Park board continues work on new Beaver Lodge

The Hill County Park Board voted on grazing allocations, consolidated committees and discussed plans for the new Camp Kiwanis Beaver Lodge at their monthly meeting Monday.

Board Chair Jeff Jensen said the Lodge Planning Committee have had a few meetings recently along with their contractor which provided them with some preliminary concept sketches for the new lodge.

Jensen said one design has a single floor while another has a loft with bedrooms, but he wanted to stress that neither of these designs are set in stone.

He did say that the cost of the project continues to rise with inflation, however, so they want to move the process along.

Board member Lou Hagener said it looks like the total cost of the structure will come in around $2.7 million, including the expected interest they will pay back on their loan, which leaves them more than half a million dollars short.

Hagener said the predicted interest on the loan the county is considering looks pretty substantial, but board member Mark Peterson said those details are not set in stone either.

Hagener said he's reached out to fundraising organizations, as well as Bear Paw Development Corp., and he believes it would be worthwhile to pursue grants or donations to close this gap so they don't have to cut back on getting the kind of lodge the park should have.

He said philanthropists are much more likely to contribute to projects that are public and private partnerships, so pursuing more cooperation throughout the community will improve their chances.

Jensen suggested they set up some meetings between the committee and the organizations Hagener has been in contact with.

After discussion of the lodge the board decided to retake a vote they had a few months ago after concerns were raised by numerous members of the public who said that two members of the board had moved and voted on the matter despite conflicts of interest.

A couple months ago the board had voted to adopt using the three-year average as their gauge for grazing allocations this coming year, a number recommended to them by their Grazing Committee.

More than one of the regular attendees at park board meetings have since said that because the two board members who made and seconded that motion, Tony Reum and Larry Kinsella, then voted in favor of it, run cattle on the park, which is a major conflict of interest.

Members of the board have since clarified that Reum doesn't run cattle on the park, just his family does, but at the last meeting of the board Peterson suggested they redo that vote at the next meeting, under the advisement that Reum and Kinsella abstain from voting.

At this month's meeting the vote was retaken with Reum and Kinsella abstaining, seeing the motion pass 3-1 with Hagener voting against and Peterson and fellow board members Sheri Williams, also a county commissioner, and Pam Wilson voting in favor.

Hagener, who has long argued that the park should be more conservative in its grazing allocations due to the last few years of drought and recovery, said he would have hoped that the Grazing Committee had come up with a more reasonable recommendation given recent park conditions.

The board also voted to combine its Finance and Planning Committee with its Rules and Regulations Committee, with Hagener voting against and all others voting for.

Jensen has argued that the committees do not have enough to do individually to make both of them worth maintaining in light of how difficult it is to recruit for these positions.

He said he's not looking to make these committees worse, he's just looking to make them more efficient

Hagener said he feels strongly that both committees serve a purpose and he thinks there is plenty of work for them, the board just needs to give them direction.

He said the park has a lot of present needs and plenty of issues that require long-term plans to be made when it comes to management of resources and facilities and these committees are perfect for those tasks.

He said Beaver Creek Park Superintendent Chad Edgar has a lot of things in mind for the park, and many of them are needs, not wants.

"Chad has a list, and it's not just a wishlist, it's stuff we need to be doing," Hagener said.

Wilson said she agrees with Hagener in spirit, that in an ideal situation they should have both, but recruitment and committee makeup remain issues that could be addressed by combining the committees.

Wilson said they want to have a diverse set of people representing different interests on these boards and, for example, the Rules and Regulations committee is made up primarily of cabin owners.

She said by lowering the amount of seats to fill they have more flexibility to create a more diverse group.

Williams also said she understands Hagener's point, but the reality is that recruiting for boards and committees these days is next to impossible and she doesn't believe they will be able to fill both of these committees.

She said there are positions the county had posted before she came back to work for them at the end of 2020 and many of them are still open.

Hagener said he understands that concern but he thinks that the board should be making more of an effort to recruit, not just posting the positions and hoping someone comes forward.

He said he knows people who are interested in these subjects but aren't necessarily going to put themselves out there, and the board should consider nominating people they believe will serve those committees well.

Williams said she's been on boards that do that, and, in her experience, getting nominated people to show up is a challenge in and of itself.

"If they aren't going to come forward on their own they are not going to show up," she said.

During public comments before the meeting, former board member Renelle Braaten submitted a written public comment on the matter, saying she'd read it aloud but the one minute time limit is difficult to work within.

Her comment said that instead of abandoning or dissolving a committee that isn't working, they should be trying to improve it.

It said she feels that making a committee that deals with such a wide variety of issues will result in a group of members without the necessary experience to talk about issues with sufficient expertise.

Her comment went on to say that, if anything, she thinks they need at least one more committee to make recommendations on natural resources on overall park health.

Lowell Alcock, during public comments at the end of the meeting, said if they want committees to function well, the board needs to listen to and respect their opinions.

Alcock said he's served on committees in the past and it often felt pointless, as their recommendations were often all but ignored by their governing board.

He said he understands that a committee and board aren't always going to agree, but committee members need to feel like their work matters.

"Make them feel like they're making a difference," he said.

Also during public comment Will Rawn said he thinks the board should replace the Grazing Committee with a fundraising committee.

He said he understands that grazing is an important source of revenue for the park, but it isn't the only one, and a fundraising committee might be better equipped to address the park's funding needs more broadly.

Jensen said changes to the Grazing Committee are not on the table at this point.

The board had a brief conversation about the makeup of their new consolidated board, but details would need to be hashed out.

Another subject of discussion at the meeting was communication within the board and committees, as well as between the board and the public.

Hagener said he feels that there are things that can be done to help keep people more up to date on things going on at the park and he has some suggestions.

He said he made a list of things that could help, and it seems like some of them are already happening, which is good, but there are others.

He said he would like the board to consider setting up an email list for all board and committee members as well as people generally interested in park operations, so they can keep up to date without having to wait for the monthly meeting.

Hagener also suggested putting a calendar of events and meetings on the park's website, as well as, eventually, a link to the county's website, which Williams said is still a few months away from completion.

He also suggested something like a kiosk outside the courthouse with postings of official proceedings like meetings, as not everyone goes to check the bulletin board inside the courthouse with enough frequency to keep up to date on what is happening.

During public comments another frequent attendee, Robert Williams, said if the board really wants more public engagement with their board they need to reconsider the changes they made to public comments earlier this year.

In May the board voted to limit public comment to the beginning and end of the meetings and impose time limits on speakers, when before members of the public were permitted to ask questions and make comments during individual items of discussion.

At Monday's meeting Jensen said these new rules are not going to change.

"There is a board for a reason. The board makes decisions," he said. " ... You're not on the board."

Williams said a lot of the time he doesn't have all the details on an item until the board actually gets to it in discussion so he thinks they need to change if they are going to foster public trust.

A discussion of park fees was also on the agenda for that night, but Jensen said he would like to table that discussion until they've worked out the details of what they are going to do with the finance committee.

Hagener said if changes are going to be made Edgar needs them soon so people know what they are going to be paying by the beginning of next year.

Edgar said if a decision is made by the beginning of December that should be enough time.

During public comments after the meeting three members of the public said that cabin owners have expenses that other park users don't, including maintenance of the properties, garbage disposal and fees that compound over the years and there does need to be some limits.

At the meeting board members also heard an update from Edgar about park conditions, which he said have improved dramatically in the past month with the rain.

He said the park has been engaged with general repairs and improvements including on spring tanks and roads.

He also said that Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Havre-Area Fisheries Biologist Cody Nagel recently contacted him about putting a water monitoring device on the park, in partnership with the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation and Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation.

He also said that some designs had been made for possible apparel the park could sell and he wanted to get the board's opinion on the possibility.

Edgar said they have sold apparel in the past, but often had trouble selling enough of their stock.

Members of the board were nonetheless enthusiastic about the possibility, with Williams in particular saying she thinks items like these could sell very well.