Park Board proposes complete replacement on Camp Kiwanis Beaver Lodge

The Hill County Park Board Monday set dates for an open house at the Beaver Creek Park Beaver Lodge for people who want to see the state of the lodge and ask questions about the levy to pay for its replacement that may be on this year's ballot.

After being denied a grant that would have paid for a great deal of a project to repair damage, restore and upgrade the lodge earlier this year, the board agreed that it is more economically sensible at this point to replace the structure in its entirety.

The open house will be from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 3, and Sunday, Sept. 4, and will give people the chance to have questions answered and concerns addressed regarding the lodge, the board's plans to replace it as well as the levy that would pay for it, should voters approve it later this year.

Board Member Ursula Brese said she knows a lot of people interested in seeing the situation at the lodge firsthand and the board agreed that this is a good opportunity for them to do just that.

"They're the ones that would be paying for it, so they need to know," Board Chair Jeff Jensen said.

The Hill County Commission will vote at their weekly business meeting Thursday on whether to put the levy out to voters for their approval on the 2022 general election ballot.

The levy would only be in place until the project was paid for and separate fundraising efforts, like Friends of Beaver Creek Parks' Save the Lodge Raffle could lower that cost.

Brese is also a member of Friends of Beaver Creek Park, and she said the raffle recently had quite a few items donated to them as prizes for the raffle, which sold a great deal of tickets at this year's Great Northern Fair.

She said the raffle will be at Montana Actors' Theatre's production of "Macbeth" in Beaver Creek Park all three days and at the park on Labor Day, as well as Festival Days.

The final drawing for the raffle will be Sept. 18, she said.

The board also passed a recommendation by their grazing committee to adopt a 15 percent emergency use reduction of grazing allotments this year due to conditions on the park resulting from the ongoing drought.

Edgar said this reduction will not penalize grazers three-year-averages so it shouldn't penalize them beyond that 15 percent.

While the board passed the reduction unanimously, most agreed there was a better solution that their rules and regulations committee could look into for the future.

Edgar said the grazing committee proposed a change in how they measure cow-calf pairs on the park with regard to grazing.

He said under the current rules a single cow and a cow-calf pair are both considered one animal unit month when calculating allotments, and the committee has proposed making cow-calf pairs count as 1.3 animal unit months.

Jensen said this might be a better solution, as it would reduce the number of animals that could graze an allotment while not affecting the park's income, which the 15 percent across-the-board reduction does.

While the proposal seemed popular among members of the board, they agreed that the rules and regulations committee should look more closely at the proposal and iron out any potential issues there may be with it before they think about implementing such a change.

The board also voted unanimously on another proposal from the grazing committee, putting a spring tank in the Blackie Coulee area.

Edgar said the committee believes it will be a benefit to the park and the cattle that graze it and the board voted to proceed on putting the project out to bid.

In the last month, he said, the park has been extremely busy, but compliance is very high and their new sticker system and extra patrol have been extremely effective.

He said the new payboxes for the park have just arrived and getting them in is his top priority at the moment.

Edgar said the grass has stopped growing in the park at this point but things are still fairly green, which is great for this time of year, as was the 2.5 inches of rain the park got in July.

At the meeting the board also heard an update on Havre Trails' efforts to build a new trail in Brough's Coulee, which is nearing completion.

Havre Trails President Lindsey Brandt-Bennett said about 75 percent of the trail is done and they are waiting on crews to finish it up.

Brandt-Bennett said temporary signage has been put up to make sure people aren't going where they aren't supposed to while the trail is being constructed.

She said Montana State University-Northern's football team provided a great deal of help to the project recently and thanked them for their efforts.

She also said her organization recently received a donation for a memorial bench in honor of local photographer Steve Helmbrecht who died Oct. 21, 2021.

Brandt-Bennett said there is a perfect spot for it on a switchback about halfway up Mount Otis and she was hoping the board would approve it.

Edgar said he thinks it's a great place for a bench and the board agreed to put it on next month's agenda for approval.