Park board members spar over transparency

Hill County Park Board members argued about their board's transparency in a heated meeting Monday evening, where they also discussed park fees and grant funding, and approved a preliminary design for the Camp Kiwanis Beaver Lodge.

Hill County Park Board member Lou Hagener has been arguing for months that the board needs to do more to keep the public informed about their activities and boost public knowledge and engagement.

At Monday's meeting Hagener made a motion to have the board create an email list of all board and associated committee members, as well as any member of the public who requests to be put on the list, and send them all agendas with at least two working days of notice, as well as minutes and explanations of meetings' contents.

He said this motion was designed to be in line with recent board training put on by the county and Montana State University Hill County Extension, and the best practices they outline.

Beaver Creek Park Superintendent Chad Edgar said they already have an email list.

Hagener said he's a board member and he never received notification for multiple grazing committee meetings and he's heard from multiple members of the public saying they don't receive emails any more despite supposedly being on the list, and he thinks his motion will establish more consistent communication.

However, the motion died for lack of a second, with members of the board, including board chair Jeff Jensen criticizing those who've argued that the board isn't transparent enough, referring to such attitudes as "conspiracy theory stuff."

Jensen said they follow the laws regarding notification of public meetings, and if that is not enough he doesn't know what to tell people.

"We're here out of the goodness of our hearts, we're all volunteers, I don't get paid for this," he said. " ... This is a good board, let us do our job. Don't criticize what we do."

He also said he's never received a complaint about meeting notices in all of his time working in government and said very few people ever show up to these meetings, mostly just the media.

Board member Sheri Williams said Hagener's proposal would make a tremendous amount of work for the park secretary, potentially having to keep track of a great many email recipients, and he should think about what he's asking of her.

During the discussion a member of the public, Emma Korntheuer, who was there to speak on another matter, asked why they couldn't use an automated email list, but Jensen cut her off.

"The public can't talk during this time," he said.

During the meeting the board members also discussed potentially raising park fees, which members of the board have said are well below comparable parks and have not risen in years despite inflation.

Edgar said since 2018, the last time the prices were changed, inflation has increased 23 percent, and board member Pam Wilson said the price of practically everything the park needs to sustain itself has risen dramatically, so they need to raise prices.

Wilson presented a proposal for new fees, including a daily park pass price of $15.

She also proposed implementing six-month seasonal passes, one for the winter and one for summer, with a price of $75 for the summer months - April 15 to Oct. 15 - and $50 for winter months - Oct. 16 to April 14 - with a discount for seniors.

Wilson's proposal also included a price of $432 for Friday through Sunday site reservations and $540 for holiday weekend site reservations, which are the three-day weekend plus one day.

She said these are just recommendations at this point based on her examination of the park's rising costs and previous years of prices.

She said working at Beaver Creek Park requires a great deal of time, for both the labor and commute which involves a significant fuel cost, and the park only has so much to pay people, so they need to increase their revenue to address these issues.

Members of the board agreed that a price increase is needed and Lou Hagener made the further suggestion that they eliminate the senior discount, saying they have exactly the same average impact on the park as anyone else.

Edgar said he doesn't see any particular issues with the proposal, and the only thing that would require any kind of change in operation is the implementation of the six-month pass, which the public might need some time to get used to.

He needs the next year of site-reservation fees approved by the end of the year, but the rest of the prices the board can consider in their own time without any issues on his end.

Members of the board agreed to address the site reservation fees at the next meeting and send the rest to a committee for review and discussion.

The board also approved the preliminary floor plan for the new Camp Kiwanis Beaver Lodge, so they can get estimates on cost and proceed with the project.

Jensen said they've workshopped the design and are largely happy with the results.

He said they don't want to go much smaller than the current design but they will need to get an estimate to see where they stand and if they need to make any changes.

Edgar said he's been looking into additional funding sources for the lodge and those he's found will need some kind of estimate before they start talking about any kind of commitment so he'll discuss possibilities more once those numbers come in.

Board members also voted to buy stickers, hats and T-shirts with Beaver Creek Park logo designs on them to sell to people.

Another subject of discussion at the meeting was about potential funding for watershed and grazing infrastructure made possible through a House Bill 6 authorization.

Hagener said there is a great deal of funding available for various projects on the park including watershed restoration, grazing, and pollution prevention, and a program being administered right now could help pay for engineering reports and resources assessments that could be used to gain grant funds to make improvements to the park.

Hill County Conservation District Administrator Emma Korntheuer said her organization has been looking into ways the park can benefit from the funds made available through this House Bill 6 authorization, which could include culvert replacement, cross fence construction, road grating and grazing-related studies that could improve park operation.

Hagener said he's especially interested in how this money could be used to evaluate grazing practices on the park.

Korntheuer said the funds could cover the hiring of an independent third-party firm to analyze the park's resources and develop a plan laying out the best way to manage the park's resources.

Some members of the board expressed concern that having a third party develop this plan could take away local control of park management, and worried about the funding for these projects being changed.

Korntheuer said control would still remain in the board's hands and that the plan would ultimately be a recommendation that can be acted on, as well as a tool for getting more funding.

"It wouldn't be an automatic obligation to follow the recommendations in this grazing plan, it would be an outline of best-management practices for the area," she said.

She also said that under this program the county could see engineering reports created completely grant funded, no match required.

Korntheuer said some of the finer details of how these grants would work are still being hammered out, but they would be a fairly low commitment of time and resources to pursue and so much money is available in these next two years, that this is a great time to start thinking about what to do.

Williams said engineering can be extremely expensive and she's never seen a program that didn't require a match, so she thinks it's a good thing to take advantage of.

She said Korntheuer is an expert at what she does and is an incredible asset to the area and if she's advocating for using this program then it's almost certainly a great move.

The board also heard an update from Edgar about park conditions, which he said have been good, with frequent rain storms throughout the last few weeks and cattle evenly distributed throughout the park.

He said 1,735 head of cattle are on the park now, and they might be getting a few more, though one cow was killed in a car crash last month.

He said winterization is almost complete and work on the deteriorating spring tank in the South End has been completed.

However, Edgar said, it's not all good news, as they've already seen illegal woodcutting in the area of the Lions Campground, which is a big problem.

He said last year illegal cutting caused a tree to fall on a power line in the park during the winter.

He said there is a $100 reward for anyone who reports information about illegal wood cutting on the park that leads to a conviction, and he's hoping to get that reward raised to keep up with recent inflation.