Commission appoints Erickson and Fisher to fair board

Editor’s note: This version corrects the spelling of Great Northern Fair Board member Kaleb Fisher.

The Hill County Commission appointed Ken Erickson and Kaleb Fisher to the Great Northern Fair Board at its weekly business meeting Thursday, allowing the board to have a quorum for the first time since August.

The commission has been searching for new board members to form a quorum since the resignation of then-board chair Josh Heitzenroder and the removal of then-board member Bob Sivertsen earlier this year.

The board still has three vacancies.

Current board member Bob Kaul’s term on the board is up, but Hill County Commissioner Diane McLean said he has indicated he is willing to be reappointed, and he will be at the next meeting as a voting member.

Requests for the names of other applicants have not been answered by the Hill County Commission by print deadline this morning. They previously refused to provide the names for applicants when asked by the Havre Daily News for those names.

Under Montana law, the names of applicants for public positions are public information.

The commission also approved the dissolution of the Meadowlark Estates Water and Sewer District, signing off on the landslide 22 to 3 vote by the district’s residents to do so.

In October, Hill County Commissioner Mark Peterson said Meadowlark Estates, many years ago, had planned to put in a water and sewer system and applied to become a district, but later decided against creating the system, making the district inactive.

He said because the district was inactive it was not reporting anything to the state and has since racked up about $1,100 in penalties owed to the state, and the commission found that the easiest way to negate those penalties was to dissolve the district.

The commission originally thought it would be a simple process and that they’d be able to dissolve it with a resolution in a commission meeting, Peterson said at the time, but it had become clear that it is a more-involved process.

The commissioners tabled the resolution at that time, and earlier this month sent ballots to the people of the district to vote on whether or not to dissolve the district.

Of the 29 residents 25 returned their ballots, almost 90 percent of whom voted to dissolve.

During the meeting the commission also approved an amendment to county budgets to allow for the receipt of just under $40,000 from the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services for COVID-19 vaccination planning.

Commissioners also approved the replacement of grant agreements for the Beaver Creek Dam Instrumentation Project, replacements that include necessary language relating to the American Rescue Plan Act and other funding information.

McLean said the project itself has been approved and this replacement just adds required language left out of the original versions.

They also approved the closing of the Montana State University Hill County Extension Services Trust Fund.

McLean said MSU Extension recently contacted them saying Extension services are transferring to using MSU Campus accounts and requested that the fund, established by the commission in 2008, be closed.