Board discusses wide range of topics

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 going to oversee the construction engineering for that part of the project but backed out after Missoula County Public Works Director Greg Robertson took a new job.

District Manager Jean Curtiss said that the board could consider hiring a Project Manager to look out for the District’s interests and oversee the construction of the project. GW has also requested that there be a contact person during construction that would be more available to answer questions on behalf of the District.

Curtiss said the District could solicit proposals from engineering companies in the Missoula area. She didn’t think it had to go out to bid, as it would be under the threshold for bidding to be required.

Curtiss hoped a Project Manager could be hired before the April board meeting so they could review the contract amendment GW was preparing to re-include construction engineering of the collection system.

The board gave the nod to have Directors Walt Hill and Beth Hutchinson work with Curtiss to create a Request for Proposals and send them to a handful of engineering firms in the area.

Curtiss also drafted a letter for the board to send to Missoula County a request for resources the county had previously provided through an inter-local agreement and some that were promised by Robertson while he was the District’s manager.

In the letter the District requested administrative assistance from Missoula County Public Works Seeley Lake Projects and Operations Coordinator Kim Myre, use of the county office space in Seeley Lake, webpage link on the county’s site, a reliable vehicle, operating and maintenance subsidies and county staff for a backup operator once the system is built.

Regarding the required right-of-way easements, Curtiss met with officials from Missoula County Public Schools. They want the easement across the north end of Seeley-Swan High School’s property appraised. They felt the school board would want to know what it was worth before making a decision.

Curtiss also obtained permission from the one private landowner at the top of Cedar Lane to go on their property to do an appraisal for the easement where the force main would head east to the treatment site.

The board voted to hire Stevens and Co. to perform the appraisals. Appraisals should be done by mid-May so that Curtiss can present it to the school board.

The value of the easements could be partially traded to the private landowner and the school for connecting them to the property. Director Mike Boltz said hooking up the school is complicated because the route the District is using for the force main doesn’t have a spot to connect too. If the school had expressed interest in hooking up the force main should have gone a different route.

Board President Pat Goodover was advised by the District’s attorney Jon Beal to not discuss the draft User Agreement at the board meeting. Beal said the draft should go through all the agency review first and then the board could take up discussion. The concern was that the board would waste time discussing something that then didn’t show up in the final draft and people would be frustrated by that.

At the board’s January meeting, Boltz handed the draft User Agreement to the board. It was then sent to Beal for review. The District’s secretary turned down three requests for the draft after the board was advised by Beal to not release it.

Hutchinson felt that the document should be released. She didn’t think anyone was intentionally trying to do things behind closed doors. She had contacted Dan Clark, Director of the Local Government Center in Bozeman, and was given advice that the document should be public.

Boltz, who was on the committee to draft the agreement, argued that he didn’t write it to release it to the public. He wrote it to send to the attorney.

Hill didn’t think the document should be opened up to a “committee of a hundred people” until it was further along. He was concerned that the District will be fighting misinformation coming out of the draft document.

Curtiss said she understood why people would be concerned about the operating and maintenance costs but the user agreement itself shouldn’t be controversial.

A resident brought up that the board is required to obtain approximately 75 percent of Phase 1 landowners signatures on the User Agreement and that it would be a disadvantage to the board if it wasn’t a good agreement. Hutchinson said she felt there would be a strong push to keep people from signing things.

The Pathfinder was one of the three who requested the document and urged the board to release the draft document arguing that any document produced by or for the board was open to the public. The right to know and the right to participate are protected rights under the Montana Constitution. Additionally the constitution has a very narrow window in which things could be deemed confidential.

Hutchinson made a motion to release the draft User Agreement.

Boltz voted against releasing the draft document restating that it wasn’t written to be a public document. Director Davy Good joined Boltz in voting against releasing it because he hadn’t seen the document prior to the meeting and could already see several changes that might be made.

Hill, Hutchinson and Goodover voted to release the draft document.

While the board did release the draft User Agreement, they took Beal’s advice and didn’t discuss the contents of the document at the meeting. Goodover said it was his understanding that Beal was sending the User Agreement draft to the required agencies for review.

In other business, Hutchinson expressed her frustrations that the District has not received a bill from Beal in nearly a year. Hutchinson explained that there are two separate issues Beal is working on including regular District business and defending the District from the lawsuit filed by Don Larson.

The board has asked for legal advice on several things recently and Hutchinson is concerned that the District has not budgeted adequately to cover this regular District business. The District has a reserve built into the budget but Hutchinson explained that the board keeps going into the reserve for things without accounting for it.

Boltz said the District has a retainer with Beal Law Firm and they are working against that retainer. Once the retainer is spent, he thought they would be invoiced but he agreed that requesting an invoice would be a good idea.

Hutchinson moved and the board voted to request monthly invoices from Beal Law Firm.

Regional Field Manager Erinn Zindt and Technical Assistance Provider Michelle Pond of MAP explained that MAP could provide the district technical, managerial and financial assistance at no cost.

MAP is a nine-state non-profit with its central office in Maryville, MO. Funding for MAP comes from a variety of sources including federal grants and contracts. Zindt and Pond work out of their homes in Bozeman.

Zindt said Seeley’s sewer project has been on MAP’s radar for quite some time but due to staffing and resource limitations they haven’t been able to help until now.

Examples of assistance Zindt gave include updating by-laws, writing ordinances, compiling examples to create User Agreements, finding additional funding, assessing if income surveys should be done and assessing how to set up a rate structure.

The next regular board meeting was moved to Wednesday, April 24 at 5:15 p.m. at the Missoula County Satellite Office located at 3360 Highway 83.