Fair board hears about water billing dispute and damage to fair office building

The Great Northern Fair Board heard an update during its monthly meeting Tuesday about damage to the building housing the new fairgrounds office, along with a report on a dispute over water bills with the city of Havre.

Hill County Commissioner Mark Peterson gave a report at last month’s meeting on an issue with a water meter that led to double billing, which he said the city of Havre should make amends for. He added that, Havre Mayor Tim Solomon said the city doesn’t owe them anything, but Peterson disagrees.

The issue comes from when the county opened its new shop just east of the fairgrounds in 1979 and installed a water meter at the shop. The meter was on a line connected to the fairgrounds that already had a meter, so water going to the shop was billed for going through the fairgrounds meter and again through the shop’s meter.

Solomon said earlier this year that when the county realized about 2005 or 2006, while he was fairgrounds manager, it was being double billed, the city turned off the meter on the fairgrounds and just billed for the meter at the shop. He said that because the buildings on the fairgrounds, such as the horse barn, that the meter covered were not used much during the year, they simply stopped billing for that water.

He said about 2015 the usage of the buildings increased throughout the year and the city turned the meter back on with the intent of deducting the amount charged to the shop to avoid double billing. Through an oversight, that didn’t happen, he said.

When Peterson brought to the city’s attention last year that the county was being double billed, it again turned the meter off, he said.

The county was not billed for water going through the meter to buildings on the fairgrounds when it was shut off from about 2005 or 2006 until it was turned back on in 2015, and has not been billed for that water since it was turned off again last year.

Peterson addressed City Council during the public comment portion of its July 1 meeting, saying he wanted compensation for the years of double billing. He told the council he didn’t expect the city to come up with the cash to pay back the double billing, and requested the city give the county pavement millings it could use for road work instead.

At this month’s meeting Peterson said he spoke with Solomon about a week ago and said that Solomon is very insistent that the city has done its part to alleviate any extra cost that the fairgrounds paid.

He said the city said they feel they’ve already given everything they should give.

“There will be nothing coming from the city,” Peterson said. “What finally made my point to agree to that is he (Solomon) threatened to shut the water off to the road department because of the fact it is illegally hooked up.”

There will also be no millings coming, he added.

Solomon said this morning that the issue with the double billing regarding the water meter connected to the fairgrounds and the road department has been settled and that billing is going to stay the way it has been.

“It is hooked up wrong … when the county hooked it up they hooked up to the fairgrounds, which is some more of their own lines — they hooked up to an already-metered service,” he said.

He said he did not threaten the county with shutting the water off, but he said if they want it hooked up right they need to hook it to a main line, it’s hooked up wrong as it is.

“We settled on billing the way we are at the moment, but eventually it would be nice if they corrected the problem, he said. “It’s not critical at the moment.”

Great Northern Fair Board chair Tyler Smith gave the board an update on a roof collapsing about 18 inches on the building housing the fair office on the Great Northern Fairgrounds during the first snowstorm of the year.

Smith said that, as of Monday, he received an email that said sometime this week the board would be paid for the damage to the building.

The building housed the H. Earl Clack Memorial Museum from the 1960s until the museum — which is now in Holiday Village Mall and is working on renovating the Griggs Printing Building on the 10 Block of Fifth Avenue as the future home of the museum — moved into the former federal post office and courthouse on the 300 Block of Third Avenue in the late 1990s.

The fair board had a spot in the building remodeled to house the fairgrounds office earlier this year, replacing the former offices which were damaged due to a water line break.

The roof was damaged during the storm that dropped wet, heavy snow on the area the last weekend in September.

Smith said he asked how much the board would be receiving and has not heard anything back yet.

“There will be some money when that money comes in,” Smith added that, “I really think that (the building and grounds committee) needs to sit down and we just need to figure out what our priorities are and our plan for executing them because obviously this office thing falls under there.”

In business of the 4-H sidewalk and the movement of the RV drain on the fairgrounds, Smith said, there is currently no progress on either and won’t be until next spring.

The next Great Northern Fair Board meeting will be 5:30 p.m., Tuesday, Dec. 17, at the Timmons Room in the Hill County Courthouse.