County commission issues ultimatum to fair board member Sivertsen

Letter requests his resignation or board will vote on his removal

In a letter to Great Northern Fair Board member Bob Sivertsen, the Hill County Commission requested he submit his resignation or the commission will vote Thursday on his removal from the board.

“Since your appointment in April, our office has had numerous concerning calls, visits, emails and meetings with persons in our community asking what we are doing about reported incidents involving you in your Fair Commission capacity,” the letter dated Monday reads. “We believe at this point resignation from the commission is the best course of action.”

The letter adds that the county commission has the issue on the agenda for its business meeting Thursday.

“In the event that you do not resign by that time, pursuant to (Montana Code Annotated) 7-1-201(13) … the Board of Commissioners will vote on removal from your board position,” the letter reads.

The agenda for Thursday’s business meeting has “Fair Commission” listed under the heading “Appointments” but does not specify that it is regarding Sivertsen’s removal.

Hill County Commissioner Mark Peterson refused Tuesday to confirm the commission had sent the letter, saying it was a personnel issue. He declined to make any comment on the accusations or Sivertsen’s performance as a board member.

He and commissioners Diane McLean and Jake Strissel had not responded by printing deadline today to a request made by the Havre Daily News Tuesday morning for them to send a copy of the letter to the newspaper.

Sivertsen provided a copy of the letter to Havre Daily, and issued a statement this morning responding to accusations made against him.

In a letter to the commissioners he sent to Havre Daily News, printed on Page A4, Opinion Page, in Tuesday’s edition of Havre Daily News, he requested the commission hold a public hearing so he could give his side of the story.

Fairground employees have said Sivertsen has been micromanaging the operation of the fairgrounds, and taking actions characterized as inappropriate, threatening and even dangerous.

The accusations include shooting pigeons and gophers on the fairgrounds, spreading motor oil for mosquito repellent, unhooking and later cutting the wires to the air conditioner in a pickup truck used on the fairgrounds, and holding two employees in a stall in a barn on the fairgrounds against their will.

Fairgrounds secretary Anita Stevenson, who said she was one of the fairgrounds employees Sivertsen would not let out of the stall in the horse barn, said she had been seeing inappropriate actions from Sivertsen since she started her position July 1.

Stevenson said people had taken complaints and concerns to other members of the fair board, but those members would do nothing or would make excuses for Sivertsen.

The other members of the fair board have not responded to emailed requests for comment from Havre Daily News.

Sivertsen issued a lengthy statement on the accusations made against him, saying he was trying to improve the fairgrounds and the fair, which he says he also did when he previously served on the fair board.

“The commissioners are an obstacle rather than being an asset,” he said. “(Fair Board Chair Josh Heitzenroder and Mark Peterson) have their own agenda. I went against it and I paid a price.”

He said he was told to be the fair board supervisor for Great Northern Fairgrounds Manager Frank English, but said English would not get work done, so he did the work himself.

Sivertsen said he made a to-do list for English but English wouldn’t get the work done. He said he himself did work on the grounds, picked rock and asphalt, cleaned the barns, nearly eliminated the gophers and pigeons and watered the fairgrounds.

English said he was told his point of contact with the fair board was Heitzenroder, and he never received a to-do list from Sivertsen, although Sivertsen often was telling him what to do.

He also said he is supposed to have a point of contact, not a day-to-day supervisor.

“I work for a board, not any individual member of the board,” English said.

He also said he told Sivertsen to quit shooting gophers and pigeons because it was a hazard — the sheriff’s office told him he only could do it with an air rifle — but Sivertsen continued to shoot them.

Sivertsen said he had disconnected the air conditioning in the pickup truck because fairground employees kept leaving the pickup running, sometimes with the windows down, and the air conditioning running when they got out of the vehicle. When the air conditioner kept being reconnected, he cut the connections, he said.

English said cutting the pickup’s air conditioner was vandalism of county property, and it still isn’t working.

Sivertsen said he spread motor oil on water under the bleachers because of complaints about the mosquitoes.

English said the fairgrounds are right next to the county weed and mosquito district office, and if people want to control the mosquitoes they can get the right material there.

“You do it properly; you don’t put hazardous material on the ground,” he said.

Sivertsen said he had been cleaning the barns, shoveling waste to be hauled out in loader buckets to clean the barns and English suggested he just use a tractor to push it out. Sivertsen said that scattered debris around the barns and he wouldn’t do as English suggested.

He said he was working in the barn when two employees came in, opened the doors and began throwing things out. He said he asked them to stop because he had just finished cleaning, closed the door and tried to call English. Then another employee came in and told them to continue, he said.

Stevenson said Sivertsen apparently didn’t like that she and another employee were shoveling the manure into the midway of the barn, so they could take it away with the fairground’s tractor, instead preferring that they take it away one wheelbarrow at a time and keep the midway clean.

She said, on top of the fact Sivertsen has no authority to give day-to-day orders to fairgrounds employees, English had told them to do it the way they were.

She said when she refused to follow his directions, Sivertsen closed the stall door on her and held it shut in an attempt to trap her.

She said when she got the door open she told him never to do it again or she would call Hill County human resources, and when he tried to do it again almost immediately after, she made that call.

As she was calling HR, she said, she heard screaming from inside the horse barn as Sivertsen had now trapped her co-worker, 18-year-old Allee Bartlett.

The screaming was so loud that the person on the other end of the line could hear it and asked what was going on, Stevenson said.

Sivertsen said he never punished or rebuked the employees as he is accused of.

English asked why, if so much volunteer work was going on cleaning the barns, did his employees still need to clean the stalls.

He also said they were doing the work properly, shoveling waste out of the stalls because the tractor can’t get into the stalls then shoveling it into the tractor’s bucket to haul out.

“That’s how it’s been done for years,” English said. “I don’t know what his problem is.”

He added that he wants to put the issue behind him and continue to make the fair and fairgrounds better.

“I’m just on to bigger and better things and more things up here,” English said.