Stevensville town council still mum on public safety levy

The first order of unfinished business at the Stevensville Town Council meeting on July 23 was a reconsideration of placing the proposed public safety mill levy on the next general election ballot. After comparing the cost of full-time law enforcement coverage from the county to full-time coverage by the Town’s Police Department, the council directed the mayor to draw up a proposed mill levy that would provide the funds for a full-time police force. But when the mill levy was brought before the Council at its last meeting, it died without any discussion due to lack of a second. 

Mayor Brandon Dewey said that it was somewhat unconventional to bring something up that wasn’t passed or kind of left unclear, but he was bringing this forward again because of some confusion that was expressed at the last budget workshop as to whether they were still considering the proposed levy anymore at all or not. 

“You can approve it or deny it,” said Dewey. “Either way, it’s your decision.” He said his administration needed some clear indication as to whether to move forward in any fashion or not.

“How would the Council like to proceed?” he asked.

The question was met with complete silence.

“OK, we’ll move on,” said Dewey.

The Mayor then introduced the traffic study done by Police Chief James Marble concerning the intersections along 2nd Street. He said the recommendation was to place a four-way stop at the intersection of 2nd and College. 

Councilor Stacie Barker had a different idea. She said that stop signs should be placed on the side streets at all three intersections under consideration and 2nd street should be left as a through street.

Councilor Robin Holcomb agreed, saying a four-way stop would create confusion.

The Council voted unanimously to place stop signs on the three side streets and none on 2nd Street.

Former mayor Jim Crews and Councilors Bob Michalson and Barker had placed on the agenda the issue of re-opening the town’s fishing access site at River Park. Mayor Dewey noted that the floodplain permit was set to expire on August 11 and could be renewed for $50 but it had to be renewed at least 30 days before the expiration date.

The conversation turned to a discussion of the need for clean-up and weed cutting at the park, but Councilor Ray Smith did say that it made sense to wait on the development of the FAS by the bridge and that FWP and the adjoining landowner appeared to be working it out. He said the town’s boat launch was established as a temporary site and was not meant to be permanent. He said given the unknown cost of re-opening and maintaining it and the already overworked town staff, it made sense to give FWP and the landowner a chance to solve the parking issues.

A motion was made to direct the Mayor to pursue re-opening the floodplain permit even though it may not meet the timeline for renewal. The motion passed 3 to 1 with Smith casting the dissenting vote.

The Council unanimously approved an agreement for ambulance billing services that will allow the Fire Department to make emergency transfers to the hospital when an ambulance is not available.

Under new business, the Council approved an Alcohol Use Permit and a Special Event Permit for the Stevensville Civic Club’s Creamery Picnic.

The Council made changes to the Personnel Policy Manual, amending the travel and expense re-imbursement amount.

“The Council puts in hours at these training sessions, we should be able to get a good meal,” said Michalson.

The Council approved a $5,000 budget for purchase of a new pool heater to replace the broken-down boiler. They turned down an offer from The Plumber to install the new system for free because he is the Mayor’s father-in-law and they believed it could be seen as a form of nepotism.

The Mayor said that since neither he nor his father-in-law would profit from the work that it wouldn’t be nepotism, but the Council nixed the idea.

As part of his Executive Report, Mayor Dewey noted that he had received so many questions from Councilor Robin Holcomb recently that he wanted to make his answers a part of the public record.

First up was the issue of the $500 spent on flowers along Main Street. The mayor had claimed the money came from the Economic Development Fund. Councilor Barker stated that she had looked it up and that the money for the flowers was taken from the Town Maintenance Fund. Dewey said he re-checked and found that there were two expenditures for flowers on the books, one for the flowers on Main Street which was paid for with economic development funds and the other for flowers in the flower boxes at Town Hall and those were paid for from the town’s maintenance fund. 

He said that Holcomb had also expressed “disappointment” in his allowing public discussion over an agenda item that lacked a second. He said he felt that allowing for some discussion between members of the community might help the council decide what direction it might want to take on the matter.

 Dewey said that Holcomb also questioned the presence of the police clerk at a town council meeting and her running a projector at another meeting. She also wondered whether the projector was a new one. Dewey said, “All employees are welcome to attend council meetings and the Police Clerk is no exception to that.” They work out whatever time arrangements or whether they are on the clock with their supervisors. “I rarely look into it since it’s never been abused,” he said. He said the clerk volunteered to run the projector when no staff was available to do it and it was the same old projector.

He said Holcomb wanted him to know that the aerobics instructor and lifeguard are not the same thing and expressed her dislike of the new furniture arrangement in the meeting room and also mentioned communications and the use of the fire truck.

Dewey said he received another email from Holcomb saying that she was concerned about a recent building permit and wondered what authority he had as mayor, and that it needed to stop before a lawsuit was brought on the town. She asked that he put a cease and desist order on construction.

Dewey said in response that the permit was issued following standard procedures through the Clerk’s office.

“I did not issue the permit,” he said, “Audree did. I only signed off on the Zoning Review of the permit which is my responsibility as Zoning Administrator.” He said the zoning regulations had been met and the Building Inspector had not revoked it and has had it for two weeks.

“I do not issue a stop work order unless zoning codes are violated,” said Dewey.

 He said Holcomb wondered who gave the Bitterroot Star permission to use her emails and complained that some were deleted. He said she asked him to get her consent before obtaining her emails.

In response, he stated that the Bitterroot Star had asked him for his emails after she referenced them at the last meeting. “I willingly shared my emails with the Star including the dialogue between you and I.” He said her emails were not administratively accessed. He said the completed email request for his account was on file in the Clerk’s office.

“There is no requirement that consent be obtained before public records on a public system from a public official may be released,” he said.

“Undoubtedly it’s been a tumultuous seven months for us. Attempts to bury the hatchet have failed, tempers have flared and regrettable actions against each other have been committed. In a time when it seems everything else is going right for our community, the five of us seem to be the only thing that’s wrong,” said Dewey.

Dewey said that he could see how they consider his actions as an attempt to try to discredit them, “but that is not my intention. I realize that I must use my leadership position to be more sensitive to your feelings and goals for our community whether I agree with them or not.”

He said that in humility he apologized but that his intentions, like theirs, were not bad.

Michalson said in his comment time that since last week’s newspaper story he had a long talk with Town Attorney Brian West about emails and that West was going to send him the Missoula and Hamilton email policies for them to review again and that West recommends going with a policy like Missoula’s combined with a GoDaddy program that would allow a bigger drop box where they could put all their emails and make them all open to the public.

“It will end all this email crap that’s going on in the paper about us,” he said. 

He thanked Dewey for his apology and he apologized himself and concluded, “I think if we can put that out there were anybody can see them that it will end this crap.”

Councilor Holcomb said, “It would have been nice if they came to me first and got my permission. This email thing needs to stop. It really does. To open up the paper and be blasted like that and I didn’t even get a call or anything. To not even be warned.”

We need to move on,” she said. “In seven months, we’ve done nothing.”

 

For the record, MMIA, MLCT don’t give legal advice

The Town of Stevensville received two emails in response to Council President Bob Michalson’s statement at the previous Town Council meeting that he had received legal advice from Angela Simonson at the Montana Municipal Interlocal Authority (MMIA) concerning the use of the Town’s fire truck by an employee from some other department.

Town Finance Officer April Van Tassel had trouble making sense out of Councilor Michalson’s legal reasoning and contacted the “attorney” for clarification. “The information that was given last night doesn’t make sense so I wanted to go straight to the source,” she wrote.

“First off, I am NOT legal counsel and when I’ve talked with Councilman Michalson I’ve been very clear that I do NOT give legal advice, and can only speak to the level of risk involved,” Simonson wrote back.

She said that Michalson asked her if it was OK for a non-fire department employee to be driving a fire department vehicle.

“I asked what type of vehicle the person was driving… he told me it was a pump truck. I shared that normally such vehicles require special training and unless the person driving has that task specific training, then no, it would not be advised to allow them to drive. The second risk I identified was if the FD received a call, then this person would have to be contacted, drive the truck back to the station and then allow the FF to take the truck to the call… all this creates a high risk to the Town,” wrote Simonson. She said that normally only employees of the Fire Department, Public Works Department or the Police Department are allowed to drive dedicated vehicles.

Van Tassel responded, “I wasn’t at the meeting that night or I would have corrected him. He (and the rest of the Council) don’t understand, firstly who MMIA is, and secondly what your role is within that organization. I don’t doubt that is the information he gave you. However, it’s not factual. It was not a pumper, it was a brush fire truck that only responds to wildland fires. It was being driven by a Town employee who is also on the fire department roster who was given permission by the fire chief to drive the vehicle. She was delivering copies of the fireworks ordinance to fireworks stands at the direction of the chief.”

Simonson asked that the minutes be corrected to clarify that she is not legal counsel for MMIA.

Several days later the Town received an email from the Claims Manager at MMIA stating, “MMIA and MLCT [Montana League of Cities and Towns] Staff recently received inquiries from members of the Stevensville Council asking for legal advice on Town issues. As indicated to the individuals calling, the MMIA and the MLCT cannot provide our members legal advice. Please address any issues requiring a legal opinion to your City Attorney Brian West.”