Members present, Josh O'Neal, Trudy Healy, Tommy Walker, Bert, our new Commissioner Bush Grubrant.

Say that correctly.

I'm absent Eric Mankins and Russell Larry here with us tonight.

Our guest, great lovely lady Kelly Sullivan.

Just dive right in, Kelly.

Thank you for coming.

You can definitely get on your reporter if you choose to.

Thank you.

Sounds good.

Thanks for having me.

Um we, as part of our contract with Butte Silverbow, agree that every quarter I will give you an update on the Anaconda Arco loan fund availability to lend.

So you can see that figure there, four hundred and seventy-four thousand nine hundred dollars and some change.

So I was there to see if there are businesses in the photonic space that would be interested in possibly relocating or expanding to Butte.

So that was our first time again going to that conference.

And normally they let us know by the following May if they've been awarded, but with all of the changes in the new presidential administration.

That never happened.

And I just received word last week that they were finally awarded.

So we had one that was on the headwater side.

We had one to a Butte business for $9,000 to assist them with some marketing and website development work.

And then we had a business from Whitehall and a business from Anaconda that got some money.

So that was exciting.

Then the next day I heard from the Montana Department of Commerce and heard that three opportunities in rural economies planning grants that we submitted were awarded.

Those three grants that was a total of a hundred thousand dollars.

Two of those are feasibility studies again for Butte businesses, and one was for geotechnical study on land that will be home to a new multifamily housing development in Butte.

So that was really exciting last week to hear we got six grants awarded for our clients.

Big week, yeah.

Um I've submitted another ORE.

Uh oh, this is a different one.

This is an ORE again, opportunities in rural economies.

This is a capacity grant application, and this is for our organization to help us with updated computers, continuing staff education, uh business recruitment events such as the one I went to for Photonics West to be able to get some additional money to help our staff with some of those things that we could really use would be nice.

So fingers crossed on that.

Um I'm a member of the SABE data center ad hoc committee.

I think you're all familiar with the ad hoc committee that the chief executive put together, and our board of directors is pledging support for that and encouraging the council to extend the purchase and sale agreement.

I do have a letter from our board of directors that I will read tonight during the public comment period for the public record.

And then I met with some reps from the Butte School District about their pathways program, and that's something that can be used to attract new businesses.

I mean, almost every business that's coming here wants to know about workforce.

You know, how are we preparing our junior high and high school students?

What programs do we have in place?

Uh so I've been working with Butte School District on that and also with Jim O'Neill, uh, who's the county school superintendent?

And then we did a red carpet tour on January 14 for Project Janicky, and normally Tommy pointed out that I'm sharing a business name, which normally we can't do, but they were also in Great Falls and Helena, and the Helena newspaper reported on that.

So then I got a call from the Montana Standard who has also since reported on it.

Um so that's why we're sharing the name of that particular company.

But we toured two sites with them.

We took them to lunch at Sean O'Donnell's, which was fun.

Irish Johnny spoke very eloquently about Butte and the reasons that he chose Butte and how much assistance he got from BLDC and Butte Silverbow.

Um so they are again considering Butte, Helena, Great Falls, and some Idaho locations.

And then there's a bullet point there that talks about what Janiki does.

Uh, tools, parts, prototypes, and assemblies for a lot of industries, uh, but mainly for the aerospace industry.

No, they don't know what their timeline is.

So again, doing all their due diligence.

Uh we held a board retreat, our BLDC board on January 29th to review our final strategic plan.

And you all probably saw I had been intending to do a presentation tonight to the council on the strategic plan, but I thought it wasn't probably a good night with everything going on with the data center.

So we're pushing that down to March 4th.

So I'll be back on March 4th to do that.

And then I was also going to bring Melissa Wanamaker, our Brownfields coordinator to talk about Brownfields.

Again, I didn't do that because I know you all have a lot on your plate tonight.

So she's going to come with me in March as well.

Yeah.

Any questions for me tonight?

Yeah.

Commissioner Healy.

Thank you.

Um, I was just wondering on the um Project Janicky.

Yeah.

Where would they be located?

Well, they're looking at a couple different locations.

One is in Connections Park.

They're looking at some land out there, and one is some land south of town.

So that's then two businesses that are looking or we're gonna be voting on the one business looking at two different yeah, awesome.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Healy.

Thank you, Kelly.

And does anybody have any other questions?

Commissioner.

Yeah, Commissioner O'Neill.

Um tell me about the anaconda arco loan fund.

I don't know anything about it.

Can it be spent outside of Anaconda?

So the Anaconda Arco loan fund is from mining monies that came to Butte Silverbow.

I don't know the full history of it, but we are in a contract with Butte Silverboat to manage those loan funds because we have a loan department at the BLDC.

So and and the county doesn't have its own loan department.

So we manage those funds.

Um but different people come to us looking for money, and we'll make a decision if that seems like a good fit.

It would obviously have to be a business located in our community.

And Butch, I don't know if you know in our community.

So when I say our community, I mean on the BLDC side.

So I don't know if you know that we have two organizations under my direction.

We have Butte Local Development Corporation, and then we have Headwaters R C and D.

Okay.

And Headwaters covers Butte Silverbow plus six other counties.

So that money, Anaconda Arco is specific to Butte Silverbow.

When I say in our community, I should say in our county.

Thank you.

Great question.

Um other questions from any other commissioners.

Commissioner Healy.

Thank you.

I was just wondering if you could tell me what photonics West Conference is.

Yeah, so photonics is um has to do with lights and lasers.

So photonics are in your phone, they're in the backup camera on your car.

Uh photonics is a very big industry in Bozeman.

And what we're hoping as part of the the Alliance, the Headwaters Tech of Alliance, is that we will have some opportunity to appeal to businesses that might be looking to come to Montana, but maybe can't afford the cost of living in Bozeman, or maybe want to put their corporate office in Bozeman and their manufacturing facilities here.

Yes.

Thank you, Kelly, Commissioner Healy.

Commissioner Walker.

Yeah, Kelly, uh Anaconda Arco loan fund.

Is there a limit on how much they can loan them?

Or there isn't.

You know, we don't have parameters set in place that say you can only borrow X amount.

I mean, if someone came to us with a great project that was a larger project and wanted to borrow, you know, a couple hundred thousand, uh, you know, our loan committee would consider that.

There's money out there.

There's money out there, and that's just our Anaconda fund.

I mean, we have got a couple of million dollars in relending capital right now.

Um, so just to follow up on the Anaconda ARCO loan fund, that the money is used out of there.

It gets paid back and replenished?

Yes.

So if you took 200 grand out of all the monies, each one of the things that we have to do.

The money gets paid back.

Yep, it's a revolving loan fund.

So they pay it back, and then we have it to lend to the next company that might be interested.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Commissioner O'Neill, uh, still on that same subject of the Anaconda Arco loan fund.

Uh give me give us some examples of typical loans that you've made.

Please.

Um I I don't have the history of all of the loans.

Uh in my tenure, there's just one loan out of there, and that is for the Praxis Center.

And that's about I think the amount that they have out of the Anaconda Arco loan fund out of their whole portfolio.

I believe it's about 200,000 that they have out of the Anaconda Arco loan fund.

So then thank you.

Um so on that 200,000, since he hasn't started the project, when does he pay it back?

So he's on an interest-only agreement.

Yes.

He's making interest-only payments, and he is coming before our committee on February 18th.

He's coming before our loan committee to give us an update on his project, and he wants an extension, and then they will have to consider that based on what on whatever he's got in the development.

So he doesn't have to come before the commissioners for another extension.

If that if they granted an extension, we'd have to bring it before council as well.

Correct.

That's correct.

Okay, thank you.

Yes.

Great questions.

Um any other questions for Kelly.

Yeah, Commissioner.

Back to the praxis.

Um when he came for the extension last year, and we amended it to three months, so it would have been April 30th, 2025.

Then can we then ask if he was able to get his construction loan in place?

If he comes before you, you can ask that.

I I don't have an answer to that.

Okay, because I did invite him too, and he declined.

Okay.

So how can I know?

So do I have to go through the attorney, the county attorney, or how can I find out?

Because that would be he would be in breach of contract.

We didn't.

Well, we should know uh in f on February 18th.

We should be getting an update from him and get and that would include whether or not he got the construction loan.

Okay.

So even though it was due April 30th.

Then he doesn't have to.

Our loan committee, I need to look back at our loan committee minutes, but I believe that we furthered that to give him a little more time.

And our loan committee has that, you know, that's under their purview to do that.

So he had another extension without we didn't know about.

Is that how did that work?

Because I know April April 20th or April 30th was the deadline, the three-month one.

Whatever the extensions were there, they were well, I obviously we have to check that, but as far as I know, uh as of up to date to now, like the interest, he's still in the rights of whatever the extension we made, still making interest payments.

At least that's what I'm saying.

Still on the interest only, yeah.

If you look, yeah, he was still on the interest only, so he's still allowed to do that even without the construction loan in place.

He's that's his agreement with us.

And I think have you had a chance to look at that?

I think the interest only I'm sorry, I did see the interest only.

I guess I was looking at I didn't know that he got another extension through somewhere else, because I was looking at the deadline of April 30th, 2025 for the construction loan.

So because he came and asked for it, so that's why I thought he would have to get complete that part because he asked for it.

I might need to refresh and look at some minutes on that, Trudy.

And I'm happy to bring that report in March when I come.

Yeah, you're welcome.

Thank you.

Yeah, if we could obviously you'll we'll know we'll get clarification after this next meetings with them, and then when you come the next time we'll have a little bit of update.

And you may get some calls on February 19th from Commissioner.

Yeah, that's fine.

That's fine, of course.

And if she forgets Joshua Neil will call you too, because we're we're so no thank you.

Yeah, you guys can call me.

You've got my number at the top of the page, so you may call me any time.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Kelly, definitely thank you for all your hard work.

Thanks for the updates.

Um, thank you guys.

Um thank you guys.

It's been extremely busy since the first of the year.

We are just running in a million directions.

So yeah.

Good deal.

Um any if there's nothing we went through everything that's on the agenda.

If anybody has anything for the good of the order, if not, can make a motion to adjourn.

I'll make a motion to adjourn.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

I seven.

All right, thanks everyone.