Beaver Creek Park seeing a good summer

Hill County Park Board elected officers at its monthly meeting Monday and heard updates on the project to replace the lodge at Beaver Creek Park’s Camp Kiwanis as well as recent park conditions generally, with the superintendent saying the summer is going well so far.

Jeff Jensen and Tony Reum were elected chair and vice chair, respectively, but they tabled appointments to their various committees since Jensen said he still wasn’t sure what the board wants to do about potentially restructuring them.

Hill County Commissioner and Park Board member Mark Peterson said they had appointed Pam Wilson to the board and reappointed Lou Hagener, though two of the others they were looking at potentially appointing pulled out.

During the meeting, Jensen also provided an update on the project to replace the Camp Kiwanis Beaver Lodge, saying that one of the two architectural firms competing for the job had pulled out due to a conflict, so the other firm will be getting the job.

He said once they finalize the paperwork they can start planning an on-site meeting and get more details out to the public on what exactly the structure will look like.

Beaver Creek Park Superintendent Chad Edgar also talked about park conditions and usage, both of which have been very good recently.

Edgar said June was very busy, but went very smoothly for the park with great precipitation and some of the best grass conditions he’s seen.

The downside of that, he said, was that they have a lot of mowing to do, but they are keeping up with it OK.

He said they’ve also been setting up signs, tables and other things for the summer season and have done some road grading as well.

He said they’ve had a series of successful events on the park as well, from the Father’s Day Fishing Derby to the Bear Paw Marathon to Montana Actors’ Theatre’s summer show.

Edgar said they also hosted three weddings and a family reunion last month.

“It’s been pretty non-stop,” he said.

He said they also recently got the final draft for the panels on the new kiosk at the north end of the park.

Edgar said they wanted to get the kiosk right but apologized for how long it has taken to get everything set up.

Montana Department of Transportation Havre Division Maintenance Chief Jody Bachini said her department also recently installed some new Adopt a Highway signs and may be able to donate a few more.

During public comments, board member Lou Hagener said he was at the Northern Agricultural Research Center’s Field Day last week where the state climatologist gave a presentation on the Mesonet Project, which seeks to install remote weather stations across the state.

Hagener said these stations can provide valuable real-time data including precipitation, evaporation and even soil moisture down to a certain level and he wants to see if he can convince them to put one in Beaver Creek Park, or even one at each end of the park.

Bachini said Hagener should tell them that having data from both sides of the park would be incredibly useful to MDT, which she hopes will help their chances.

Hagener also asked Peterson about something he saw on the commission’s calendar for this week, a meeting closed as discussing litigation issues in Great Falls for “Kallenberger/Hill County mediation.”

Under Montana law, meetings involving discussion of litigation strategies may be closed to the public.

Neither Hagener nor Peterson directly referenced this conflict during Monday’s meeting.

“If this is what I think it’s about, it has implications for how we do business at the Grazing Committee and the park board level,” Hagener said. “So, I guess that’s something we’d really like to hear about and know what the implications are.”

Peterson said he cannot discuss anything at this time.