Park board reviews haying policy and sends it back to committee

Hill County Park Board was asked by its Haying and Grazing Committee to review an item in the Haying Policy at the board’s meeting Monday night in the Timmons Room of the Hill County Courthouse.

Aubrey Williams, assistant to Beaver Creek Park superintendent, said that the issue that was being presented to the park board was people who have paid to harvest hay being able to resell whatever was not used.

Beaver Creek Park Superintendent Chad Edgar said the policy was initially written that hayers could not resell the hay and it “must be for individual use only and cannot be resold.”

He added that when the Haying and Grazing Committee voted on whether hayers should be allowed to resell unused hay, the vote was tied at 3-3.

Hill County Commissioner Diane McLean said it would be hard to enforce such a rule and also raised a question regarding the rule itself.

“I think if we get the money that we ask for from the hay, the person does a good job, stays within our boundaries of not driving all over … why is it a concern about what eats that hay,” she said.

Community member Lou Hagener agreed with McLean that the rule was not enforceable and added that it is written more like a policy rather than a rule.

Park Board Chair Steve Mariani asked the board what they thought about raising the prices of hay to match at least those of the state level. However, there were several objections to this on the grounds that it could potentially be seen as penalizing those hayers who have followed the current policy.

The board agreed to send the issue back to the Haying and Grazing committee for a second review and further clarification. Hill County commissioners Mark Peterson and McLean said they would look into the issue of the legality on the resale of the hay.

Board member Renelle Braaten addressed the issue of beavers at Beaver Creek Park. She said she had requested information about what options exist for dealing with the beaver problem.

Trapping beavers to reduce the population of the animals at the park has raised complaints from some, including Braaten and Hagener.

She added that she was in contact with an ecologist who may be willing to come up to Havre in the early spring to answer any questions about how to deal with the beavers.

That person may have some information regarding grants the park could receive to assist with other things, Braaten said, but she was still waiting for confirmation.

Hagener said that years ago information sessions werer sponsored by the park board regarding the ecology of the park. He added it would be good if the board could try and bring that back.

Edgar said he did not have an update about the location of the folf course in Beaver Creek Park.

Hagener said he addressed an email to the board on Dec. 14 and wanted the email entered into the record.

“I would advise the board against establishing a folf course because it doesn’t appear it would raise any additional revenue for the park,” he added. “It seems like it would need some added expense to continuing maintenance for the park and would actually add to our cost of operations.”

Hagener also presented a survey to the board and to audience members. The survey was about the various parts of the park that could be included in a GIS database mapping initiative.

The audience and board members were asked to mark each item as either high priority or low priority as Hagener read through the list and described each item. Some items included grazing lands, fences and current campgrounds.

“This is designed to get a very quick feedback from you folks so that those of us, and Tom Welsh, that need to sit down and decide what really is priority, where we really have interests and what we want to really do out there as far as GIS-based things,” he added.