The Stevensville Town Council meeting on Thursday August 13, took place on the internet using the Zoom platform. Mayor Brandon Dewey hosted the meeting from his office at Town Hall. In his introduction of the agenda item about establishing a municipal health board, Mayor Dewey told the council that a lot of public comment had been received and would be made available in the minutes. No public comments were read into the record during the meeting.
Dewey told the council that the aim of the agenda item was not to establish a municipal health board. He said the issue was simply up for discussion and he was looking for consensus from the council about whether to move forward with the idea or not.
Councilor Jaime Devlin, who initiated the agenda item, said that she had heard from a lot of people with concerns about the cost. She said creating a volunteer board involved zero costs.
“We don’t have a plan for Covid,” said Devlin. She said there was no plan in case the Covid situation improves and no plan if it gets worse. She said the Mayor was not getting any information from the county and neither was she when she tried.
“We don’t have enough information to even form a plan,” said Devlin. She said the board that she was proposing could be the entity to get the needed information and make recommendations.
“Our community wants answers,” she said.
Council President Bob Michalson, who tuned into the meeting from his home, said that he had some other people present, many of them business owners in town, who wanted to speak and asked if it was possible.
Mayor Dewey said that he did not consider it fair to the other people who following procedure and submitting written comments electronically.
Councilor Devlin said that she didn’t realize that people could be invited to attend.
“I didn’t realize that you could have a party at home and have all those people attend,” she said. She asked if she had misunderstood something.
Mayor Dewey said that the Town had a plan in place on how to handle public comment at the meetings and that all of those comments would be part of the minutes.
Someone in the audience said, “But they are not part of the discussion.”
Dewey said that everyone was receiving the comments simultaneously through the website.
“That’s where I’ll leave that problem,” he said.
A person standing behind Michalson at his home said, “This is bullshit. You know this is bullshit.”
Michalson’s site was cut off and the Mayor said, “Mr. Michalson has been removed from the meeting. We are not going to tolerate that. Mr. Michalson represents people and has a voice in the matter but he has abused that.”
Councilor Dempsey Vick suggested tabling the issue. He said the county was getting new leadership in the county health office and they may be more willing to work with the town. He moved to table the issue until September 10.
Mayor Dewey said the internet site was receiving lots of public comment and then called for a vote.
The motion to table was approved on a 2 to 1 vote with Councilor Holcomb dissenting.
When it came to the issue of face coverings the Mayor said that the agenda item did not include any mandate to wear masks. He said it was to initiate an open conversation about masks and their use in the community and the potential need for additional measures.
Councilor Devlin said that the community was divided over the issue and her hope was that the council could remain neutral and look for answers because the community needs to find some sort of compromise. She said it was on the agenda just for discussion and there was no decision to be made and no mandate was being proposed.
Councilor Vick said that he was pro-mask but he also believed that people had a right to not wear masks.
“People have a right to wear a mask. People have a right to not wear a mask. People have a right to kiss rats. People have a right to not kiss rats,” said Vick. He said he also had a right to take his business to pro-mask businesses.
“If I do go to other businesses, I accept the risk of contracting Covid,” said Vick. He said he did take that risk in certain businesses.
Both Vick and Holcomb said that the answer they would give people about the situation and the governor’s mandate is to go to the governor and the legislature with their questions.
“Is our stance that we are not going to have a discussion with our public?” asked Devlin.
Both Holcomb and Vick responded that wearing masks was an individual choice.
Devlin thanked the other councilors for their input.
Mayor Dewey then abruptly apologized for probably appearing distracted and said there was a group of people out front of the office “causing a decent ruckus.” He said law enforcement was handling it.
Dewey said that he felt compelled to speak and would be shooting from the hip to some degree. He said he was very proud of his administration and the Stevensville community but couldn’t say the same for some portion of the community. He said there is a time and a place and a way to participate publicly, “but the display we saw tonight was not that.”
Dewey said that it is possibly a time for the town to re-define its character and let its voice be heard. He said holding virtual meetings was a real challenge, but that it had produced a lot of public comment. He said everyone can read it and that they were not hiding anything. He said a plan was needed on how to handle the information.
“It isn’t feasible to read it all,” he said, “but happily we can’t see displays like this.”
Michalson said in a telephone interview with the Bitterroot Star that the mayor was not even reading the emails that were coming into the box and not reading the comments that came in during the meeting. He said it was supposed to be part of this Zoom thing.
“If you watch it, you’ll see that the public is completely shut out. It doesn’t do any good to put them in the minutes or put them in correspondence two weeks later,” said Michalson. He said he had received 43 emails and he knows that the Mayor could not read all of them. Michalson said that some important decisions were coming up and if the Zoom platform can’t deal with public comment then the town needs to go back to having meetings where the public can attend.
Michalson said that the night of the meeting a bunch of business owners came to his house because they thought that they weren’t being heard and felt that they were being shut out too. He said that when they came over he thought they should be heard and asked Dewey if they could speak. He said Cody Omlid came out of nowhere from behind him with his comments.
Cody Omlid, owner of Kodiak Jax, was one of about 20 business owners that signed a letter regarding the meeting’s agenda items. The letter was apparently distributed to the council members but was not read into the record at the meeting.
In the letter, the business owners expressed concerns about implementing more government regulations and directly addressed the issue of creating a municipal health board and the new position of Director of Community Development.
They were against forming a local health board primarily because of the cost. They do not see the need and believe the county is doing a good job. “As of today, the total case count for residents is .19% and current active cases are .027% for all of Ravalli County,” they wrote. They saw the Director of Community Development position as another unnecessary job.
They object to any mask mandate, saying, “We have already dealt with close downs, limited capacities and restrictions that have made business income more limited. Do you want to be responsible for one or more of our businesses closing due to what you deem is right? “
“None of us want to have COVID-19 spread throughout our community or businesses, but we don’t want our choice of how we handle our businesses taken away. We have built our successful, individual businesses doing it the way we choose. Let us keep that,” they wrote.
Michalson said he asked Dewey to be put back on the meeting, but the mayor refused. Michalson said he was kind of upset because he didn’t believe he had done anything wrong. He said it was because the mayor and council member Devlin didn’t think it was fair to everybody else.
“But he wasn’t letting anybody else speak,” said Michalson. “The public has a right and I don’t think it’s right that they are being left out,” he said. He said the mayor had mentioned setting up the Zoom platform to accept public comment by phone as they do in Missoula, but so far he has not done so.
“Something has got to happen, because this just can’t go on this way,” said Michalson.
In other business, the council got a heads up about a coming Change Order on the Airport taxiway project. It was discovered that the base under the runway aprons did not meet standards and would have to be repaired adding an additional $50,000 to the project costs. 90% will be covered by a federal grant but the town will have to cover 10% of those costs, about $5,000.
Parks and Rec Director Bobby Sonsteng reported that the Town swimming pool had been tested for leaks and it was discovered that the main swimming pool lost ¼ inch to ½ inch of water over a five-day period. The big problem was found in the Kiddie Pool which lost about 28 inches of water overnight.
Sonsteng also said some fencing had been removed in Lewis and Clark Park and the trail at river park had been mowed. A kid’s nature walk was held on the rejuvenated trail last week and others are planned for August 19th and August 26th. They are free and open to the public. A Story Walk is also being displayed along the Bike Path between the town and River Park.
Due to uncertainty about the number of children that might be attending school this fall, the School District has declined to enter a new contract for a School Resource Officer, according to Police Chief James Marble. The Police Department is currently looking to hire a fourth officer who may be assigned to serve night duty.