A year in review - good and bad

2022 was a busy year in this part of north-central Montana with good news and bad. Here is a list of some of the stories Havre Daily News covered in the past year.

Havre Public Schools, and the local community, mourned the loss of the head of the school district.

Superintendent Craig Mueller died at the age of 50 Oct. 22, just a year-and-a-half after taking over as the permanent superintendent.

Mueller originally came to Havre to take the position of Havre High School principal in July 2011.

He took the position of assistant superintendent in June of 2015.

When Andy Carlson resigned, Mueller took over as interim superintendent in June 2020, just a few months into the COVID-19 pandemic.

The district took vocal criticism from some over its handling of the pandemic, but under Mueller's leadership it generally followed the recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the state and local health departments to protect the health and safety of students and staff members in the district.

He died just months after the district had moved back into a largely traditional school structure with most COVID restrictions eased this fall.

Mueller had worked on many projects in his tenure and had many in the works, but was focusing this year on trying to deal with learning gaps caused by the pandemic.

Many in the community, in letters and at his memorial at Havre High School Nov. 11, praised his leadership and his care and commitment to the Havre Public School students and staff and the community in general.

Assistant Superintendent Brad Moore has taken over as interim superintendent and the district is conducting a search for his permanent replacement.

Havre schools had a busy year aside from Mueller's death, including the board of trustees voting 5-3 not to implement a four-day school week.

The district had held multiple meetings and discussions prior to the vote, with the staff of the district heavily in support of the change and testimonials of staff from districts that have made the switch generally saying the change has been very beneficial.

The board also talked about adding boys baseball as a Havre High School sport, although concerns were raised about the idea including its potential redundancy with the North Stars American Legion team and the potential costs and impacts on other activities.

The district this fall was again dealing with a shortage of bus drivers, although the board approved in November a pay increase for both school bus drivers and activity drivers.

The district hired a new Indian Education for All director, Jessica Kennedy-Stiffarm, who has been extremely active this fall and winter bringing activities to Havre students to learn about Native American heritage and history.

Weather can't make up its mind

It has been a hectic year for weather.

After a dry winter and spring, counties started declaring drought disasters and implementing fire restrictions - then severe flooding hit Hill County, with heavy flooding in Beaver Creek Park, with a heavy rainstorm in June, the same time as federal disaster-level flooding hit the Yellowstone National Park region.

But it stayed mostly dry through the year, with Havre receiving by the end of October about 8.4 inches of precipitation, two-and-a-half inches less than normal even with October seeing almost an inch-and-a-half of precipitation, double the normal amount.

Then winter hit early in November. Though the month started with very warm temperatures, 66 in Havre on Halloween Day, snow fell and temperatures plummeted, with several days of sub-zero lows. Havre hit a low of minus 18 Nov. 12, with the high that day of 13 degrees. The National Weather Service recording station at the Havre-City County Airport had as of last week reported 5.4 inches of snow falling that month.

The temperatures started to rise the following week, with the last below-zero day recorded in Havre Saturday, Nov. 12, with a low of minus 13 degrees. The highs went up that week, and the region was unseasonably warm for Thanksgiving - Havre hit 47 Thanksgiving Day and 51 the next day - but then the temperatures - and more snow - dropped in December.

The region saw a period with highs below zero and extremely cold lows - Havre was the cold spot in the state Dec. 22 at minus 38 - though warm weather hit again for Christmas Day.

And the snow continues to fall. As of Dec. 29, Havre had seen 32 inches of snow, more than quadrupling its normal amount of 7.5 inches for that date.

The cold and snow are likely an impact of a rare triple-dip La Niña, where the equatorial Pacific sees colder-than-normal temperatures three years in a row. La Niña typically leads to colder weather and more precipitation in this region, although this part of Montana missed most of that in the past two years.

And National Climate and Prediction Center warns that days with colder-than-normal temperatures and above-normal precipitation are likely through March.

Fire in the Bear Paws, again

The drought nearly led to another catastrophic fire in the Bear Paw Mountains, though weather conditions and quick, effective actions by firefighters prevented a repeat of the East Fork Fire that burned more than 21,000 acres in 2017.

The East Fork Fire started Sept. 7 at a cabin on private land in Chouteau County not far south of Beaver Creek Park in Hill County and rapidly expanded. It was estimated at 2,000 acres the next morning and 7,000 by the afternoon of Sept. 8.

By Sept. 19, it was estimated at 95 percent contained and most of the firefighters were headed home.

Firefighters at the site included from U.S. Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service, Bureau Of Indian Affairs Forestry, Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, Fish, Wildlife and Parks, The Chippewa Cree Tribe, multiple volunteer fire departments and Havre Fire Department.

Two fixed-wing airplanes and two helicopters responded to the fire, as well as heavy equipment on the ground. Local landowners also helped extensively with the firefighting, particularly in the first few days.

The fire had been listed at 7,225 acres since Sunday, Sept. 11.

Officials praised the work of the organizations, and their extensive cooperation, in getting control of the fire.

It pales in comparison to 2017's fire. The East Fork Fire that started Aug. 27, 2017, in the Bear Paw Mountains - in the midst of one of the worst fire seasons - for the state and nation in more than a decade - caught national attention.The East Fork Fire that burned 21,896 acres was ranked the eighth-highest priority fire in the United States at one point. A top-level federal fire management team came to the area and helped get the fire under control - and an October snowstorm helped finally extinguish it.

Clack Museum opens in new location

A project 20 years in the making came to fruition this summer with the H. Earl Clack Memorial Museum opening in the Havre History Center on the 10 Block of Fifth Avenue, the former location of Griggs Printing.

The museum foundation had signed an agreement with Jim and Bonita Griggs, buying the property and allowing the printing business to continue operating there while the rest of the building was renovated to hold the museum.

The museum had moved to the former post office and federal courthouse, now the Havre Historic Post Office, in the 1990s, buying the building and renaming it the Havre Heritage Center.

After the investment market performed more poorly than hoped, the foundation was unable to finish upgrading and performing upkeep on the building and moved to the Holiday Village Mall. A search for a permanent location for the museum soon began, and came to fruition with its opening in the new location this summer.

Lots of activity in Hill County

News on county government had ups and downs, with one project again years in the making coming to fruition.

Voters narrowly approved funding for a huge project, replacing the Beaver Lodge at Beaver Creek Park at Camp Kiwanis in a 2,601 to 2,415 vote.

The Hill County Park Board decided to go to the voters to get funding to replace the lodge, which opened in 1975, rather than repair it.

The board said the lodge had deteriorated over the years and become financially infeasible to repair or renovate.

The levy is estimated to raise $1.9 million over the next 15 years, and the plan at this point is to find a loan to pay for the construction of the new lodge now and use the money raised through the new levy to pay off the loan.

The county now is working on finalizing designs and plans for the lodge.

County voters also approved a 3 percent tax on marijuana sales, a tax voters in Blaine County approved in the primary election.

After a somewhat contentious meeting in March, the Hill County Commission approved absorbing an increase in health insurance costs for county employees.

The rate increase came from the Montana Association of Counties which provides Hill County employees with health insurance, and county insurance committee members had been pushing the commission to absorb it so county employees didn't need to.

Hill County commissioners Mark Peterson and Jake Strissel voted in favor of absorbing the rate increase while fellow Commissioner Diane McLean voted against it.

County employees said the insurance helps offset relatively low rates of pay for county employees, with the commissioners saying limited funds restrict the rates of pay they can approve.

County employees later talked the commission out of changing the way county pay is set, with the commission arguing it could start with higher raises for new employees in an attempt to attract and keep employees. The current employees said that seemed unfair to people who had been working for some time.

Later in the year, the commission approved an increase to sheriff's office employees, some up to 13.7 percent, though Hill County Commissioner Diane McLean said the calculation is slightly different depending on what position they're talking about.

Some employees said this significant increase is "insulting" to the rest of the county's employees who saw significantly lower wage increases of 5 percent, a 5 percent that had to be fought for.

Earlier in the year, After months of argument and delays the commission had approved in February moving funds provided through the federal American Rescue Plan Act to the county health department to fund its work in the COVID pandemic.

The county commission voted to allocate the funds to the department in September 2021, and the the department had been asking repeatedly since that vote to receive the money.

Peterson said in a quarterly meeting of the Hill County Health Board in January that he hadn't signed any documents authorizing the department to use the money the commission voted to allocate them last year.

The commission approved the money be transferred on its split vote after a contentious discussion in a special meeting Feb. 22.

Urban deer plan approved for Havre

After several years of trying to figure out what to do with a growing urban deer population, Havre submitted, and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks approved, a deer management plan including deer hunting in select locations in and around the city,

Along with the bow hunting of the deer, the plan includes using trapping with euthanasia throughout the rest of the city to cull the population, as well as providing more education about why feeding deer is not only illegal, but bad for both the deer and humans.

And work to develop a master plan for downtown Havre is ongoing.

In August, representatives from High Plains Architects held the last of their public meetings on the soon-to-be-completed Downtown Master Plan, where they discussed the contents of the plan and heard comments and questions about the plan.

The plan outlines a number of improvements that can be made to the area intended to draw more people in, make the area much more walkable, and stimulate the local economy, which downtown should be the center of.

The representatives said one of the key ways to make downtown thrive is to make it walkable and the plan includes two big suggestions for how to do that.

Not all at the meeting thought some of the suggestions, like narrowing First Street at some locations, were a good idea.

Voters in the City of Havre narrowly defeated a proposal in November's election to switch to a city manager, making the mayor a mainly ceremonial position.

Proponents said that as cities become bigger and their administration more complex, having day-to-day operations handled by a city manager, professionals who generally train specifically for city administration, typically having a master's degree in public administration, can significantly increase a city's efficiency.

Voters defeated the proposition 1,396-1,517.