by John Dowd
Last Thursday, February 13, the Stevensville Town Council met to discuss a number of new business items. The first of these was an idea to bring more funding to the town. This would involve allowing food and vendor trucks into the town parks, specifically Lewis and Clark Park. There was some contention among council members regarding the proposal. According to Mayor Bob Michalson, the town is really “trying to get more money into the park’s system.” The process would involve creating a process for trucks to get permitting to set up in the park.
“According to town ordinances, we can do this in a town park,” said the mayor. He added, “I don’t see why we can’t allow vendors down there,” during specific times and when not conflicting with other events.
According to Janelle Berthound, town clerk, Stevensville has had several food trucks approach with interest in setting up there. Town employees agreed that the idea could create a reliable revenue stream to supplement town operations, chiefly park clean up and maintenance.
According to the town clerk, it is difficult for these trucks to find other places in Stevensville to set up, especially in the downtown area, unless a truck has already partnered with a business. In moving forward with a permitting process, it was stipulated that the town would not provide power. Trucks would also need proper insurance and licensing in order to be approved to purchase a town permit to set up in the park.
However, comments by several council members created concern. Council member Cindy Brown was hesitant to allow the trucks. Her worries centered around the town having proper insurance for this kind of thing. She also requested that the town lawyer look over such a proposal, and voiced worries that it would conflict with what a park is meant to be.
Council member Stacie Barker also had concerns, saying, “I don’t agree with putting them in here.” She said these trucks might compete with other Stevensville brick and mortar businesses downtown, as well as already established food trucks. For her, it was a definite “no.”
“We need to figure out something else,” said Barker.
Ultimately, the council elected to table the discussion on food trucks in the parks until after they received an opinion from the town attorney and they looked into their insurance, among other concerns posed by Brown.
Next, the council voted to put out a request for proposal (RFP) for tree pruning services. According to the mayor, several trees around town were marked red for trimming. This was done after the summer wind storms, with the idea of utilizing funding from the governor’s declaration that Ravalli County was a disaster area. The town identified close to 100 trees that were affected by the storm that may need to be pruned or cut down entirely. Of those, an arborist whittled the number to 50 trees that would definitely need attention. Three of these will need to be cut down.
Finally, the town took its first look at implementing higher impact fees onto developers. These fees would allow infrastructure support and development to deal with rising public use due to population increase. This would apply to any developers putting in neighborhoods or the like moving forward.
According to the mayor, “The more they develop, the more they put a strain on the local taxpayers.” He said this kind of thing is becoming more popular across the country, as rural communities are quickly needing to deal with more people moving in faster than established infrastructure can adapt.
The council decided to create a committee to look at increasing fees for developers to offset infrastructure costs. The committee would include several members of the town government, including council members, the mayor, the public works director and more.
