Sorted by date Results 201 - 225 of 405
SEELEY LAKE – The Seeley Lake Sewer District Board was presented with a budget for the next fiscal year that doubles last year’s budget and discussed the User Agreement (UA) and District Rules and Regulations (R&R) at their May 16 meeting. The proposed 2019 District Administrative Budget has doubled from $47,620 to $95,625. The main increase in the budget is to pay for the part time District Manager at $38,400 per year. The manager was previously donated by Missoula County through an inter-local agreement. This winter the county determined it...
SEELEY LAKE - After a winter of wrangling and struggling, the Seeley Lake Sewer Board seems no closer to an equitable funding formula for its sewer proposal than ever. The costs, in fact, seem to be going up and Missoula County officials have reneged on a pledge of more than a half-million dollars in engineering services for the construction of Phase l. That alone has resulted in an estimated cost increase of nearly three quarters of a million dollars. Sewer district residents have a constitutional right to know what the project will cost them...
SEELEY LAKE – The Seeley Lake Sewer District Board learned at their April 24 meeting that Missoula County’s inability to perform the construction engineering for the collection system is adding $759,400 to the project’s estimated cost. The board also discussed agency review of the collection system design, User Agreements, water test results and other business. The District’s former manager, Missoula County Public Works Director Greg Robertson, committed the county to performing the construction engineering in order to cut costs of the project...
SEELEY LAKE - The next Seeley Lake Community Council meeting promises an interesting agenda. Chet Crowser, Pat O’Herren’s successor as head of Missoula County Community and Planning Services (CAPS), will introduce himself and speak about his plans for CAPS. Next, Jean Curtiss, the new Title District Manager of the Seeley Lake Sewer District and former County Commissioner, will give an update on the current status and projected future of the sewer system. Following Curtiss will be Tom Browder, council member and treasurer of the Double Arr...
SEELEY LAKE – The Seeley Lake Sewer District Board discussed a wide range of topics at their March 21 board meeting including hiring a Project Manager, obtaining easements, User Agreements and attorney bills. In other business, representatives from Midwest Assistance Program (MAP) presented on ways they can provide assistance to the District. At last month’s meeting the board expressed concerns about having Great West Engineering (GW) being the only ones overseeing the construction of the collection system. Missoula County was originally goi...
SEELEY LAKE - If you have been unable to attend a sewer meeting since November 2018, you will never know what has gone on if you read the notes taken at the meetings. They do not give you any detailed information. I know the past president made sure the minutes were detailed for the public to read and be informed. I recently spoke with the sewer’s lawyer asking him about information on the Users’ Agreement. He said he couldn’t share with me, as it was a confidential matter. He said he edited the agreement and sent it back to the board, assum...
SEELEY LAKE – The Seeley Lake Sewer District Board was informed at their Feb. 27 meeting that Missoula County will most likely not be able to fulfill construction engineering as promised by the former District manager. In other business the board discussed required easements and voted to create a committee to write an annexation policy but would deny annexation requests until the system is running. In order to cut costs for the District, past District Manager and Missoula County Public Works Director Greg Robertson committed the county to d...
SEELEY LAKE – Former Missoula County Commissioner Jean Curtiss was hired at a Feb. 6 special meeting by the Seeley Lake Sewer District Board to be an interim district manager. The county had been providing Missoula County Public Works Director Greg Robertson as district manager through an interlocal agreement since 2011. Robertson left the county for a new job in January and the commissioners didn’t believe that anyone else on staff could fill in behind Robertson. At the last board meeting, the District received a letter from Missoula County st...
SEELEY LAKE - At the Sept. 24 work session of the Seeley Lake Sewer District Board, Great West Engineering gave a presentation and asked for a few decisions regarding the route of the main sewer line, etc. After the presentation, the three board members present Beth [Hutchinson], Troy [Spence] and Davy [Good] voted unanimously to instruct Great West to design the treatment plant and Phase 1 of the collection system to 90 percent. They had 120 days to submit those 90 percent plans to DEQ for approval. The Board expected the project to be approve...
SEELEY LAKE – As you all know, I resigned from the Seeley Lake Sewer Board for multiple reasons. I couldn’t sit on a corrupt board that told lies to the people of Seeley Lake for years. The time I did serve I was bullied by the former president and was threatened to be sued for not pushing a plan through that the town neither needed or wanted. The three newly elected board members after two meetings were accused of not moving forward. After research, it was the previous board members who had no idea of what needed to be done or what they were e...
SEELEY LAKE – Representatives from Great West Engineering (GW) gave the Seeley Lake Sewer District Board a new timeline for having the project ready to bid at their Jan. 17 board meeting. The new schedule pushes the ready-to-bid date from early this winter to late summer. At the meeting, GW blamed the delay in their work on former District Manager Greg Robertson and Director Beth Hutchinson however, there are also several tasks required of the District that have not been completed. Some of the tasks the District must complete before going to b...
MISSOULA – County commissioners voted to not extend the interlocal agreement between Missoula County and the Seeley Lake Sewer District at their Jan. 17 administrative meeting. The agreement expired last November and the District had requested an extension in December. The interlocal agreement has provided county resources to the District since 2011 including a District Manager, a $110,000 loan, storage space and an office among other things. Only the terms of the loan will continue as laid out in the agreement. In a letter to the District, t...
MISSOULA – County Commissioners took up discussion of the interlocal agreement between Missoula County and the Seeley Lake Sewer District at their Jan. 3 administrative meeting. The commissioners expressed concerns about the county’s ability to continue parts of the agreement with the departure of the county’s Chief Public Works Officer Greg Robertson. The Sewer District board voted in November to request the agreement that expired in mid November be extended while details of a new agreement could be worked out. The departure of Rober...
SEELEY LAKE – At their Dec. 20 meeting, the Seeley Lake Sewer District Board continued discussing the expired interlocal agreement it has with Missoula County and it was revealed that the current District Manager provided through that agreement will be leaving. The board also received a request from developers of a proposed RV Park for engineering data in order to make a proposal to include the Park in Phase 1 of the collection system. In other business the board discussed User Agreements, District by-laws and received word that the district i...
SEELEY LAKE - As a resident of the Sewer District (Dogtown) I try to stay informed and considered applying to fill the vacant board seat. I didn’t, due to other long standing commitments on the same night as the board meetings. I then heard that Troy Spence was planning on stepping down due to the hostile atmosphere of the board and its unwillingness to work towards a common goal as directed by the community through its last sewer board election. Since my commitments have been met, I was ready to seek that position. To my astonishment, the b...
SEELEY LAKE - The community voted two-to-one to replace three of five Sewer Board members. Two of the new members quit out of frustration, leaving the other neutralized. The will of the community wanted an attitude change. That will has been overturned by the old guard. I encouraged consensus. I even volunteered for the board. I contacted all players for input. I have been increasingly shunned and ignored, many phone calls not returned and my candidacy bypassed without discussion or vote. I wish the Larson suit hadn’t been filed and that r...
SEELEY LAKE – The Seeley Lake Sewer District Board not only appointed two new directors but it elected the new directors, president and vice president at its Nov. 15 meeting. The board then voted to work with the county to extend the expired interlocal agreement until a new agreement can be signed. Three days ahead of the meeting, Director Troy Spence sent in a resignation letter. In the letter he states that he felt that he and the community had received false information from the previous board and that he had done his duties to try and get t...
SEELEY LAKE – The Seeley Lake Community Council voted to seek radar operated speed signs for downtown Seeley Lake at its Nov. 12 meeting. Also at the meeting: Tom Browder was sworn into the vacant council seat; US Forest Service District Ranger Rachel Feigley gave a District update; presentations were given on an environmental cleanup assessment and planning grant for which the county is applying and the proposed RV park in Seeley Lake. Council member Bruce Friede led the discussion of radar operated speed signs for Highway 83 in Seeley L...
MISSOULA – The Missoula County Commissioners briefly discussed the future of the interlocal agreement between the county and the Seeley Lake Sewer District at an administrative meeting Oct. 31. The agreement that provides county resources, including a District Manager, is set to expire Nov. 14. At the October Sewer Board meeting, Commissioner Jean Curtiss informed the board that they needed to reach out to the county commissioners if the board wanted to continue the interlocal agreement. The board appointed a committee of two board members t...
SEELEY LAKE – The Seeley Lake Sewer District Board discussed counter suing Don Larson and the people who joined Larson’s lawsuit against the District at their Oct. 18 meeting. The board also received a manager’s report, discussed the inter-local agreement with the county, sewer service contracts and interviewed candidates for the open board position. Director Davy Good said he felt the District should consider a countersuit against Larson and approximately 50 other plaintiffs who sued the District. The countersuit would be to recover the money...
SEELEY LAKE - Seeley Lake Sewer District attorney Jon Beal filed a motion Oct. 12 asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit against the District and Missoula County initiated by Don Larson. The motion to dismiss also asks the court to award attorney’s fees to the District. Larson and approximately 50 landowners and residents have sued claiming the District mishandled the protest process, failed to provide reliable financial information about the project including estimates for future phases, disenfranchised renters, failed to answer questions fro...
SEELEY LAKE - District Court Judge Karen Townsend denied a motion by Don Larson for a preliminary injunction against the Seeley Lake Sewer District Oct. 1. Larson is suing the Sewer District and Missoula County to prevent the district from moving the planned sewer project forward and seeking legal fees and damages. The motion for a preliminary injunction was filed in July and a hearing was held Aug. 14. At the hearing, Larson and his attorney Colleen Dowdall made the argument that if the District continues to work toward constructing the...
SEELEY LAKE - I investigated our Sewer situation. Here’s a simple summary: The county is not issuing septic permits where nitrate levels are elevated, so businesses and residents have turned on each other instead of building consensus. The Sewer Board is an extension of this division and is also now expected to serve as a community planning body of civic vision, a task outside its purview. County assumptions justifying a treatment plant are neither convincing nor dismissible. The county seems to be acting conscientiously but it has also f...
SEELEY LAKE – The Seeley Lake Sewer District Board gave Great West Engineering the go-ahead to work toward completing the final design of Phase 1 of the collections system and the wastewater treatment plant during an engineering work session Sept. 24. The board also kept the force main route going up Cedar Lane, discussed the required user agreements, RV dump stations and voted to obtain updated construction cost estimates for Phase 3 and 4 of the collection system. Great West Engineering's A...
SEELEY LAKE – At the Sept. 20 meeting, Seeley Lake Sewer District Board President Beth Hutchinson announced the District doesn’t have insurance to cover the lawsuit spearheaded by Don Larson against the District. The board also discussed the uses for a recently received grant, the inter-local agreement with the county and filling the vacancy on the board. The District’s attorney informed the directors that the 17-year-old insurance policy would not be covering the lawsuit. The District has approximately $179,000 in reserves but several thing...
