Commissioners discuss renewing interlocal agreement

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 Robertson was announced in December and complicates the renewal of the agreement since Robertson is the Sewer District General Manager.

County Commissioner Chair Cola Rowley explained that Robertson’s replacement as the head of Public Works has not been hired and may not be for several months. Rowley expressed her concerns that Robertson’s replacement may not have the same skill set as Robertson and that the language of the agreement should be revised.

Robertson agreed that if he were staying it would be easy to simply continue the agreement but since he is leaving it is up in the air.

Commissioner David Strohmaier questioned how much of the Sewer District’s funding package for the treatment plant and Phase 1 of the collection system depended on the in-kind donations including manager from the county and could the District hire a General Manager independent of the county.

Robertson explained that the interlocal agreement includes a $110,000 loan that is required for matching grant funding. Outside the interlocal agreement, Robertson said the county has also committed to providing a Construction/Project Manager to do construction oversight for Phase 1 of the collection system.

Robertson said the Construction/Project Manager, provided by the county, has been included in the county’s Public Works budget though the position hasn’t been filled. Robertson planned to fill the position ahead of the start of construction. The position would also have other county duties so the manager wouldn’t be exclusively hired for Seeley’s sewer project.

Robertson said the primary funding agency, United States Department of Agriculture Rural Development, has nothing to do with the interlocal agreement providing the District a General Manager. The District could hire the position out separately.

“[The District] is going to need some help and some continued adult intervention to keep things moving in the right direction,” said Robertson.

“With someone new coming on [as Chief of Public Works] they’re not going to be able to handle the workload that [Robertson] has been able to handle,” said Rowley. “I don’t want people to have unrealistic expectations of how much time a new person is going to be able to spend on this.”

Commissioner Josh Slotnick questioned if the new Chief of Public Works wasn’t able to perform Robertson’s role as the Sewer District Manager, would that hamstring the sewer project.

Robertson said he didn’t have an answer to that question.

“Certainly we are not going to go back on any of our commitments and we don’t want to put the community in the position where they can’t afford [the sewer system],” said Rowley.

The commissioners instructed their Chief Administrative Officer, Vickie Zeier and John Hart, Lead Deputy County Attorney - Civil Division, to look over the old interlocal agreement and determine if it or parts of it could be extended and bring it back to the commissioners for further discussion and possible action.