Park board approves memorial bench for Helmbrecht

Hill County Park Board this week approved a request through Havre Trails to put a memorial bench halfway up Mount Otis in Beaver Creek Park in memory of decades-long photographer and community volunteer Steve Helmbrecht.

Helmbrecht died of cancer Oct. 21, 2021, at age 70.

Beaver Creek Park Superintendent Chad Edgar recommended the board approve the request.

“It’s a great place for a bench there, and one of Steve Helmbrecht’s favorite places to take pictures,” he said.

The board approved the request unanimously, although not before some discussion about putting up too many trails and benches in the park and spoiling the rustic, natural nature of the park.

Hill County Commissioner and Park Board member Diane McLean asked how many memorials should be put up.

McLean is running for reelection as a Republican and faces independent

She asked if the park could put up a bench where people could add names, rather than new memorials.

“I don’t know if it’s a problem or not, but are we going to reach that point where we’ve got so many different things being asked for that it’s causing a problem?” she asked

Board member Tony Reum said that could be a problem for the people who want to put up the bench, and also noted it is up to the board to decide whether the memorials would be approved.

“If it comes to that, if we’re getting too many, we could always, down the road, say we’ve got enough.”

Board member Lou Hagener added that he has thought about the park building a list of different projects that people could take to make as memorial projects.

The board also gave its blessing to a proposal from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks to allow commercial take of white suckers upstream from Beaver Creek Reservoir to sell as bait.

FWP Fish Biologist Cody Nagle said regulations now do not allow commercial take of white suckers, for bait, from that location. FWP would like to eliminate that. Three or four local people collect bait and sell it in the area, he added.

“We’ve seen a really big population of white suckers in the stream, within our reservoirs upstream of Beaver Creek Reservoir, so there’s plenty there to be had,” he said. “They’re not a game fish, they actually do more harm to our trout population, through competition, than good.”

He said the regulation change proposal allowing the bait collection on Beaver Creek will go before the Fish and Wildlife Commission at its October meeting for approval.

The board also agreed to send a proposal to build another fence on the south grazing section of Beaver Creek to the board grazing committee to review the proposal.

Ranchers are allowed to lease grazing for their cattle on the park from the day after Labor Day to the first of the year, normally. The committee, though, monitors conditions and may require cattle to be taken off early and sets the amount of cattle allowed depending on grazing conditions in the park.

The park is divided into three sections with fences.

In the public comments section at the start of the meeting, Beaver Creek Park cabin owner Rose Cloninger asked why the fence even was needed.

“This is a park, not a pasture, and we have plenty of fences. … I haven’t heard avery good reason we need that fence,” she said.

During the discussion of the issue, Edgar said the south section is the largest pasture and the cattle tend to move downhill, which means the northern part of the section gets more grazed than the south section. A cross fence would stop the cattle from moving all the way down, he said, and the board started looking at the idea.

“We’re kind of stalled on it right now,” he added. “I don’t know whether to pursue it.”

He said the cross fences that have been installed seem to be helping, especially with cattle that come back to graze on the park several times.

Hagener — who expressed concern several times in the meeting about the quality of the range in the park during this period of drought and the amount of cattle that had been allowed on — said the grazing committee has not been very forthcoming about how and why the fence will be used. He proposed that, at least until a clear, actionable and committed plan that will meet the plant, soil, water and total land health needs as well as the reasons for Beaver Creek Park, and listed several factors that plan would need to include.

He moved the proposal be tabled until at least 2023, possibly indefinitely, due to the lack of a plan.

No one seconded Hagener’s motion and it died due to the lack of a second.

Reum moved that the issue be sent to the grazing committee to again look at it and come back with a recommendation, which was seconded and passed by the board.