Sorted by date Results 226 - 250 of 455
SEELEY LAKE – The “Welcome to Seeley Lake” sign that the Seeley Lake Community Foundation planned to install south of town has been put on hold. Foundation Executive Director Claire Muller broke the news at the Seeley Lake Community Council’s July 8 meeting. “It was not feasible to put it where it was planned in the time frame that we had for that grant funding,” said Muller. Muller explained that the design and the location ended up being the hold up coupled with the deadline to install the sign. The design was permitted for the location. T...
SEELEY LAKE – Seeley Lake resident Laura Wood presented an idea to create a dog park at the Council’s July 8 meeting. Wood was hoping to receive some community feedback and support from the council before she developed the idea any further. Wood felt there is a growing need for an area to take dogs to play. Most of the lake areas have either stopped allowing dogs on the beaches or have strict leash laws. Wood’s dog has been attacked several times by loose dogs in town and a dog park would provide a safe place to be off leash. It could also...
SEELEY LAKE - The Seeley Lake Elementary School Board hired three new teachers, appointed a new board trustee and approved a parent request for a student to enter kindergarten at a special meeting July 10. Since SLE has not hired a new superintendent, Missoula County Superintendent of Schools Erin Lipkind worked with a hiring committee to offer the board hiring recommendations. The committee recommended candidates for four different positions at SLE. The board only approved three of the four recommendations. The board approved Susan Bracha to...
SEELEY LAKE – The Seeley Lake Sewer District Board held a special meeting July 15 to set District’s administrative fee assessment method, set the assessment method hearing date and sign an engineering contract to change the location of the force main. Last week, Missoula County held a hearing July 11 on the Pine Street easement petition. Missoula County Public Works Seeley Lake Projects and Operations Coordinator Kim Myre said the presented assessment methodology is the same as last year. It charges a flat rate to property with dwelling uni...
SEELEY LAKE – The Seeley Lake Elementary School Board accepted Superintendent Chris Stout’s resignation at a special meeting June 25. Stout emailed the board his resignation June 18, “Hey guys. I just wanted to let you know that I will not be returning next year. I know everything is open to speculation but honestly it’s time. It’s time for everyone. I appreciate all your support and will always look back on my time and smile. Life changes. People change. Places change. I think this is a win-win for everyone. My last day will be June 30. You ca...
SEELEY LAKE –The Seeley Lake Sewer District Board had a packed agenda for the June 20 regular meeting with topics ranging from bidding schedule and changing the force main route to Rules and Regulations (R&Rs) and cost estimates for Phase 3 and 4. The meeting ran nearly four hours with some agenda items being tabled. Bidding Timeline District Manager Jean Curtiss asked that the board to consider changing the bid dates from late this summer or early fall to January. Curtiss explained that a small sewer job in Missoula that went to bid in A...
SWAN VALLEY – The Swan Valley School board prioritized the list for facility security, safety and maintenance at their June 19 meeting. Topping the list was school safety and security closely followed by a water cooler and bottle filler for the main school and building insulation. The board voted to start getting estimates to address the recommendations from staff to create a main portal for the school. Board Chair John Mercer told the board they have a maintenance fund pool of $50,000 and he wanted to set priorities. He went back through t...
SEELEY LAKE – The Seeley Lake Rural Fire District Board approved their insurance policy and passed a preliminary budget at their June 18 meeting. Marketing Coordinator - Montana Chris Hindoien with Volunteer Firemen’s Insurance Services, Inc (VFIS) presented this year’s insurance plan to the board. The policy increased $476 from last year to cover the buildings, 13 vehicles and the volunteers on and off work. He said that the Department is adequately insured to cover liability concerns and to meet state law including the accident and sickn...
SEELEY LAKE – Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation Clearwater Unit Supervisor Kristen Baker-Dickinson and US Forest Service Seeley Lake District Ranger Quinn Carver presented about the local applications of the Good Neighbor Authority at the Seeley Lake Community Council meeting June 10. They are both excited about this opportunity to increase the pace and scale of forest restoration and resiliency work in the area. The Good Neighbor Authority was put into law in the 2014 Farm Bill and the authority expanded in the 2018 O...
SEELEY LAKE – Missoula County has launched a new website hoping to address some of the issues raised at the Seeley Lake Community Council’s Building Forum in January. Missoula County Project Manager Gayl Hann announced the new website at the Council meeting June 10. Hann said the county learned at the building forum that people were having trouble finding all the things they needed to navigate the building permit system. The County had already started using software that would send the applications out to all the necessary departments wit...
SEELEY LAKE - The Seeley Lake Elementary School Board discussed employment vacancies within the district as well as a General Fund budget amendment at its regular meeting Wednesday, June 12. According to Superintendent Chris Stout the district is advertising openings for second and third grade educators, as well as a hybrid position for a junior high library media and social language arts educator. The third grade position isn’t vacant but Stout anticipates current third grade teacher Kristy Pohlman will take maternity leave in the fall. ...
SEELEY LAKE – Residents attending the Seeley Lake Sewer District Board’s special meeting to discuss the draft User Agreements (UA) June 6 had a lot of concerns and asked many questions. Most circled back to the landowners’ pocketbook and the million-dollar question: How many million dollars is this project going to cost? District Manager Jean Curtiss explained that the UA were sent to just landowners in Subdistrict/Phase 1 and it was mistakenly sent without the word “draft” across it. Curtiss said that the UA references the Rules and Regulatio...
SEELEY LAKE – Seeley Lake Elementary School is shuffling staff for next year. The school board received two resignations and Superintendent Chris Stout shared about internal transfers and the need to hire a new second grade teacher at their May 20 board meeting. The board accepted resignation letters from second grade teacher Erin Lynch and kindergarten teacher Robin Beckett. With the kindergarten position open, Stout approved first grade teacher Sheila Devins’ request to transfer back to kindergarten. Second grade teacher Rachel Bemis wil...
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 – Missoula County Air Quality Specialist Ben Schmidt presented on a proposal to require automatic wood stoves in the Seeley Lake Area at the Seeley Lake Community Council May 13. Violations of the PM 2.5 standards over the last several winters in Seeley Lake have been highly variable. However, the Health Department still feels the trend is that of too many violations. The last two winters were exceptionally good air with just two days over in 2017-18 and no days over in 2018-19 while the winter of 2016-17 was exceptionally bad a...
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...
SWAN VALLEY - The Swan Valley Community Council heard presentations from Swan Valley resident Donn Ware about possible threats from Smart Electric Meters in the valley and from Missoula County employees about a climate resiliency planning process called Climate Ready Communities: Building Resiliency in Missoula County at their monthly meeting April 16. Ware said that beginning in August 2016, Missoula Electric Coop changed out Swan Valley residents’ meters to level two Smart Meters. Ware claimed these meters are a “huge invasion of our pri...
SEELEY LAKE – The family of Nick Beery addressed the Seeley Lake Fire District board regarding their concerns with the response they received to their home April 6. While the Beery family was grateful for the three volunteers who responded, they asked why the response time, qualifications and training of the volunteers and number of volunteers was so different from when they had called 9-1-1 in the past. Barbara Beery read a letter to the Fire Board at their April 16 meeting during public c...
SEELEY LAKE – The Seeley Lake Fire Board approved increasing the hours for the facilities manager at their April 16 meeting. Fire Chief Dave Lane also promoted training officer Michael Richards to captain. Lane asked the board to increase facility manager Kody Kelley's hours from 25 to 32 hours. This would allow larger projects to be completed and maintain the part-time status, eliminating the need for the Fire District to pay benefits. "I think with a few extra hours I can get him into a better...
SWAN VALLEY – The Swan Valley Elementary School Board continued their discussion regarding the new school sign. They also reviewed a list of facility maintenance projects and discussed how they could move forward. Trustee Jimmy Boyd presented the board with a different sign design than the four by eight foot sign on a four-foot pedestal that was discussed at the March meeting. He found a design for a 66-inch by 16-inch wooden sign with a three-foot wide stone base on an 18-inch concrete footer that would utilize the LED display. The LED p...
OVANDO –Powell County Planning Board hosted two separate open houses in Ovando and Helmville April 1 and April 4 to discuss the zoning requirement for Powell County Zoning District 3. According to Powell County Planner Carl Hamming, the Open Houses were an effort to gather what people liked, disliked and what they saw as a future vision for zoning for Ovando, Helmville and the northern Powell County region. Hamming said within Montana state code, counties are required to have a growth policy. While the growth policy itself doesn’t have any regu...
SEELEY LAKE – Representatives from the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation informed state leaseholders about changes to their eligibility to participate in the cabin and home site sales program at a meeting April 4 at the Seeley Lake Community Hall. Recently resolved road easement issues opened the door for leaseholders in three area neighborhoods to participate in the lease site sales program. The neighborhoods, as labeled by the DNRC, include Clearwater River East Shore (Dogtown, accessed via Grizzly Drive), Clearwater River W...
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 – The Seeley Lake Elementary School (SLE) board approved permissive levies for the tuition fund and for the building reserve at their March 19 meeting. The tuition fund is used to offset the cost to educate students if they require one-on-one instruction. It is called a tuition fund because in larger towns the money would be used to pay tuition at another school capable of providing the students the extra education. The school is required by law to provide this instruction. In SLE’s case, the fund can be used to pay for extra sta...
SEELEY LAKE – The Seeley Lake Fire Board discussed pursuing a franchise agreement and voted to increase rates for service at their March 19 meeting. Seeley Lake Fire Chief Dave Lane brought up the franchise agreement to start the discussion of whether it was needed or not for the Seeley Lake Fire District. Currently Missoula Emergency Services Incorporated (MESI) has a franchise agreement with Missoula County to provide county-wide ambulance service. Lane thinks that because the District is a political subdivision within Missoula County with it...
