree in cybersecurity, and I'm here to oppose Flock safety as mentioned in communication number 2026-24, as their products and business practices put our public at direct risk of harm.

Um I immediately echo everything that Mr.

Rackham has said uh said, and I would like to add in addition that Flock practices very terrible cybersecurity practices.

Um they assert that they do not sell or share data with third parties without government authorization.

However, independent research has shown that Flock has contracted with third-party workers in the Philippines to assist in training its AI systems.

This raises concerns about where this footage is processed, what legal protections apply, and how data is handled after leaving the United States.

Um and the cameras themselves that you rent from Flock are horribly insecure, running a version of Android that hasn't received security updates since 2021, with over 913 active security vulnerabilities.

And independent researchers doing uh penetration testing into these have described the process to be so easy and fast that the longest part was waiting for the cameras to turn on.

Flock does not require second factor authentication like a code that's sent to your phone to sign in to a website uh in order to log into and perform searches on their database.

And as a result, credentials have been leaked on Russian hacking forums for sale, which would allow if purchased foreign nation states unrestricted access to cameras across the country.

And then Flock has also misconfigured camera web panels to be directly accessible from the internet, meaning that anyone with the links could access them.

With how little benefit the cameras provide, along with the glaring cybersecurity issues, many cities have elected to cancel their contracts with Flock already, most notably are Austin, Texas, Flagstaff Arizona, Charlottesville, Virginia, and Santa Cruz, California.

Numerous other smaller cities have opted to cancel as well, such as Evanston, Illinois, where Flock removed the cameras, and then a few days later, without authorization, Flock reinstalled them, forcing the city to spend resources, placing bags over those cameras, and then sending a cease and desist.

I strongly urge the county of Butte Silver Bow to carefully evaluate the documented risks, failures, and precedents associated with Flock Safety before potentially moving forward.

Becoming the first city in Montana to adopt the system without clear protections and proven benefits would be a costly and difficult precedent to undo.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Is there any other member of the public that would like to speak on any item that's on tonight's agenda?

Okay.

Seeing seeing none, I'll move on to the next section, which is the report of the chair.

It's gonna be a little bit of a somber moment.

Umte did lose one of one of its own yesterday.

Uh Mr.

Fritz Daly did pass away.

And so I would just ask that we say our thoughts and prayers with his family and thank you for everything that he did for this community.

Um so if we could just take a quick moment of of silence on that before I continue on with my report.

Okay.

Thank you.

Moving on to the report of the chair.

I have a couple of announcements.

Uh Commissioner Gerbrandt, I just want to welcome you to the council meeting.

This is your first one.

We went through a little bit of the agenda today on structure and and how to proceed.

And we just want to welcome you to the to this body.

So welcome to the council meeting.

Um next one I have is the Montana Connections meeting.

I just want to make an announcement that there is one of those meetings this Friday at the Business Development Center at noon 305 West Mercury.

Um, I know some commissioners have attended that in the past, so I just wanted to do a separate shout-out for that.

And then I just want to do a report of the chair on the land sales committee.

The land sales committee has had a few ad hoc uh meetings to try to figure out the best way to move forward with our land sales um conundrums that we have.

Um they believe that they have some ideas that they would like to present to the council, but I was asked to ask that this body if if you have some ideas of what you'd like to see, if you won't mind reaching out to Director Um Crane and uh and giving her those ideas, and then at some point soon they will be submitting a communication to come before this body to present those findings to us.

So sooner rather than later, if you can, just uh so we can get the ball rolling on that.

As of right now, the communications that we're gonna talk about later in tonight's agenda, they're kind of all on hold until we get some idea of what this council wants to do to move forward with them.

So if you have any input, I I would ask that you reach out to them.

Next section, um, I'll move on to section one the bid openings, public hearings and or presentations.

We did have a bid opening scheduled tonight, um, communication 2026-25.

We're not going to hold this um bid opening tonight because there were some issues with the publications.

So um Miss Kerry will be coming back to this body next week with an updated date for us to hold this bid opening.

So we're not going to take any action on 2026-2.5.

Moving on to presentations.

I'll go on to number one communication 2026-2.1.

Eric Hassler, Department of Reclamation and Environmental Services Director requesting Council of Commissioners' permission to schedule a presentation on January 28th, 2026 to provide an update to the council on the repository siting process for the Butte Priority Soils operable unit.

Director Hassler.

Chairman Morgan, members of the council.

Um tonight, Josh Bryson with the Atlantic Richfield Company will be giving the presentation and updating on the repository siding study and the recommendations report that came from that effort.

I'll be available and present for questions after the presentation, but I'll introduce Josh at this time.

So great.

Thank you.

Mr.

Bryson.

Thank you, Eric.

Thank you, Commissioner Morgan.

Thank you, Commission members, and thank you, JP for spearheading the repository sighting study committee that uh we all participated in for the past five years or so, and thanks to members of this body that also participated uh past and present.

It was a large effort with a lot of work accomplished.

Josh, can you just move the microphone closer to you just to thank you?

Don't make me anxious.

Okay.

Uh a little uh BIP SU Superfund 101 regarding the 2020 consent decree, which memorialized the agreements between the settling defendants and the regulating agencies of what the final remedy and butte priority soils would be for management of surface water and impacted sediments and groundwater.

Uh most of that work was discussed in the further remedial element scope of work, which uh led to the work plans and the strategies necessary to manage impacted sediments on the Butte Hill in unreclaimed and insufficiently reclaimed source areas, and also what would happen to those sediments as they moved down the Butte Hill with stormwater and reached our surface waters of Blacktail and Solar Well Creeks.

Uh most of the work that I focus on is in the Ripyrian corridor, which you can see on the screen.

There are four projects highlighted that Atlantic Ridgefield is leading.

There's one project at Blacktail Creek that the Montana DEQ is performing using funds of Atlantic Ridgefield.

In performance of this work, we're going to produce approximately 1.1 million cubic yards of mine waste tailings, municipal debris that need to be excavated and disposed of somewhere.

And that's why we're here.

One being Timber Butte and the other being being the Butte Mine Waste Repository.

Without going down memory lane, I think it's safe to say that the stakeholders were encouraged to implement a process to better evaluate potential locations, and that's exactly what we've done.

Enter the 2020 EPA guidance letter, which provided us a six-step process inclusive of certain criteria that we're to utilize and implement during this effort to both identify potential locations to cite a repository and evaluate the appropriateness of those locations.

During the process, steps one and two went rather quickly.

It was the formation of a committee effectively and initiation of the work.

Steps three and four is really where we began the technical evaluations, the and locating the potential uh sites.

We went so far back as the 1992 Butte Silver Bow Mining Milling area siting study, which identified 50 potential locations, and it within that report it recommended 10 to prioritize.

What our team did is go out independently and look at properties, giving current property ownership, current zoning, current uh conditions of those properties, uh, and assessing any applicable regulations which may cite or impact the siting of a repository.

And we compared and we eventually came up with a handful of locations that we further evaluated in step four.

Uh those locations included Westside Soils, Whiskey Gulch 1 and 2, an area out towards the Rocker Gun Range, the Opportunity Ponds, the Interstate Pit, an open space west of Montana Pole, the Alice Pit, and the Pittsmont Dump.

Eventually we began to key in on the Pittsbond dump, uh, acknowledging that it was utilized by the natural resource damage program for the same purpose to dispose of the parrot tailings.

Within the circle process, unfortunately, we would have had to manage that repository location under circular law, which means we would have to close it, cap it, operate it and maintain it consistent with the requirements of Circle of Law.

That conflicts with active mining operations, so we had to pivot again.

Many will recall that we provided a presentation in the Centerville community where we suggested use of the Kelly Mine area located on Atlantic Ridgefield property in the area of Dublin Gulch.

During that presentation, the community suggested that we take a harder look at the Berkeley pit.

And that brings us into step five.

In step five, we did analyze, evaluate the Berkeley pit, in addition to the Butte Mine Waste Repository, the Kelly Mine area shown in green, and the little red polygon shields avenue.

During those detailed evaluations and investigations, we performed multiple geotechnical investigations.

We assess the geochemical conditions of the Berkeley pit.

We performed liminological analysis, studied the pit lake itself.

We performed data gap analysis, seeking more information on the properties of the soils from the project sites.

We did cultural resources evaluations and we developed conceptual plans that represented how each of these locations would look after those waste were placed there.

After all that assessment, we came to the conclusion that the Butte Mine Waste Repository was the preferred location and the location that would be recommended by the settling defendants, Butte Silver Bow and Atlantic Ridgefield for use.

So why the Butte Mine Waste Repository?

First and foremost, the Butte Mine Waste Repository is approved for this exact purpose today.

It was approved in the 2006 record decision and memorialized in the 2020 consent decree.

Second, it's being used for that same purpose today.

We currently haul mine waste into the location for both or the residential metals abatement program for commercial and private development projects and for remediation activities performed by Atlantic Ridgefield across the View Hill.

Third, there's an existing plan that governs how wastes are transported to that location, how they're placed in the repository, and what the requirements for closure are.

That would enable us to begin hauling waste and placing it today as we revise the OM plan to make it current for the waste that we're going to haul up there.

And in some of those three things, and really the fourth thing, what it enables us to do is save time.

It allows us to begin work at Diggins East in earnest in August of this year.

As you can imagine, being an approved repository location, it also meets several of the siding criteria.

No adverse impacts to human health or the environment and complies with applicable regulations.

There's no impactful regulatory or zoning factor, etc.

etc.

It's owned by Butte Silverbow and Atlantic Ridgefield.

May ask how are we going to get there.

Going back down to the repository or the riparian corridor project areas down by Silverbow Creek.

Adjacent to KOA, you can see the Atlantic Ridgefield projects in kind of the light green or blue in the state of Montana project, the Blacktail Creek Riparian Project Area with the crosshatch.

Our intent is to funnel traffic in street legal trucks to George Street.

Once on George Street, we would head westward until we intercepted Montana Street and we would torn northbound until reaching the light at Front Street in Montana.

We would take a right and head eastward from the safeway area, down East Front Street, below the rail bridge as it curves and transitions into Harrison Avenue, and then take a left on Civic Center Road.

From the area of the Civic Center, we're proposing one of two routes to be utilized.

And they both rely on Montana Resources Agreement, which we're working on.

The first option would be just like NRD did.

Cross the BNSF Railway and go underneath the Shields Avenue overpass or bridge and access Montana Resources property from that point and on to the Butte Mine Waste Repository up their 7% Hall Road.

And the section second option that we're evaluating would include accessing Texas Avenue, taking a ride on to Continental, traveling east until reaching the main access gate where the security shack is going into Montana Resources and then up to 7% Hall Road to the Butte Mine Waste Repository.

1.1 million cubic yards of waste to be removed over the next five to seven years will result in some trucks on the road.

Atlantic Richfield is proposing certain mitigations to reduce any perceived risk of those activities.

Our contractor will develop a robust traffic control plan that will be coordinated in development with both Butte Silver Bow and the Montana Department of Transportation and subject to their approval prior to us beginning work.

We can limit haul traffic during peak traffic flow times, for example, 7.45 to 8.15 in the morning, 4.45 to 5.50 in the afternoon.

We can limit haul times or suspend haul traffic during community events.

If there's a state basketball tournament at the Civic Center with the fairs at the Civic Center, if there's a concert at the Civic Center, we won't be hauling on those days when the traffic is busy and there's pedestrians access in the civic center.

And we'll suspend hauling during hazardous road conditions, whether that be poor visibility or poor road conditions with slippery conditions.

We'll maintain rigorous training requirements for operators and drivers.

Another way to say that is we're going to have very competent individuals performing the work.

We'll implement in-cab driver behavior monitoring systems in addition to anti collision systems.

This is something we haven't done before.

Effectively uses AI to recognize if a driver is happening to stare at a TikTok video or text their spouse, or if they're drowsy, and we'll get notifications when that occurs, and we can implement corrective actions.

We'll manage track out from the project areas and clean road surfaces as needed.

So that could include on-site best management practice like rumble strips to knock off dust, mud and debris, or actively cleaning the roads with sweepers, or actually washing them.

And in the end, or concurrent with the work, we'll repair and upkeep Butte Silver Bow roadways as we do the work and when we're done.

Right now we've uh got an engineering team performing a preconditioned assessments of what these roads look like, George Street, Civic Center, Texas, to get us a baseline condition, and we'll do right by any damage we do.

We know where we're going, the Butemine Waste Repository, and we know the two potential routes that we're evaluating to get there.

We know that a Lancharge field's going to mitigate the impacts of the roads and work to keep the community safe when we do the work.

So what's next?

I might be one of the happiest people to say that uh this presentation concludes step five and step six is our final step of the process, and there's only three tasks.

First task of step six is that EPA and DEQ will consider stakeholder and public input.

So stakeholders being Atlantic Richfield and Beauty Silver Bow, public input being gentlemen such as Evan and his comments, comments received throughout the process, and any question and answer that occurs today.

I believe our counterparts of Eric and I are on the phone listening, and if not, they'll have access to the YouTube video.

We'll submit the final detailed evaluation and recommendations report within one to two weeks after we've had some time to digest the comments.

And then EPA will review the report and let us know, Lank Richfield and View Silverbow, if they concur with the recommendation to use the approved view mine waste repository.

I'd like to thank you for your time and again thank the committee members that participated, and thank you for the community and influencing the outcome of the repository sighting study.

And with that, Eric and I will open it up to questions.

Thank you, Mr.

Bryce.

And is there any questions from the commissioners?

Uh Commissioner Fisher.

Thank you, Chairman Morgan.

Thank you, Jason.

Appreciate you being here.

Uh thank you, Eric, for all you do for our community.

I guess the other couple questions.

Um I'm not real fond of the route going over front street.

I think there's probably an easier way and discuss that in the future.

One thing, um, you said one million yards to be moved in five to seven years.

They moved a million yards of dirt from the airport to fill the hole out there in like 120 days.

Why is it going to take five to seven years to move a million yards of dirt from that location to the repository site?

It's a good question, thank you.

Mr.

Breiser.

Commissioner Fisher, Chair Morgan, good question.

I think there's probably different project conditions that are quite a bit different.

Uh, first and foremost, we're doing a circular project that is overseen by the regulating agencies, and we're doing it in the middle of the town versus where I believe the airport activities occurred, mostly in the open fields of the airport adjacent to what is now the new shopping center.

Okay.

Um there's a lot of work to do, and there's water to manage at the same time, and then we have pretty confined spaces, and we need to account for those, even though we call them large projects, it's not the size of the airport, and it's not the size of opportunity ponds.

So we have to be conscientious with not only the constrictions on the work sites, but the intensity of traffic that we place on beach roads themselves.

Okay, a follow-up, Commissioner Fisher.

Uh thank you, Chairman Morgan.

Thank you, Jason.

Appreciate all you do.

Look forward to uh working with you in the future and hopefully get our project moving at a little better pace than five to seven years.

So thank you.

Thanks, Commissioner.

Mr.

Bryson, I just have one quick question.

In regards to the roads that were you're saying that studies gonna be done for the condition of them, and then if they need to be repaired, you guys will come back and do that.

Are you gonna is that gonna be in the form of kind of a bond, or how what's the guarantee that the city has that you'll come back and and fix them, other than what we heard you tonight say we'll be there to fix them?

Quick handshake deal.

Uh no, thank you, Commissioner or Chair Morgan.

That's a good question.

Uh Lank Richfield does carry bonding on the project through financial assurance, though I don't believe the damage to the roads is explicitly covered in that.

Um I can't say much more beyond that we do have financial assurance for performance of the remedy work, but I imagine that we may memorialize like a memorandum of understanding or something to that effect that will account for this commitment.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Commissioner Callahan and Commissioner Shea.

Thank you, Chairman Morgan.

Thank you, fellas.

We appreciate you coming and all your hard work and moving this thing forward.

It's been a long haul, unfortunately.

When we were first doing this, it would have been done by now if we didn't run out of a place to put it when we ran in this roadblocks in a couple places.

But one of my questions, excuse me, is will it be the same vehicle hauling up from start to finish, or will they change trucks in the in the mine properties, or is that been determined yet?

Thank you for the question, Commissioner Callahan.

Um it's a good question.

Right now we anticipate nothing but street legal trucks being on asphalt roads.

We do think there is an absolute potential that if we're using the natural resource damage route behind Montana Resources Office, that we would stockpile it behind the polishing plant across from the Berkeley Pitt coffee shop there, and from there we'd work with Montana Resources to coordinate hall on maintenance days.

So I believe that's Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

And that could be done by the contractor of Montana Resources by Montana Resources themselves, utilizing funding or agreement between the two companies, or we could maintain the contract with an entity to do that.

If we go the other way through the security gate, we would also potentially stockpile in the area of McQueen, meterville, the open area within the mine, and from there we could could pick that up with larger fixed axle trucks and go up the 7% grade to the B-wine waste repository.

So there's a strong likelihood of stockpiling on the mine property if they allow it.

Follow up, Commissioner Callahan.

The next question is the repository.

I remember back when they did look at that originally, we were concerned that it couldn't handle the volume that uh that's where we take all of our uh materials that we use in town.

Anything that gets dug on the hill has to go up there.

And we were concerned it would overfill too fast.

Now you've figured out that this will hold more volume.

Will this shorten the life of Beauty Silver Bowl's repository for us to use, or where are we at there?

Mr.

Bryson.

Commissioner Callahan, Chair Morgan, another good question, and and you're correct in in what we were stating early in the process.

Under that 2015 operation maintenance plan, it does say there is only capacity for 700,000 cubic yards, and a portion of that capacity has been consumed with historic operations.

Uh that's one of the reasons that you saw that little Shields Avenue repository that we evaluated too to make perhaps take some of that excess capacity to unburden the view wine waste repository.

Since that time we've performed additional evaluation, and actually we just completed a geotechnical investigation of the mine waste repository, and we have pretty high confidence that we can not expand the repository horizontally but rather vertically, but still under the elevation of the Granite Mountain Memorial to house approximately 1.4 million cubic yards of waste.

Um this large project that is currently 1.00 cubic yards of material, which includes black states projects, our projects, and the gray dirt that we've committed to remove, will consume the majority of that volume.

But in the meantime, we'll be uh evaluating the need for additional repository locations to continue our our day-to-day operations now and throughout the program implementation of the residential metals abatement program.

Follow up, Commissioner Callahan.

Thank you, Chairman Moore.

One more question.

Uh that repository.

I remember Mr.

Hasser telling us that they were going to bench it as they built it.

Is that possibly going to have to change now where it will be just one level?

Um if you need more volume, you're probably gonna eliminate the benches.

Is that possibly what's gonna happen?

Thanks for the question, Commissioner Chair Morgan.

Right now it is currently constructed in two benches.

We just refer to it as the upper bench and the lower bench, and that's a component of that 2015 design.

We anticipate when we're prepared and have approval to do it that we'll go in and prepare the site to effectively still maintain two benches, but we're gonna bring that lower bench up with the fill and that upper bench right now, which is about 30 feet or so below the granite mountain memorial, will also go up at that time.

So what we're gonna end up with is effectively a plateau with positive drainage that will be reclaimed.

One more please let me go to Commissioner Shea and I'll come back to you.

Commissioner Shea.

You okay?

Commissioner Callahan.

Next question is the plans were as it benched, they were going to reclaim the benches.

So will that put a delay on that, possibly, where that property won't get reclaimed till who knows when Commissioner Callahan, Chair Morgan, I would suspect that we will postpone reclamation until we've got all of the waste from the corridor projects in there and then reclaim the slopes, and those slopes will be at approximately three to one, and we'll revegetate those with topsoil and grasses to go up.

I think if we were to try to do that as we went, we'd run the risk of waste going over the top of that soil as we're replacing lifts, spreading it and compacting it.

So I anticipate, but I am not absolutely confident that we'll reclaim it after we get to design grade.

Thank you.

Commissioner Shea.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you, Josh, for being here.

Um I would just like to um give you an opportunity to address Mr.

Barrett.

Um what he he to asked questions about the opportunity ponds.

If you could just give us a brief explanation about about what took that site off the table.

Mr.

Bryson.

Chair Morgan, Commissioner Shea.

Uh good question, and thank you for the opportunity.

Uh Evan, uh, is always a good conversation.

I appreciate him.

Um there's certain criteria that were within EPA's guidance letter that explicitly said that distance was one of the deciding factors, one of the criteria that would be evaluated of all the locations that we evaluated.

Opportunity ponds is by far the furthest from the site.

So that was initially one of the red flags that uh suggested that it may not be a preferred alternative.

Mr.

Barrett mentioned the use of the railroads.

Um that presumes that we'd be allowed to use the railroads.

Um, both BN and UP are settling defendants in the view priority soils operable unit.

And they don't necessarily want it Lancaridge Fields waste on their rail.

Uh we'd also have to transition train assemblies out at the TIFID, where we'd have to go from a more modern train, perhaps UP or BNSF, to a raris rail, which has limitations for both speed and integrity of the line.

Follow-up, Commissioner Shea?

No.

Any other questions from the commissioners?

Commissioner O'Leary.

Thank you, Chair Morgan.

Thank you, Mr.

Bryson, for being here.

Uh follow-on on the on the railroad question.

I I assume that that same uh logic follows for why we wouldn't be considering rail from the George Street area over onto the mine property, um, or if you could just speak to why that or if the if that was considered as an option to keep the the waste off the streets.

Mr.

Bryson.

Thank you.

Uh Eric may assist me on this one.

But we evaluated multiple transport options that included both rail, conversion of rail to haul roads, use of conveyors and use of slurry lines in addition to use of street legal trucks to transport this waste.

Um Ken mentioned some of the the potential hang-ups of utilizing private property or private utilities to transport our waste that aren't uh associated with the BIPSU consent decree.

Um there's also space limitations at that middle rail yard where we would have to construct a spur, which we did look at uh into the North Side Tailings Project site, and it would have been limited to approximately eight to ten cars.

And again, we did that uh prior to even engaging with the rail.

Um as far as conversion of the rail line to a haul road, we evaluated that, and there's active use of that rail to haul oil products to picklar oil, which uh supports the mine.

Um conveyors, we took a very detailed look at it on on multiple routes and multiple alternatives, and I think the best way to summarize it is sometimes the simplest answer, maybe the best answer, and that it was determined unnecessarily complex and didn't necessarily present a less risk adverse option than use of haul trucks.

Slurry line was contingent upon use of the Berkeley pit, which we eliminated.

So slurry went away also.

And I don't know if I missed any middle yard.

Members of the council, Chairman Morgan.

Um the capacity of the middle yard for the railroads was a major issue that was brought up by the rails at the time of discussions with Chief Executive and myself and the railroads is they they couldn't pencil out.

They couldn't get enough cars in there to make it economically viable for them and the complications that Josh makes.

So they there's they could only stack up so many cars there, and they weren't interested in that type of project for the limited capacity that they had.

Follow-up, Commissioner O'Leary.

Thank you, Chair Morgan.

Thanks for that answer.

I guess then the subsequent question would be about the the trucks that would be used for for this uh are how many trucks are we talking per day and and kind of what does that look like for the community?

What should they expect for uh traffic?

Thank you for the question, Commissioner O'Leary.

Uh Chair Morgan, uh we anticipate approximately um 1500 cubic yards of material to be moved per day, uh about 20 cubic yards per truck.

So that is up to 300 trips per day.

Uh to put that into context, there are 17,000 vehicles that pass by the Civic Center intersection with Harrison Avenue every day, so approximately two percent traffic increase at certain intersections.

So, you know, if you're on your way driving to work or maybe we're not hauling during your commute, but maybe some other time you may see a truck or two on the road.

But they're gonna be spread out pretty good.

We think it will take about four minutes to load each truck prior to it reaching the road, and those trucks will then proceed on the haul out.

So any other questions?

Commissioner Callahan.

Thanks.

I guess I got one question.

I'm kind of putting the cart before the horse here.

But when we're we're hauling the the the dirty dirt out, will we be hauling clean dirt in at the same time from other areas?

Is that kind of the process?

Are we hauling all the dirty dirt out first?

And then going back and starting the cap materials after, or will that work side by side?

Mr.

Bryson.

Chair Morgan, Commissioner Callahan.

Uh, another good question.

We are working with our our contractors now to kind of determine what our construction execution plan will be and how that occur.

What we anticipate to occur in summer and fall of this year is primarily excavation activities of the material that's dry above the groundwater and remove that off site, and then we'll begin deeper excavation during implementation of our dewatering system.

As soon as we get enough room at depth at excavation grade, then we'll begin constructing structures such as diversion structures, and then we'll begin to backfill.

So I think there will be a period of time during the construction process where it's only excavation.

But once we have enough room to begin backhaul and reconstruction of the sites, then we will.

But I don't anticipate it to be in this calendar year.

Follow up, Commissioner Callahan.

One more question.

Where's all the clean dirt coming from?

Mr.

Bryson.

Chair Morgan, uh, Commissioner Callahan.

We are developing clean fill material at what we call the Heel Hand borrow area, which is out by the uh drive-in theater.

Um we've currently stocked about about 100,000 cubic yards of clean material that still needs to be confirmed by the EPA.

And we intend to move over to the opportunity ponds, what we call the South Barrow area to develop some what we call Criteria C material for backfill.

Um, and we'll continue to do that as you need throughout the project.

But we anticipate being well ahead of our demand for backfill uh what we are now, and we'll continue to do so.

Okay.

Uh Commissioner O'Neill.

Thank you, Chairman Morgan.

Thank you, Josh, for being here.

Um question on the uh time where are we at on our time frame?

As far as from today to we're gonna be digging some dirt in June of 26.

I just want to clarify that my head again.

Thank you.

Mr.

Bryson.

Chair Morgan, Commissioner O'Neill, uh good question.

Um my goal is to mobilize to the construction site on August 1st and begin active excavation on August 15th.

Um I think it's valuable to point out that we just completed the Grove Gulch construction project in addition to the Lexington Wetlands project south of the interstate.

Other activities occurring this year will include the phase two demolition work at butte reduction works, and we'll be installing the Casey Street Water Line beginning late May or early June in advance of beginning digging's east.

So we'll remain active in the community.

Hopefully starting next week.

Any other questions?

Commissioner Fisher.

Thank you, Chairman Martin.

Josh, I'd just like to thank you for being here.

It's a breath of fresh air to people like me to see something starting to move forward with a better commitment than we've had in the past.

And it appears that you've done your due diligence in studying everything.

You've got your hands full dealing with the EPA.

I realize that.

I just hope that everything falls together the way it is.

And um, just to point a clarification, I agree with trucking the material.

I'm just not certain we're on the right route.

So I thank you for being here.

Appreciate your service.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Commissioner Callahan.

Yeah, that's turn your mic on.

Thank you.

Uh so we did uh, you know, you they spent all that money for the the design of the park and all that.

So where are we at there?

Will that company come in?

Or are we gonna use that company that designed it to come in and do that?

And how far out do you think that possibly is?

Mr.

Bryson.

Thank you for the question, Commissioner.

Um, land design incorporated, they're still on the project team uh helping with finalize the design in Diggings East now.

Um they've been integrated all in the design of Northside Tailings, Buffalo Gulch, and beauty reduction works in addition to the finished project that we have, and I encourage everybody to go visit at Lex and Weltlands to see what the site's gonna look like.

Uh right now we're kind of transitioning to the final design team.

We're gonna turn that over to a contractor to implement the work.

So the designer, land design incorporated won't necessarily construct the work, but they'll most likely be engaged as a member of the construction oversight team to oversee the work in addition to my team.

So uh everything that you've seen rendered is effectively designed at Diggings East.

It's been constructed at Lexian Wetlands, and we have designs for the other side as well.

So the park itself won't be constructed until after the entire site is backfilled and reconstructed until uh like you kind of mentioned.

So that'll be later in the process for digging's east.

Um for example, if Diggins East is a four-year project, I anticipate you know that work to occur in year four.

Uh kind of putting the icing on a cake, if you will.

Thank you.

We appreciate all your work, and we all know how hard you guys have worked on this for everybody says it's been a long time, and nobody nobody appreciates more than I do on how much work you guys do put into this stuff.

And I believe your heart's in it, even though you guys get beat up at every meeting you go to.

I I do appreciate you guys.

I see how much work you do and your heart's in it, even though some people don't believe so.

I do think so when I see that, but thanks.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Okay.

Any other questions?

All right.

Seeing none, thank you, Mr.

Bryson, for the presentation.

Thank you.

Next on the agenda is number three, communication 2026-26.

Lisa Carey, emergency management director, requesting council commissioners' permission to schedule the presentation on January 28th, 2026 on activities related to recent emergency operations center EOC activations.

Ms.

Carey.

Oh, can you on the No, there you go.

Here it goes.

All right.

Um Chairman Morgan, Council Commissioners, thank you very much for allowing me to speak tonight.

And thank you, Chief Executive Gallagher, for inviting me to speak about this topic.

Um I am Lisa Carey from the Office of Emergency Management.

I have quite a few slides, but I'm going to try to go through them quickly.

Okay.

We push the OK in the middle to move forward.

Nope.

Point over here and push OK.

Okay.

All right.

I thought I'd start with um what is the emergency operations center, commonly for referred to as EOC.

It is a central coordination point for multi-departments or multi-agency incidents.

I say point on this slide.

Okay, thank you.

Oh wow.

All right.

So it is a central coordination point or location.

And the reason why I use point in here is because it doesn't necessarily have to be a physical facility for us to all meet.

You could use virtual options such as WebEOC or even teams to coordinate and gather all the information regarding an incident.

But Butte is very fortunate to have an emergency operations center that's a facility and one that's used daily.

So we don't really have to dust off the cobwebs when we want to activate it.

A lot of people say, well, how are we going to activate our EOC?

Well, we use it every day, you know, from different standpoints.

So the EOC also supports incident command.

It does not replace on-scene operations.

We don't tell the police what to do or the fire how to do their job.

Uh we support them.

And the EOC just scales, usually constantly monitoring and then base to um based on the incident complexity, um, how activated we become.

What the EOC provides is a common operating picture for decision makers, which reduces duplication of efforts, it improves speed and accuracy of decision making, and it also provides consistent, accurate public information.

Um this, I decided just to Google common reasons to activate the EOC, and I found it pretty interesting that I just kind of copied and pasted what it brought up.

Severe weather, we just had, wildfires we had last year, infrastructure utility failures, public health, which would be COVID, um, hazardous materials, basically any incident that impacts multiple agencies, departments or the broader community, or incidents that exceed routine departmental capabilities, such as when the 911 Center gets overrun.

Um the do not consume water incident, and I will say that the EOC, that's like a 30,000-foot, you know, uh explanation of what it is.

It's many things, but just to give you an idea what we've been doing there during these incidents.

So, what initially happened?

Around 4 p.m., public works director Neary received notification that Montana resources had a cross connection that potentially contaminated the municipal water supply.

Director Neary notified water plant superintendent Jim Keenan and directed staff to become begin flushing and testing the water system.

Superintendent Keenan notified Montana DEQ, resulting in the issuance of a do not consume order.

Director Neary notified Chief Executive Gallagher and coordinated with public information officer Jason Parrish to release information to the public.

Director Neary deployed staff to Helena to obtain an additional 125 water sampling kits.

And around 4 30 p.m., PIO issued a press release, posted information to the Buttsaboat Butte Silverbow website and notified emergency management.

So what happened next?

Montana Department, Public Health and Human Services, notified the Butte Robo Health Department that a do-not-consume owner had been issued, and they were required to notify all of the affected businesses.

The health officer activated the communications plan for the health department and recalled staff to organize the response and notified emergency management.

The sheriff advised emergency management that 911 dispatch was overwhelmed by the public information calls and requested a public hotline be established.

The EOC-based hotline operations expanded from three operators on day one to a total of ten lines on day two in response to the high call volume.

The chief executive directed distribution of bottled water.

However, local supplies were nearly depleted due to public demand.

The EOC coordinated with the state DES and partner agencies to secure additional bottled water until the local suppliers could meet demand.

The finance and budget office established a separate account to track all the incident related expenses, including staff overtime.

The impacted area.

So to expedite notification, the initial impacted area was defined very broadly to include all areas south of Front Street, and this was out of an abundance of caution.

Following additional assessments, the impacted area was refined to south of Farrell Street, west of Continental Avenue, north of Ottawa, east of Farragut and Howard Streets, which is the area outlined on that map.

And during the incident, it narrowed even more to eventually include only the at-risk populations, which included these older adults, immunocompromised children, pregnant people.

The bottled water distribution operation followed distribution plan established during COVID.

We set up a drive-through distribution site at the Civic Center Annex, delivered water to those impacted who are unable to pick up themselves, staffed by employees nearly in every department, and more than 4,000 cases of water were distributed over the course of the incident.

The hotline operations, like I said, quickly expanded from it was one to ten phones.

It developed and followed a frequently asked question script for hotline operators to follow.

There was also a Google map created that could query addresses for callers who were trying to determine if their address was in the impacted area.

And this was staffed by employees across many departments, but primarily it was health department and emergency management employees on the hotline.

During the hotline uh operations, there were over 2300 calls received.

The first day, the hotline wasn't at probably going until close to 8 p.m., maybe a little after.

And we were open, we were running it from around then till about midnight, and there was 220 calls received.

The next day, you can see that it was ramping up.

And then you see a significant drop on the 16th and 17th.

Well, that was the weekend.

On the 17th of August, that was a Sunday, and it was open for two hours, and we received 94 calls during that time.

On the 18th, you see a lower number, but that was the day that the order was downgraded to an advisory.

People started to get a little more information and feeling a little more comfortable.

And the line, it's modular, so it starts small, gets bigger as we need it, and then it gets small again as we move on.

And also throughout the incident, Public Works was continuing flushing the water system.

They continued testing the water and monitoring the results, and they maintained constant communication with DEQ to expedite the retraction and the do-not-consume order.

Meanwhile, Montana Resources maintained constant communication with Butte Silver Bow and the public.

They took full responsibility for the cross connection between the processed water they use for milling and the municipal water supply.

They set up their own water distribution site on Shields Avenue, providing free bottled water to the public.

So that was beyond the four over $4,000, 4,000 cases that Butte Silver Bow shared.

They provided a place on the MR website for businesses to file a claim for losses and a phone number for those without internet access.

And they installed cross-connection prevention equipment on their property to prevent possible future blackfall backflow to the municipal water system.

Public messaging.

So there was a joint information center, a JIC established at the EOC.

The agencies represented there were public works, the chief executive's office, water utility division, parks and rec, emergency management, safety, and ADA, public health, PIO, and law enforcement.

As new information was received, messages were coordinated through the JIC and distributed by the PIO to all local media outlets.

Posted on the Butzerbow website and social media channels.

Press conferences were scheduled and broadcast from the courthouse returned to provide updates and answer questions.

Eight Everbridge notifications were issued during the incident using the same coordinated messaging.

The bottom picture is a picture of an Everbridge message, and the other one is a letter that JP wrote and distributed it, distributed to all of the media channels, social media and email.

Just a little bit more about the emergency notification system.

Notifications are sent to impacted areas by drawing polygons on maps.

Between August 13th and August 25th, 10 notifications were sent.

Eight of the notifications were related to the do not consume order, and two were for a law enforcement tactical operation for public safety.

If you notice those dots on the map, I will mention those in the next slide, what they are.

Also the most impactful, the most the negative feedback we got was for the law enforcement because it's too early in the morning.

People didn't like to be woken up, so we had to explain to them that it was a public safety thing.

The water notifications didn't seem to upset people as badly.

So on Everbridge, one thing really nice about the Everbridge system is that they preload a lot of contacts into the system.

It's not where we have to recruit people to register.

It's really hard to get people to register until there's a problem.

That's when people want to be signing up.

And so they have preloaded almost over 21,000 people in there.

The reason why we can't rely on that information 100% is because of all that's going to be a telephone call to people, and they can't decide how to receive that notification.

We also don't know if it's their most current information or if they've moved out of the area.

So we'd like to encourage people to register themselves.

They can let us know how they want to receive their notification.

They can make sure that we have their current contact information, and they can also tie it to a location, a geographic location like their home, their daycare, where they work, and so where the incident affects them, they will know because we do that polygon on the map.

The black dots up there are the what's already preloaded, that residential connection, and the red dots are the ones who have registered.

So those red dots on that other polygon, those were people who registered who were in that most refined notification area.

And during this event, one magical thing, and it was probably because it was such a long duration event, there was over 700 new registrations during that event.

Those that have been published to the member portal.

And you can just by clicking, if you go to the member portal, you can click notifications up in that corner.

And if you want to find more information or get a link to go to this without having to type out that long, you can go to ReadyButmt.gov, and that first link at the top, sign up for emergency alerts will take you there.

So now we'll go on to the wind event, which was December 17th.

So we're going to start at December 16th.

The National Weather Service issued a storm warning describing a historic wind event with damaging winds expected the following day.

This was actually elevated warning because they started with a watch and then all of a sudden they increased it to a elevated it to a warning.

The watch means that you know it has all the ingredients, and so it could be coming.

The warning means it is coming, it's imminent.

Emergency management notified departments, elected officials, and partner agencies via email and phone calls.

And I also noticed when I went onto Facebook, I noticed I started putting out preparedness messaging on the 15th regarding damaging winds that initiate that were maybe coming, which tells me that since I wasn't notifying all of Butte Silver Bow about it, uh I probably wasn't thinking it was going to be that big of a deal.

And when we got the elevated alerts coming at me, I realized it was a bigger deal, but I still don't think we all expected what we got.

On December 17th, the storm began around 8 a.m.

Early reports indicated widespread power outages and damage.

The EOC activated departments notified to report to the EOC.

The emergency alert advising emergency travel only was issued via Everbridge.

Decision was made to open an emergency shelter at the Butte Civic Center, and 911 dispatch was overwhelmed with incoming calls.

The picture there is the alert that we sent out, and we only sent out one during this event.

Departments that reported to the EOC was the chief executive, emergency management, public works, public health, public transit, animal services, public information officer, safety and ADA, St.

James Hospital, fire and law enforcement.

At the emergency operations center, we monitored conditions via radio traffic, internet sources, and partner outreach.

We coordinated information and resources as needed.

As new information was received, coordinated messaging was developed via JEC and distributed by the PIO to local media outlets, the Buttes of Road website and social media.

Hotline activation discussed to support 911 dispatch, but a hotline was not activated due to potential life safety impacts.

The fire department was able to establish an incident command post at the station to support dispatch, and 9-1-1 dispatch called in additional staff.

The fire department also called in additional staff, and so they had a total of like 19 working, when normally they have like six to eight.

Emergency cell charge, the emergency shelter operated by the Civic Center and Health Department staff.

They had device charging stations provided for impacted residents, and Red Cross was on standby.

Action Inc.

decided not to do their normal lunch program, going to the different places around town and requested relocation of their program to the emergency shelter, which we did.

The Butte School District reached out to JP during a break in the storm to discuss conditions and made the decision to close schools.

St.

James Hospital successfully coordinated a patient transfer during a period when life flight was unavailable.

And the EOC remained active throughout the day in anticipation of a second round of severe weather, which we thought was coming around three, but it did not materialize.

Some of the coordinating agencies that were that we were in contact with, however, they were not in the room with us, was National Weather Service, American Red Cross.

Trying to get to the sheep.

Northwestern Energy, Action Inc., the Butte Rescue Mission, Burt Mooney Airport, the Montana Department of Transportation, Highway Patrol, Montana State EOC, DES, the DES departments from Beaverhead County and Jefferson County, government buildings, and that's about it, if I can remember them.

Oops, oops, what's happening?

All right.

So during the storm, they average they on the news reported the gusts around the area.

And you see around 1 p.m.

Butte came in at around 63 miles per hour.

But we did have a peak gust of 74 miles per hour around 1.43 a.m.

and that gust came in at the Burt Mooney Airport.

And 74 miles an hour is actually the wind force of a category one hurricane.

Lessons observed.

But Silverbo Roads Department cleared down trees from roadways.

Staffing was adequate.

Chainsaw availability was limited, and the fire department did note that the fire trucks do carry chainsaws.

Public works identified a need for additional radios as communication was challenging a high number of staff on shift simultaneously.

Widespread power outages occurred requiring the use of backup generator power.

Several Butte Silverbow facilities lacked generators, including the city shops, the health department, and the Don People Senior Complex.

The roads department was very prepared for this.

They did a lot of preparing the day before, but they were surprised when the power went out at the shops.

Not only did they not have lights, they could not open the garage doors, and so it was difficult to get to their equipment.

Well, they could open the doors, but it took some time.

It slowed the response a bit.

Plus, we have the fuel pumps out there, and uh government buildings had prepared the day before.

They have a portable generator, so they were ready to attach the generator if the outage continued long enough, but we all talked about making sure all of our equipment was gassed up on the 16th prior to the event.

Gaps in basic preparedness equipment were identified, including items such as flashlights.

The health department transferred vaccine supplies to storage chest refrigerators.

If the emergency had exceeded 72 hours, vaccines would have been relocated to St.

James Hospital to maintain viability.

The shelter remained open until 10 p.m.

Red Cross was on standby, we had cots and blankets available, but no overnight sheltering was needed.

Dispatch made plans to schedule a third dispatcher in advance of future forecasted events, and there were no reported injuries to staff or the general public during this incident.

And where we get this information is after these incidents, we have after action reports, a hot wash, and we discuss the things and make note.

So here are some pictures of the damage Butte received during the wind event.

Lots of signs were damaged.

One of the primary reasons that the trees uh were impacted as much as they were, is because the ground was not frozen, and these pine trees have shallow roots.

Had the ground been pro frozen at the time of these wind gusts, we wouldn't have seen as many impacts.

The middle picture there is Montana Tech, two different trees down.

And then more tree to car impacts.

Um I believe I know I heard that there was um two houses damaged severely.

I don't know how many they actually came out, but not as many as we probably could have had.

We were pretty fortunate there.

On this picture, that first picture, it looks like that tree fell over and probably hit the neighbor's house.

But the second picture is actually the same house, and the tree is in the street.

Um luckily it was on the corner there.

More damage to buildings.

A lot of um of these loose items.

More trees, trampoline.

That tree was split in half, playground equipment.

Um and it is, you know, you know, good to note that um it's important to have property insurance because the government doesn't come in and help the property owners.

The only tree move removal that was done on the properties was for emergent situations where it was blocking traffic or you know, other situations where you know it had to be moved.

Um so the differences and similarities between the incidents, uh the incident duration.

The first one was over ten days, and the second one was less than a day.

Severe weather event was forecasted, allowing for advanced preparation.

The EOC activated for both incidents earlier for the wind event.

Uh the Butte Civic Center was utilized for operations during both incidents, and public work served as a lead agency for both incidents, and both incidents were managed effectively through coordination, communication, and teamwork.

Uh we got a lot of positive feedback, a little bit of negative feedback always, but we got a lot of positive feedback.

That's everything.

If anyone has any questions, thank you, Miss Carey.

Uh that report was very informative and it does recap a lot of things that happened in this community, and it's good to always have kind of that shakedown event of what we learned, you know, for the next one as well.

And I I just want to thank you and your team for everything that you did on both of them because it it was a good outreach to the community, and I think you guys did a great job doing that, and we learned a lot.

One thing that you forgot to mention on that slideshow was the when you first stood up the notification system, the phone number was coming from I believe Red Lodge.

And then as people, you know, communicated with you, you've got that turned around rather quickly to make it more of a Butte number so people knew exactly where it was coming from.

So thank you for doing that.

I know that did help a lot of the constituents that called me saying why am I getting a phone number or phone call from Red Lodge when I'm in Butte, Montana.

So thank you.

Um, Commissioner Morgan.

Um I did get a lot of feedback, people saying, why is Red Lodge calling me?

And I say, Red Lodge is not calling, that's an Everbridge number where I wasn't taking the time to tie it together.

And I did receive an email from Commissioner Morgan who stated in plain English, which I need.

Uh he says, is there any way we can change that number and make it a butte number?

And I went, Oh, that never occurred to me without that email.

I don't know why.

And so I said, I'm gonna find out.

So I transferred that phone number to a number in my office.

And now, as soon as an ever bridge notification goes out, that phone rings off the hook because it's going out to that 22,000 people in this notification.

Some of these people have moved out of the area, so I will receive some phone phone calls or phone messages, voicemail messages left saying that they've moved to Florida.

And I have an outgoing voicemail message saying if you're calling because of the Everbridge notification and you'd like to be removed, please leave your name and your phone number and we will remove you because it is an opt-out system if they call.

Thank you.

Is there any other uh comments?

Commissioner Thatcher.

Thank you, Chairman Morgan.

Just a quick comment.

Um I was gonna call you Lisa, but Miss Carey.

And I think that um not only the Beats of World Council of Commissioners, but uh every citizen in our community should um appreciate the work and the passion that you have for the position you hold.

And so I just want to say thank you.

I appreciate the second time today I got to watch this presentation, and so um I just appreciate the heart and the desire that you put in to making sure that things run smoothly for everybody in our community.

So thank you.

Thank you very much, Commissioner Thatcher.

Uh Commissioner Callahan.

Thank you, Chairman Morgan.

I also want to thank you, and what an outstanding asset to our community you are.

Uh your work right there just shows your dedication and how hard you work at that.

I mean, what a what a presentation and how you organized everything and uh thank you.

My next question is though, uh Mr.

Neri came to us I don't know, three months ago when we went to this system, and he said about 70 percent of the people were on our he felt about 70 percent of the people were on our system, and you said people ought to sign up.

What do we do to notify these people to sign up to get on the system?

Oh, that's a different system.

Chief Executive Gallagher.

Sorry, Commissioner Callan.

I just wanted to let you know that's a different system.

That was one that the public works is on to notify people through public works uh system.

I can't remember what that name is, but Everbridge is a different system.

Okay, Commissioner Callahan.

So this system, does this system get a hold of everybody in our county, or what's our percentage there?

And what do we what how do people find out how are the importance of signing up for this?

Ms.

Carey.

Thank you.

Uh Commissioner Callahan, Chairman Morgan.

Uh we do a lot of public outreach.

And a lot of times during incidents when we do do notifications, do do notifications.

Um like during the water incident, I did go on social media immediately following one of the notifications.

It was nice too because people were starting to expect the notifications.

They're wondering why am I not getting them, you know, how you know the reasons.

So I went on social media and I and I put up a posting.

I released a notification this time.

Did you receive the message?

And so then I got about I don't know, 40 to 60 responses, and I sat down on each of the responses going through, did work through with each one why they did receive it, if we could fix it, what they needed to do.

Uh most of the time, the reason they did not receive the notification is because they had not registered for the system.

So I worked with them to get them registered.

Sometimes they didn't receive the notification because we were drawing polygons on maps, and they weren't in that section of town where we sent the notification.

Another reason they may not get it, um I was gonna say if you uh so the call.

I do appreciate that we have a butte number in there now, but sometimes the buttonsilverbow number turns up as spam.

So if you've elected to receive a phone call and you've also turned on you've turned on block spam calls, there's a chance that it might be blocking the call unless we do have a uh have a lot of options actually with the system.

This is a very robust system.

Um and these were standard alerts that we sent out.

We also can upgrade, we can elevate the level um of the alert to um more of a threat and an imitant imitate threat to life, or this system we can use to utilize the federal IPAUS alert system, the integrated public alert and warning system, and this will push it through the cell phone towers.

We also have the ability to do the emergency alert system, and that's that roll across on the bottom of your TV screen.

Uh but to get to that to really work, um, you would have to be near a cell tower.

So even though we do have that ability to send out the IPOS message, it is still better to register.

It's always best to register so that you can put in your most current information.

You can say how you want to receive the messages, um, and you can tie it to your addresses.

Um and then the one more point, but I'll have to come back to that one.

But anyway, the most important thing is to get people to register.

And we do have quite a few, like I showed you with all those dots.

And I also, you know, when I asked people if they received the message, a lot of people said they did receive the message.

So it's just um public outreach primarily.

So anybody that wants to register needs to just contact you and you can explain what to do.

You can call my office.

Um you can also visit uh ready butte mt.gov.

That's an easy way to get to um our website.

And the first link on there is sign up for emergency alerts.

You can get all the information.

My phone number's on there if you want to call if you need any help.

Um we can work with you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Are there any other comments?

Uh Commissioner O'Leary.

Thank you, Chair Morgan.

Uh, thank you for the presentation.

That was great rundown on the events that we've had.

Uh, just uh one clarification, you mentioned the IPAWS system, and I was wondering is that the same as the wireless emergency alert system?

There they're the same thing that you know when we get amber alerts and whatnot.

Yes, and I guess then the question is did we use that uh functionality during the during the water uh incident or was did we did that not get elevated to that level, or how exactly do we make that decision uh to use that or not?

Commissioner O'Leary, uh Chairman Morgan.

Uh we did not use IPAS for that incident.

Um that is saved for uh public safety, life threatening situations.

And so we did not utilize the IPOS system in either of those um emergencies.

Uh we did the standard notification we broadcast to, we we sent the information to all of the media outlets.

We went on social media.

Um no, it didn't get elevated, and the way that it gets elevated is um emergency management, uh law enforcement, and fire meet to determine.

And it's a pretty um seamless process when we do that, and so we can go ahead and and um get that information out quickly if we choose to, but we just haven't elevated it to that point yet because we didn't feel the need.

Okay.

Any other comments?

All right, well, seeing none, thank you for the presentation.

Thank you very much.

Uh Commissioner Callahan, I just want to say also um I appreciate the compliments, that's very nice.

But Butte Silverbow has a remarkable team, and we all work together very well.

Um so I appreciate everyone who works here.

Um I have a very small department, and when things go down, people all chip in and we work together.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Next item on on the agenda, communication 26-24, Nathan Bowman, 18 North Clark Street, View Montana requesting council commissioners' permission to schedule the presentation on January 28th, 26 regarding AI-powered surveillance cameras, specifically the Flock safety camera systems that have been widely deployed in other communities.

Mr.

Bowman.

Thank you, uh Chairman Morgan and to the council members and Miss Davies, of course, for helping set all this up.

And also to Miss Gary.

Um but you missed one impact in your presentation, which was my buddy's chicken coop.

Which if you'd driven through our neighborhood about noon after the wind was gone, you'd seen four or five of us out chasing chickens trying to round them all up.

So let me get the tech going.

And and also I'd like to say thank you to the two gentlemen that were here uh commenting from the public.

I didn't catch y'all's names.

Um I'd like to clarify something, two points very quickly before we get started.

Number one, um, this is technology that is not currently proposed for butte.

Um I'm trying to get out in front of it.

And number two, I was pleasantly surprised to see other folks showing up.

So I I hope that you'll see that as the uh the positive encouragement that I take it as.

So what would I like to talk about very briefly?

I promise we'll keep it short, but you may have heard some folks talking about AI-powered surveillance cameras.

Specifically, I'm the big player in the market is flock, and so we'll probably use that term interchangeably, flock and AI surveillance cameras.

What I'd like to do very briefly is to give an overview of what actually they are.

Talk about some of the benefits, the pros, and also talk about some of the concerns and the difficulties that might not be as obvious and that may that are certainly not going to come out in the marketing for when we get that high-pressure sales call that is coming, because we are a perfect market for this type of targeting.

So AI surveillance cameras, flock cameras, the solar-powered security cameras that are directly tied into AI data farms.

The recording 24-7.

And if you say recording 24-7, that sounds pretty normal.

Most cancer surveillance cameras and security cameras do.

But they're doing more than record.

They're also collecting data about license plate, make and model your car.

Do you have any dings on your car?

Do you have a roof rack?

Who's driving that car?

What bumper stickers do they have?

What do those bumper stickers say about the person driving that car?

Do you think they might be connected to anybody else that has similar bumper stickers on their car?

It's a massive amount of data that's being collected.

Huge amounts of data.

And the newest cameras are also collecting data about pedestrians, folks walking by as well, facial recognition.

It's a lot of tracking.

Again, as I said, the big player is Flock.

At this point, there are 90,000 plus of these cameras in the country already.

Collecting 20 billion trips per month.

That's almost a quarter of a trillion trips per year.

Let's talk a little bit about some of the issues.

Again, these gentlemen here sound like they know an awful lot more than I do about this.

So we'll try to keep this at a high level.

But there are security concerns that are cybersecurity concerns.

And then there are some other concerns.

And the reason I'm coming to the council tonight, uh, and the request that I'd like to make of the council is that in my letter requesting uh a chance to present, I included some questions that I'd like to request the council submit to the IT departments and with the legal departments, try to get their input ahead of time on some of these concerns, so that when this technology, if this technology is presented to the council or is proposed for Butte, we've got this information ahead of time, and we can have an open and honest conversation about what we want in our community.

So security concerns, again, they talked a little bit about them, they picked some other examples, um, but I like it.

So the easiest one is that these cameras, if they're installed incorrectly, or if they're installed lazily, they're just open.

It's pretty easy to go find live feeds of these cameras, looking at wherever you want.

And not only that, you can see the data that's exposed and collected as part of them.

Even if they are secured, they got the password on them.

Um there was an audit that came out in a couple weeks ago, actually, from an independent uh security researcher published on 404 Media that was uh showing that you could get into them relatively quickly in under 30 seconds, and then have full access to the systems.

And uh the the I believe the second commander used the example of Evanston, Indiana, uh no, I'm sorry, Evanston, Illinois.

Uh, I picked the other example of Eugene, Oregon, another in uh city that installed these, decided they wanted to discontinue the contract, and then the company refused to turn them off.

And so it was only when they had city employees going around with trash bags, hanging them over the cameras, that they finally removed them.

Because you don't buy these cameras, you lease them from Flock.

And when you lease them, you're not getting just your data.

That data is going to every other agency or institution or municipality that's using Flock as well.

So not only is our data being tracked here, it's being shared everywhere else.

There's also accuracy issues.

Uh hands up if you all have heard of AI hallucinations.

Actually, let me make that an easier question.

Hands up if you've ever had technology go bad on you.

Yeah.

So in Redmond, there was a fellow that was handcuffed in his driveway.

His son had a warrant, he did not, but because the computer had associated him with his son, he was arrested on his son's warrant.

A more dangerous situation was in Aurora, Colorado, where a mother was uh held up at gunpoint, picked up by the cops.

She's in her car, big SUV, four kids with her.

The computer said, oh no, no, that tag is actually from a stolen motorcycle in Montana.

That could have been real bad.

And this last point, it's not really an accuracy thing.

I didn't have a better place to put it.

But with a system as what's the right word?

Well, it comprehensive or detailed or massively problematic, as this, it's also open for abuse.

And so there were um it was Wichita, I think.

Oh, yeah, I got it up there.

Wichita.

Two different officers.

We don't want to think about it like this, but it happens.

Two different officers were arrested for stalking their ex-wives using this technology.

So these are fairly uh foreseeable, maybe problems with this technology.

But I have a uh a specific problem that I think is relevant directly for municipalities, and uh maybe interesting to y'all directly.

Last year, multiple courts decided that these are subject to FOIA requests.

We're collecting 20 billion data points a month.

Think about the staff time and resources it would take to service those requests.

How many people do we have to have go track this stuff down and deal with it if these are open to FOIA requests?

And so, uh, again, as some of the other commentators mentioned, um cities have been in the last year, cities have been discontinuing these contracts.

They listed a few, I've got some more up here, Austin, Denver, Flagstaff, Sedona, Cambridge, Santa Cruz, and Cambridge, Massachusetts, actually.

The cameras were installed without the municipality's permission or consent.

And then they were only removed after the city had some pretty strong words for them.

So on a personal note, uh I didn't have a good way to put this in a formal presentation, but this is wildly creepy, right?

Um it's also surveillance for surveillance sake.

There's no warrant, there's no specific request.

We're not installing these in high crime areas, we're not installing them to catch people running red lights or parking too long.

Those are specific targeted uses of appropriate technology.

This is let's capture everything, and then maybe we'll get lucky and see what we can find.

I can't necessarily speak for Montanans.

I'm from Kentucky originally.

Um I feel like I can speak for Americans and say that we value privacy and independence, and going out in public should not mean consenting to 24-7 tracking of your movements.

But there is something that can speak for Montana.

Anybody recognize this?

It was referenced earlier today.

It is.

It is indeed.

This is the uh Montana Constitution, Article 2, Section 10.

The right of individual privacy is essential to the well-being of a free society and shall not be infringed.

I promise y'all I'm not a conspiracy theorist.

I'm a scientist.

Um I don't want to sound crazy.

The only reason I'm bringing this up is because I saw the results of that independent security audit a few weeks ago.

And I thought, boy, we need to get in front of this, and we need to have this conversation now before it's pitched to us.

And honestly, this isn't how we want in beer.

This is not what we want to be.

So I'll come to the ask for the council, please.

Um, and I have hard copies of these questions if anyone would like them.

Again, there's they were what was submitted with my letter.

I've paraphrased them here briefly for space.

Um if anyone wants the original the uh the longer versions, I'm happy to provide those.

Number one, we have a pretty good IT program at BSB.

Um I assume, and I'm fairly confident saying this, they have a security audit process for new technology purchases.

Um the first question is would something like this be subject to that security audit process?

Can we get a cybersecurity analysis of this technology if it's proposed for butte?

Number two, what does that look like?

And does the council think that's sufficient?

Are we doing enough to check cybersecurity?

Can we get an assessment of who would handle the public records requests?

If we are flooded with FOIA requests, and this is actually something we can look up because FOIA requests are public, so we know in other municipalities of a similar size, how many are coming in, so we can get an assessment of how much would this cost to implement this, and do we have the staffing to handle that and who could do it in the first place?

How long do we keep this data?

Who do we share it with?

Who are we paying attention to?

Do we have policies in place or would we have to put policies in place?

Would we have to come up with this?

Data is increasingly a huge factor in the world that we live in.

So many things attract, and I've approached this from uh from a law enforcement perspective, but it's just as easy to think about this from a marketing perspective, right?

If they know I'm driving home from work, five o'clock on a Friday, I'm thinking to myself, boy, I don't know if I want to make supper or not, and they know, oh, he's gonna be driving right by McDonald's on his way home.

Two minutes before he gets there, let's send him a text that said, hey, why don't you try some McDonald's?

Here's a dollar off coupon.

This technology could just as easily be used for a lot of other things, not just uh not just law enforcement.

And then the last question is, and I'll leave it to the council's discretion.

I don't know if this is more appropriate for IT or for the legal department, but you know, what are our liabilities?

Do our insurance policies cover these surveillance system vendors?

Um do we assume any liability if the vendor system is breached and we leak that data?

Or if we act on faulty information provided by that, if we are the ones arresting some lady in an SUV on a bad license tag identification.

Or what happens if those cameras are exposed, somebody gets in and is using their that data to stalk someone, not necessarily an officer or public employee, just some random member of the public that's able to access these unsecured data.

Or they're able to commit crimes.

So those are the questions that I've asked the commission to put to the IT departments and the departments to whoever seems appropriate.

Um and then the second part of my ask is this, and I think this is probably something that the council is already.

I think these are probably things that y'all are already gonna do.

Um but I just to make the ask explicit.

Number one, if there is a pitch for uh these types of cameras or this types of technology, do-do-do.

Can we make sure that there's a security audit?

Either per the IT policy or just uh an external vendor.

Can we make sure that the technology we're installing is secure and appropriate?

Number two, and this is I think what we're doing here.

Can we require a public comment, period?

If we're gonna use public money to install technology in the public, monitoring the public, can we give us a chance to have the conversation?

I'm not necessarily saying we need to say no.

Kind of am.

But I think we need to have that conversation.

I think we need to get out in front of it.

And number three, can we get an actual cost accounting?

Do our insurance premiums go up?

Are the liabilities that we're not aware of?

What's the staffing requirements for the FOIA requests?

So thank you very much.

I know this is uh kind of a lot of information very quickly.

Um like I said, I'm not an expert in this.

This is something that I found that I think is really important to think about.

This is something that I think we need to get ahead of because technology is moving very, very quickly.

Um this is a new company.

Flock is.

And uh in a previous life, I was a startup tech salesman.

And I know what I was trained to do, which was go close the deal.

Go out and say whatever you have to to get the contract signed and close the deal so that you look good to the investors, that you look good to the venture capitalists.

So when they come and when they want to pitch us on this technology, it's gonna be a hard sell.

And not that we're not able to resist a hard sell, but having this input from IT and from legal, having this information, having this conversation ahead of time, means that we're not feeling their urgency.

We're not operating on their timeline.

We're able to make a good decision for our community.

Um with that, are there any questions from the council?

Thank you very much for the presentation.

Um I I just want to kind of cut to the chase a little bit on this.

Um first off, to my knowledge, the county is not looking into doing this, so I want the public to know that the chief executive administration, the courthouse at this time is is not looking into this technology.

It's not a it's not a project that they're looking at at doing.

So just to set the record straight with that, that I am aware of as chair.

The second thing is is I walked into this council meeting, I thought this was gonna be a sales pitch.

Oh, but based on what I'm hearing from you, it was not a sales pitch, it was more of an eye-opening experience to be prepared for the technology that could be coming.

And so if I'm incorrect on that, please correct me.

But if I'm incorrect, you didn't do a very good job in doing it.

So with that being said, you know, when we start to ask legal and in that, and I always get nervous when we bring these things before council.

I don't want to create that panic stir.

And so, County Attorney Enruth, do you have any input as far as the legality of what we would consider or what any comments on this?

In the state of Montana, AI artificial intelligence for surveillance of public places is illegal.

House Bill 178 presented by Braxton Mitchell this past fall was passed and signed by Governor G and Forte.

You can't do it here.

So this part of this type of a system can't even be implemented in the state of Montana, in addition to that, prior to HB 178 being passed, uh Montana Code annotated 4415-104 also prohibits continuous facial recognition software in the state of Montana.

Any of these products would be deemed illegal here.

Thank you, attorney Enrit.

That's very good to hear.

Uh and uh Chairman Morgan.

I will say, though, um, that I've seen them.

They're in Helena and in Bozeman on private property.

And I would ask that the council consider an uh city ordinance prohibiting them just across the city.

I don't know if we're able to do that, but that that would be my consideration.

And Chairman Morgan, uh that is correct.

Uh the law specifically prohibits the government from implementing these types of systems.

Uh we cannot infringe on private property owners' rights that way.

Mr.

Bowman, thank you for your uh you know bringing this forward and it was an eye-opening event for sure, so I I do appreciate your time on that.

Um before I go to the other commissioners, Chief Executive Gallagher.

Thank you, Chairman Morgan.

Um, and thank you for the presentation.

Uh it kind of came as a surprise to me because uh Finn, who came up and talked earlier, he asked about this flaw, and he's like, you know, you need to really worry about what's going on with this.

And so I had no idea what this was, and so your presentation really was kind of surprising because again, I thought you were coming to present this technology to us, and I knew that it was illegal to do that, and we have no intent on bringing any of this forward.

So just so you know.

Thank you.

Uh Commissioner Shea, then Commissioner Willary.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um, thank you, Mr.

Bowman for being here.

Thank you, Finn, for bringing it to our attention through email.

And thank you.

Jason, thank you.

Thank you.

Um I love and um really respect that Montana law currently doesn't allow this.

Um, however, there are a lot of laws that have been passed by states that are being abused and overrun by the federal government currently.

And so I think it's really good for us to have all of this on our radar.

Um I think that the general public um should maybe do a little bit of research about the connections between Flock and Ring and make wise decisions there.

Um so again, thank you for bringing it forward.

Thank you for doing a presentation on it for public consumption, because this will be out on our YouTube channel and people can go back and watch it.

Thank you, Commissioner Shea, Commissioner uh Councilman.

Mr.

Bowman.

Yes, apologies.

Um, yeah, thank thank you so much for for raising that point.

That is worth mentioning.

There are partnerships between Flock and other tech companies, including Ring.

So if you've seen the ring doorbells, they are also sharing that data with uh with Flo in some capacity.

I'm not entirely sure what that is.

Um and yeah, I I I would absolutely agree that this is important.

Um and thank you for having allowing me to come and just raise this awareness.

Commissioner O'Leary.

Thank you, Chair Morgan.

Thank you, Mr.

Bowman for coming.

I know we talked on the phone previously, and I appreciate uh when citizens come forward and and uh bring things to our attention, have these conversations in public.

So I just wanted to say that.

The second thing was I there's a website called deflock.me, and I am proud to say that uh Butte is the only major city in Montana that currently doesn't have any uh flock security cameras uh active.

So maybe we can keep it that way.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

O'Leary.

Commissioner O'Leary.

Is there any other questions from the commission?

All right.

Well, seeing none, thank you for the presentation tonight.

Thank you so much, you know.

Moving on to section two, communication uh 25-581, Will O'Connor, land records coordinator, requesting council of commissioners to approve council communication 25249.

A request from Patty and Chris Salmanson to purchase land owned by Beauty Silver Bow located adjacent to their property located at 17 Tullamore Street.

Um just for new commissioners as well as is older ones.

Um we have had this come back to us from the land sales committee, which we then in turn gave it back to the land sales committee to kind of sharpen their pencils, if you will.

Um and so we'll continue to hold this in abeyance pending um a report back from land sales after they come back before the body with some of their um suggestions on their ad hoc committees.

But again, on on these topics, I would I would ask the commissioners if you have input, please reach out and to the land sales to to Will and give him some input of what we're looking for as a body to try to get these things off of our agenda.

You all know I like to keep a clean agenda.

So we'll continue to hold this one in a band's pending the report back from the land sales committee.

Um, communication 25249, Patty and Chris Salmanson requesting council of commissioners' approval to purchase a uh a portion of land owned by Butte Silver Bow, which is adjacent to their property located at 17 Tullamore Street.

This was the original communication to the previous one, so we'll continue to hold this one in abeyance as well.

Number three, communication 25, 546, Sarah Bordoon, Butte, Montana requesting Council of Commissioners to answer one or answer some questions from October 16th, 25 public forum beyond the boom on November 12, 25 regarding impacts, the data center that may be coming to Butte Montana.

What would be the the decision of the body to do with this communication?

I know we've had communication on leaving it on, we've had communication taking it off.

Again, these communications or questions have been answered, but what would be the preference of the council?

Is there anything to do?

Uh Commissioner Fisher.

Thank you, Chairman Morgan.

I think uh this subject is being well versed in a lot of different areas, the ad hoc committee and stuff like that.

So this time I'd make a motion we note in place on file communication 2025.

Okay, there's been a motion made and seconded to note communication 2546 in place on file.

Is there anything on the question?

Okay.

Would everyone please vote Commissioner Gerbrandt?

It looks like it registered, so so thank you.

Would anyone like to change their vote?

Would the clerk please record the vote?

11 Yay 0 nay.

Thank you.

Motion passes.

Number four, communication 25587, Bill Kelly 403 Transit Street, Butte, Montana requesting Council of Commissioners authorization to purchase parcel number 000-1904920.

That is directly bordering my property for improved maintenance utilization and management of the area.

Again, we'll continue to hold this in abeyance pending the report back from the land sales committee.

Number five, 2026-01, Evan Barrett, Butte Montana thanking the Council of Commissioners for renaming the newly acquired Butte Readiness Center after Don Peoples Senior for the unparalleled service to the city as chief executive from 1979 to 89.

Mr.

Barrett, I know you have some comments that you would like to make regarding this communication, so I would just ask you to come to the podium and the floor is yours.

Yep.

Thank you.

Mr.

Chairman, uh members of the council, Evan Barrett, 807 West Silver, also from Red Lodge, but that wasn't my phone number.

I did I did uh uh uh pen a note uh all the way back in October and it kind of fell through the cracks.

And I've been uh waiting for the chance to compliment you as a council of commissioners for uh uh honoring and recognizing uh Don People's service to Butte to really understand the uh I just want to take a few minutes, not much, but but uh uh uh he was a mentor for me in many ways, my understanding of how to operate local government, how to how to mobilize a community to get behind its government to make a difference in their own lives.

Uh uh nobody could have uh uh done it better than Don Peoples.

Um he led Butte for the 10 years.

I assume this was mentioned when it was presented to you, but it's a rather extraordinary situation when a town, which in that decade had gone from the 40,000 plus population down to about 32,000.

Uh but a town that small when the uh issue of Time magazine came out and it said uh a feature story was the top 20 mayors in the nation.

And one of those top 20 mayors was Don Peoples, chief executive of Butte Silverbow.

Uh he led Butte at a time we went from uh a good example is we went from a plant closure city where you know we lost 10,000 direct jobs with the anticonda company between Anaconda and Butte.

10,000.

It's hard to it's hard to recognize the shock that represented to the community.

Now we're a long ways from that at this point.

We're 40 years beyond that, it's becoming a faded memory of what uh what we faced as a community.

Uh uh when I present I uh five years later, uh, I mean, after put it this way, uh the antaconda company was fading, and uh they ended up gradually closing stuff down, but in September 29th of 1980, uh they showed up in Helena, they showed up in Washington, D.C.

to uh talk to our elected leaders, uh, Governor uh Judge, who was in the tail end of his terms, and uh our members of the delegation in Washington DC, and there had been a lot of discussion about what is Anaconda going to be doing, and they had led folks to somewhat believe.

My good dear friend Pat Williams talked to me about this, that uh they all gathered together, you know, and and at that time, you know, it was Senator Melcher, uh, you know, it was uh Senator Bacchus by that time, it was uh Representative Marlonay for the Eastern District and Representative Pat Williams for the Western District, and they gathered in DC around a big table, and then they had similar gathering in the governor's office in Helena, and they the lobbyists walked in or the representatives of the Anacona Company, and they had packets, and they were all expecting a notice that they were going to, after many, many years of spending all their money investing in in Chile and South America and underinvesting here in Montana, they were going to invest in upgrading the smelter, which had been depleted and everything, and that would sustain that economy and help give the need to operate beautiful operations, and they walked in and they just threw the packets on the table, and they took a quick look, and the question was, well, what's this saying?

It said, Well, it says that we're going to be closing down, we're closing the Anaconda Smelter, we're closing uh the refinery in Great Falls, we're closing down some of the operations in the Berkeley pit as we knew them, and started to at least open up the East Pit.

We're gonna close down.

Well, when are you gonna close down?

Monday.

It was immeasurable in this community.

The challenge to the community leadership was immeasurable.

Uh at that time that day on NBC National News, Tom Brocos announced and read an obituary for Butte, Montana.

Five years, and so we entered a terrible period uh of trying to sustain this operations around here.

Eventually they closed down the Berkeley Pitt or the mining operations completely.

17 people, management people who were there to oil the hinges and make sure it didn't become unsalable.

And they held it in operation for three years.

And uh in those three years, they tried to do something with it, and they couldn't.

They tried to market it and they couldn't.

So one day in uh early 1985, uh, and by the way, my boss, I was working for Senator John Melcher at the time, and to his credit, he said, uh, because I ran the operations for Montana out of the Butte office, uh, he said, take and want you to devote full-time if necessary to work with Don Peoples and his forces to try to do something to sustain this community.

And we'd been working on it, but we got a we we got a communication with Neandracana Company in early 1985.

And they said that we haven't had much luck selling this thing.

So you guys better get busy trying to help us sell it.

Because if we don't have this sold by December 31st of this year, we're tearing it down.

The weeds concentrator would be gone.

And once that kind of infrastructure disappears, so would mining go forever.

Pretty scary proposition for the community to face.

And Don mobilized the community.

And I learned so much about what it takes to mobilize folks around a common goal by watching him operate.

And he created a mining development committee that about 15 people were on in the community.

And we worked and worked and worked.

And we did manage to strike gold in a sense by running into Denny Washington and in essence doing a lot of effort to persuade him to buy the mine.

And uh, and you know, six weeks later he bought it.

And uh I'm not saying that was the cause, but we did a lot of stuff in between and mobilized people around the city.

And Don was the leader of all that.

And the tenacity and the dedication and the commitment uh was immeasurable.

And he uh he led us uh uh well we became known as the can do city because everyone wants expected us to just shrivel up and blow away, and Butte would not do that, and that was substantially because of the mobilization, the leadership of Don Peoples.

And five years later, in 1988, uh I went down with Don and Judy Marts and Frank Gardner and Jim Cambich, and we went down to uh uh Houston, Texas, and we presented to the National Civic League, our application to become an all-American city because of the uh our economic development efforts in the face of that.

And uh Don was bold.

What do you mean?

We're the can do city, we'll be an all-American city.

We're not sitting back and waiting for the world to take over Butte.

We're gonna continue to try to take over the world, which is where we are today, and we have a lot going on today because of that.

Um we took the road to growth and stability, and so what Don was the master of was teamwork at mining development committee, uh, all that was done there, uh, the uh tenaciousness that he displayed, the community engagement of mobilization and inspiring people to do more, inspiration and aspiration to actually do better.

It's a rare form of leadership, and you are to be complimented, although it's way back in history to have honored him and recognize that kind of service.

It's unique.

I feel blessed to have had the opportunity to learn uh from Don Peoples, and I wanted you to know how much as a citizen how I appreciate your recognizing him.

Thank you.

Thank you for that information, Mr.

Bear.

There's a lot in there that I didn't even realize how it all came to be, so I appreciate that.

Um is there anything on the question on that?

Uh seeing none, Commissioner Thatcher.

Thank you, Chairman Morgan.

Thank you, Mr.

Barrett for being here.

Uh, much like you'd like to give credit where credit is due.

While council did approve this, I would like to thank Chief Executive Gallagher for you know really spearheading this um whole process.

It wasn't just the Council of Commissioners, it was Chief Executive Gallagher as well.

So thank you, Mr.

Gallagher, because I do think that or Chief Executive Gallagher, because I do think Evan Barrett statement tonight was important and I appreciate it, so thank you.

Um so at this time I'd like to make a motion to place communication number 2026-01 on file.

Okay, there's been a motion made and seconded to place communication 2026-01 on file.

Is there anything on the question?

Would everyone please vote?

Would anyone like to change their vote?

Would the clerk please record the vote?

11 yay 0 nay.

Thank you.

Motion passes.

Moving on to communication 2026-05.

John Morgan, Commissioner District 1, requesting Council of Commissioners' concurrence to appoint uh a replacement of Commissioner Bill Anderson's district number 10 on the night of January 21, 2026 for an interim replacement to be filled until the November 26th election.

We did have that replacement.

Welcome to the council, Mr.

Gru Gerbrand.

Um and at this time I would just ask for Commissioner Thatcher.

Thank you.

Uh Chairman Morgan.

Um yes, welcome, Mr.

Gerbrand.

At this time, I'd like to make a motion to place communication number 2026-05 on file.

Thank you.

There's been a motion made and seconded to place communication 2026-05 on file.

Is there anything on the question?

Would everyone please vote?

Okay, would anyone like to change their vote?

Would the clerk please record the vote?

11 yay 0 nay.

Thank you.

Motion passes.

Number 7, communication 2026-10.

Mark Neary, Public Works Director, requesting Council of Commissioners permission to schedule a bid opening on January 21st, 2026 for the main water materials replacement project.

We did hold this bid opening on the 21st.

So Commissioner Thatcher.

Thank you, Chairman Morgan.

At this time, I'd like to make a motion to place communication number 2026-10 on file.

Okay, there's been a motion made and seconded to place communication 2026-10 on file.

Is there anything on the question?

Would everyone please vote?

Would anyone like to change their vote?

Would the clerk please record the vote?

11 yay, 0 nay.

Thank you.

Motion passes.

Number 8, communication 2026-18.

Kelly Sullivan, BLDC Executive Director requesting Council of Commissioners permission to schedule the presentation on February 4th, 2026 regarding the BLDC's recently completed five-year strategic plan.

We'll continue to hold that in abeyance pending the February 4th date.

Number 9, communication 2621, Eric Hassler, Department of Reclamation and Environmental Services Director requesting Council of Commissioners permission to schedule the presentation on January 28th, 26 to provide an update to the council on the repository siting process for the Butte Priority Soils operable unit.

We did have this presentation tonight, so Commissioner Thatcher.

Thank you, Chairman Morgan.

I'd like to make a motion to place communication number 2026-21 on file.

Okay, there's been a motion made and seconded to place communication 2621 on file.

Is there anything on the question?

Would everyone please vote?

Would anyone like to change their vote?

Would the clerk please record the vote?

11 yes, 0 nay.

Thank you.

Motion passes.

Number 10, communication 2626.

Lisa Carey, emergency management director requesting Council Commissioners permission to schedule the presentation on January 28th, 26 on activities related to recent emergency operations center EOC activations.

We did hold this presentation tonight.

So Commissioner Thatcher.

Thank you, Chief Chairman Morgan.

I'd like to make a motion to place on file communication number 2026-26.

Okay, there's been a motion made and seconded to place communication 2626 on file.

Is there anything on the question?

Would everyone please vote?

Commissioner Walker, it doesn't look like yours registered.

Okay, would anyone like to change their vote?

Would the clerk please record the vote?

11 yay, 0 nay.

Thank you.

Motion passes.

Number 11, communication 2624.

Nathan Bowman, 18 North Clark Street, View Montana, requesting Council of Commissioners permission to schedule a presentation on January 28, 26 regarding AI-powered surveillance cameras, specifically the Flock safety camera systems that have been widely deployed in other communities.

We did have this presentation tonight.

Commissioner Thatcher.

Thank you, Chairman Morgan.

I'd like to make a motion to place communication number 2026-24 on file.

Second.

Okay.

Commissioner O'Leary.

Thank you, Chairman Morgan.

Um, being that Mr.

Bowman did have some formal questions that he was asking for us to uh answer, I would make a substitute motion to refer this communication and and those questions to the county attorney and the IT department and holding the committee the whole uh pending a formal response.

Okay, there's been a motion made and seconded to refer this communication to the county attorneys and IT department for an official response.

Is there anything on the question?

I oh Commissioner Thatcher.

Thank you, Chairman Morgan.

I guess I'm a little confused because I feel like the questions that he did have, we kind of answered, and also as a local government, we cannot do this.

So I guess I'm confused, I understand, wanting to be responsive.

Um Mr.

Bowman isn't here, so we can I guess ask him if if um his concerns were addressed.

Um but that is kind of where I'm at.

I'm a little confused.

So thank you.

Okay.

Uh Commissioner O'Leary.

Thank you, Chairman Morgan.

I guess I just see this very similar to Miss Bordoon's uh request of the council when she came in front of us with certain questions and we referred those to our staff for responses.

I don't see it as any different than that.

Just on that uh topic, I I would just say I see a little different here because that was a topic that was actually before this body to take action on.

And in this particular one, we're we're going to be addressing answers to questions just because we we we tie up staff time to answer questions that there's nothing before this body to move forward on, and so I don't see the relevance of getting those questions answered and taking time if it's a project that we myself and chief exact executive gallagher commented that we're not looking at doing this specific project right now.

So there's going to be other questions if we decide to do it.

To ask questions just to answer them in a general form seems odd to me, but that's obviously my standpoint.

Commissioner Fisher.

Thank you, Chairman Morgan.

I just suggest we make a vote at this time and we don't have to worry about anything else.

Thank you.

Okay, there is a motion made to refer this to uh the county attorney's office and the IT to answer the questions as submitted.

Uh Commissioner O'Leary, did I state that correct?

Okay.

And and holding the committee of the whole.

So the motion that's before us tonight is to refer this to the county attorney's office and the IT department and in holding the committee of the whole.

Is there anything on the question?

Would everyone please vote?

Commissioner Fisher.

Okay, would anyone like to change their vote?

Would the clerk please record the vote?

Two, yay, nine, nay.

Okay.

Uh motion fails.

We'll go to the next motion, which would be to place communication.

Uh 2026-24 on file.

Commissioner Thatcher, did I get that motion correct?

Is there anything on the question?

Would everyone please vote?

So again, this motion is to place this communication on file.

Okay, would anyone like to change their vote?

Would the clerk please record the vote?

10 yay, one nay.

Okay, motion passes.

Moving on to number 12, communication 2026-34.

Kayla Lappin, community development coordinator, requesting council commissioners' authorization to have Chief Executive Gallagher sign a purchase and sale agreement with Trans PAC Manufacturing LLC for the purchase of one parcel in the Montana Connections Park.

There was a revised agreement that was attached to tonight's agenda.

Is there any update from from you or or Miss Burns?

What's that?

Or county attorney and Ruth, I'll go to Miss Ms.

Lappin for now.

Sure.

Thank you, Chairman Morgan.

Uh Commissioners.

I think we updated the you know, I worked with Matt on revising the language to include the two-thirds uh majority just spelling that out, making it clear.

I'm just spelling that out, making it clear.

Um we notice some typos in it, so before it, you know, should this body decide to vote on it and to move it forward, we'll get those typos cleaned up.

Okay.

Uh County Attorney Enrith, do you have anything to add?

Uh Commissioner Morgan, council that is correct.

Uh, in the contract, we've added a section 11.1.

Um, it's a resolution contingency, which uh explicitly states that the agreement is contingent upon the Butsville County Commissioners passing the resolution of sale in accordance with our chapter, excuse me, charter, and that if the Butsville County Commissioners do not pass the resolution that the city county will terminate the agreement, and that the uh buyers and that we are no longer obligated to sell the property and then upon termination, the only monies that are returned to the buyers is the earnest money.

Uh any other monies that have been put forth by them uh are absorbed by them.

Okay.

Thank you, County Attorney.

Is there anything on on the question?

Commissioner Fisher, then Commissioner O'Leary.

Thank you, Chairman Morgan.

I would like to commend the uh information we got.

If we got that kind of information prior to any buy-sell agreement, we would be well advised as the council people to what we're doing and what's going to happen in the future.

That was an excellent situation to show the three-year plan, what they're gonna do, how they're gonna do it, how they're gonna pay for it.

That was an excellent plan.

And uh just like to commend the people for doing that, and I look forward to buy sell agreements looking more like that in the future.

Thank you.

Commissioner O'Leary.

Thank you, Chairman Morgan.

I'll echo the same thing.

I appreciate the information you sent to us.

Uh very helpful.

Uh any I you did note or mention some typos in the in the uh agreement.

Could you just give us a quick update on what exactly that is?

County attorney and Ruth.

Uh the typo is on me in section uh 11.1.

Uh the term seller is in the place of words should say purchaser, and that's probably because of the dragon software that I use uh when typing these types of agreements.

Commissioner O'Leary.

So I guess just to clarify if we if we move this forward, we're moving it forward with the understanding that that is uh going to be corrected.

All right, great, thank you.

Okay.

What's the pleasure of the council?

Uh Commissioner O'Neill and then Commissioner Thatcher.

Thank you, Chairman Morgan.

Just gonna make my rant on the 5.2 on the access part, just so I can feel good to sleep better tonight.

You know, just the purchaser shall have the right to prior to the closing date to begin excavation foundation work as long as all necessary permits have been obtained by the state of Montana and the city county and beauty bow for this construction of the facility, including but not limited to stormwater permitting zone certification, blah blah blah.

Go on and on.

Here's what I don't understand.

Is uh how how can you even get them permits if you if you if you don't own the property?

And then my favorite part is the purchaser shall prompt if something happens, right?

They go dig big holes or I don't know, put dump an oil truck out there.

And again, you're talking to the most craziest, not I shouldn't say the craziest, but I I don't check the boxes every time I do things myself, but in in this, I I just feel like as of the county we should be a little bit not as crazy as this, saying, okay, well, if they go out there and they dig holes out there and they make some mistakes, well then the purchaser, you know, they're gonna be responsible for it.

Well we know how that could go, right?

That could turn really bad.

So again, whatever, let's pass it.

But I just want on record say I just I don't like it.

I just think it's wishy washy.

I don't I just don't I think it's a crazy thing to have in there.

I know you've had them before, right?

And I'm not I'm just throwing it out there.

I had to get it off my chest because it just doesn't make sense to me.

So thanks for letting me speak again.

Thank you.

Okay.

Commissioner Thatcher.

Uh thank you, Chairman Morgan.

At this time I'd like to make a motion to concur in place on file.

Communication number 2026-34.

Okay, there's been a motion made and seconded to concur with communication 26-3-4 in place on file.

Is there anything on the question?

Okay.

Seeing none, would everyone please vote?

Would anyone like to change their vote?

Commissioner Shea, that was a hands up, was it?

No.

Okay.

Would anyone like to change their vote?

Would the clerk please record the vote?

11 yay, zero nay.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Motion passes.

Uh number 13, communication 26-4-6.

Karen Malogny Health Officer requesting Council Commissioners permission to schedule a public hearing on February 4th, 26 for the purpose of amending the fiscal year 26 budget for the BSB HD SSP September 8th, 2025.

Opioid abatement proposal project.

We'll continue to hold that in abeyance pending the February 4th date.

Communication 2647.

Karen Malogny Health Officer requesting Council of Commissioners permission to schedule the public hearing on February 4th, 26th for the purpose of amending the fiscal year 26 budget to conduct harm reduction surveys with people at root at risk for overdose.

We'll continue to hold that in abeyance pending the February 4th date.

Number 15, 2026, 48, Karen Malogny Health Officer requesting Council of Commissioners permission to schedule a public hearing on February 4th, 26th for the purpose of amending the fiscal year 26 budget to support the comprehensive community health needs assessment in Butte Silver Bow.

We'll continue to hold that in abeyance.

Number 16, communication 26-49.

Karen Malogny Health Officer requesting Council of Commissioners permission to schedule a public hearing on February 4th, 26th for the purpose of amending the fiscal year 26 budget resulting in a contract with bridge care.

We'll continue to hold that in abeyance pending the February 4th date.

Number 17, communication 2650.

Karen Malogny Health Officer requesting Council of Commissioners permission to schedule a public hearing on February 4th, 26th for the purpose of amending the fiscal year 26 budget for several programs with the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services.

We'll continue to hold that in abeyance pending the February 4th date.

Number 18, communication 2651.

Karen Malogny Health Officer requesting Council of Commissioners permission to schedule a public hearing on February 4th, 26th for the purpose of amending the fiscal year 26 budget to support public health prep or preparedness, planning, and response.

We'll continue to hold that in abeyance pending the February 4th date.

You guys better pack a lunch.

Let's move on to public comment on any public matter not on tonight's agenda.

If there's a member of the public that would like to speak on anything on that's not on tonight's agenda, now would be your opportunity.

Seeing none, I would ask for a motion to adjourn.

Motion to adjourn.

All those in favor?

Opposed?

Motion passes.

Have a good night, everyone.

Thank you.