Gary Knapp of Stevensville is the Cat’s Eye Craftsman. He is a maker of fine clocks in the craftsman tradition. He straddles that old, and to a degree fictitious, dividing line between ‘fine art’ and ‘craft’.

Knapp is indeed a craftsman. He loves working with wood and has for most of his life, but only in his spare time as he pursued an education and career. He graduated from Colorado State with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. His first job was with the Applied Physics Laboratory, a federally chartered research center, at Johns Hopkins University. It meant working with submarines, airplanes, radar, satellites, and more.

He worked summers during school for John Deere in Des Moines, Iowa, on farm machinery and in Dubuque on industrial machines. He also managed to get a Master’s degree in computer science and subsequently went to work for IBM.

“But I was always a woodworker,” said Knapp. “Not at the level I am now, but I was always doing something, house projects or building furniture, mostly on the weekends.”

In fact, it was while attending Johns Hopkins as a graduate student that Knapp was first really bitten by the woodcraftsman bug at the American Craft Council’s exclusive Baltimore, Maryland show. Knapp said it gave him the ambition to one day do some woodworking that would be good enough to get into that show. In 2004 he started building clocks, building the first one for his son’s wedding gift. By 2007 his work was accepted into the American Craft Council show. He has been accepted into every show since.

He has also been accepted into many other highly competitive shows such as the Cherry Creek Arts Festival in Denver, the Sausalito Festival of the Arts in the San Francisco area, the Bellevue Festival of the Arts in Washington, and other places. He won blue ribbon awards at the Downtown Boulder (Colorado) shows in 2005 and 2008. He was a finalist this year in the professional division of NICHE magazine’s 2011 NICHE Awards. The magazine’s award celebrates excellence and innovation in American and Canadian craft.

Knapp loves the engineering and production aspects of the enterprise as much as the craft involved in the work. His workshop, assembly room, and finishing room form a complex operation that yields a simple looking, yet beautifully complex product that is both useful and decorative, it’s a work of fine art… and craft.

The basic box that all his clocks begin with is being built in Florence. It is a fine piece of craftsmanship in itself. It is also specially designed to accept a range of alternative leg pieces that Knapp will attach. Once he does that, the piece is about one third done. From then on, each step of assembly allows for choices. There is a choice of lid styles. The choice of a round clock face or a square one. A choice in decorative additions. A choice in accent additions, such as tile, slate, metal, or even leather inlays with various designs.

“One day I decided to count how many parts went into making one of my clocks,” said Knapp. “Each clock is made up of about 55 separate parts.”

By taking advantage of interchangeable options at each stage of construction, Knapp has developed six distinctly different styles of clock, varying in size, basic shape such as horizontal or vertical, even a wall clock that can be hung. His latest style has more curves and a decidedly rounder look. Nonetheless, each of the curved parts is designed so that it attaches along a flat section to the body of the clock.

Knapp obviously takes as much pride in the engineering aspects of his design as he does in the quality of the craftsmanship. He mostly uses oak and walnut in his clocks, although he has used cherry and other woods at times.

Although made from predesigned optional parts that can be assembled into six styles, actually every single clock Knapp makes is unique. No two of the clocks are exactly alike, due primarily to the accent pieces that are generally inlaid on the front of the clock body. Each piece is individually numbered and signed.

Knapp sells his clocks at shows, in about 30 fine craft stores around the country and on-line. But you won’t find a shopping cart on his web site. He prefers to do business by e-mail or phone so that he can connect with his customers. He has a map on the wall of his shop showing the location of every clock he has sold. A few are in foreign countries.

He’s sold a lot. He’s on his 29th batch of clocks and is up to the 673rd clock in the process. Last year alone he sold about 200 clocks.

He loves to go to shows, he said, because people walking by only stop and talk, it seems, if they are interested in your work, or struck by it in some fashion.

“They don’t stop to criticize your work or tell how much they don’t like it,” he said.

“It’s fun to go to shows,” said Knapp, “but then you come home and have to make a bunch of clocks.” He just came home from a show in Philadelphia and has 70 new orders.

Knapp is innovative and creative in his work. For instance, he was spending a lot of time and energy making a simple hole in the backboard used on his clocks. It turned out to be somewhat complicated and time consuming. Drilling a smooth round hole in fiberboard is not easy. The drill usually leaves a ragged hole that needs some rough sanding and then grinding with a cone shaped bit.

“So I got on the internet,” said Knapp, “and looked up rubbergrommet.com and found just the right rubber grommet that I can pop in and forego all the sanding and grinding.” It was a cost effective move. The C-rings he uses to hold the cover of the clock faces in place is made of slices of sewer pipe that are then cut to fit.

Then there are those ‘aesthetic decisions’ that are made on each clock, sometimes about the way the grain in the wood will run across the legs or face, whether a piece should be curved or straight, what kind of design should be etched, or carved, into the accent piece. Or how that piece of tile or slate should be cut to provide an interesting ‘picture’ formed of the natural patterns in the slate.

This is where the eye of the artist comes in and the Cat’s Eye Craftsman has quite a good eye.

Knapp works out of a shop behind his home in Stevensville. He may be contacted at 777-3797 or visit catseyecraftsman.com.

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Hiring of Planning Office Manager postponed

By Michael Howell

The Ravalli County Commissioners put on hold the selection of a new Planning Manager/Administrator last week to allow the public time to access information concerning one of the applicants for the job. That information was only released to the public the preceding day. The commission did, however, void the previous decision in which GOP Central Committee Chairman and surveyor Terry Nelson was hired. That decision was voided due to lack of proper public notice for the meeting. Another meeting has been scheduled for April 20 to make the final decision.

The list of applicants under consideration has shrunk to two including Nelson and a woman named Dianna Broadie. Two other applicants once in the running, current Ravalli County Interim Planner Tristan Riddell and former Ravalli County Planner Karen Hughes, withdrew their applications from consideration after the commissioners selected Nelson at the improperly noticed meeting, according to Human Resources Director Robert Jenni.

The decision process has been controversial. While some people supported Nelson at the last meeting and urged the commissioners to stick with their original choice, others disagreed, raising questions about the selection process, the recent re-definition of the job description, and about the relative qualifications of the applicants. At that time only Nelson’s job resume and education qualifications had been made public. Nelson has a bachelor’s degree from MSU and has worked as a surveyor for the last 20 years. (Details of his resume were published in last week’s Bitterroot Star). In answer to a much asked question, Nelson said that if he gets the job he will set up a meeting with the county’s civil attorney and the Human Resources Director to discuss his options with regard to his existing business once he becomes a county employee.

Dianna Broadie has worked for the last few years as a Planner for Flathead County where she performed subdivision reviews, analyzed and processed zone changes, worked at the office counter, reviewed conditional permit applications, conducted subdivision evasion reviews, improved the database setting up standardized queries, and worked with incorporated cities on census boundaries.

From May 1993 to December 2007, Broadie worked as Planner/Senior Planner for the City of Redmond, Washington, where she also worked on historic preservation and was in charge of all annexation activity for the city. She also worked on some major re-writes for chapters of the city’s Comprehensive Plan, assisted in the development of a permit tracking system, integration of data with GIS system, and a citywide addressing system. She worked on the development and upkeep of the land use database in support of long range planning and transportation modeling. She worked with the Public Works Department updating utility plans and was in charge of the Transfer of Development Rights program.

Prior to that, from June 1992 to May 1993, Broadie worked as a Planning Technician for the City of Redmond, Washington and before that, from May 1991 to June 1992, Broadie worked as a Planning Intern for the City of Redmond, Washington, completing a citywide land use survey, designed the first city land use database including a data entry user interface and a macro program for automated output of traffic modeling data, as well as initiating development of a GIS system.

Before that, Broadie served for five years as Planning Commissioner, an appointed non-paid position, for the City of Kirkland, Washington. She also has experience in administering grants and administration of grant budgets as well as serving as elected president to a 300-plus-member independent employee union.

Broadie has a Bachelor of Arts in Planning Studies from the University of Washington and an Associate of Arts degree in Natural Sciences from Alaska University.

A few of the commissioners have made it clear that they are not necessarily looking for the applicant with the best educational qualifications. Both Commissioners Matt Kanenwisher and Suzy Foss have stated explicitly that they are looking for someone with experience on the “business” side of the counter at the Planning Office and not on the “government” side of the counter. They value Nelson’s experience in that regard more than specific educational credentials or job experience in a planning office.

Kanenwisher has stated that, historically, Ravalli County Planners have been “anti-development,” and he is looking to change that.

Broadie, in a letter to the editor published in the Missoulian newspaper last week, wrote, “I don't mind a fair fight but it is difficult to contend with a politically appointed pre-approved applicant. Perhaps I missed my calling and should have gotten my degree in political science in order to land the position.

“I don't recall a question about my degree of affiliation with the Republican Party as being a part of the interview process. Or perhaps it was my background in reviewing subdivision evasion that axed my chances. After all, putting someone in charge of subdivision review who has successfully evaded it is like to putting the fox in the henhouse. Is this really what everyone in the county desires?” she wrote.

In a telephone interview on Monday morning, April 11, Broadie said that she had not withdrawn her application for the job and would still be interested in doing the job if selected.

She is currently residing in Washington, but said, “I love Montana and really would like to get back there. It’s such a beautiful state.”

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Cattle prices at all-time high

By Michael Howell

Cattle prices have hit an all time high. The Missoula Livestock Auction saw its best day in history last Thursday, and some Bitterroot livestock growers cashed in on the roaring market.

“I’ve been in the cattle business for a long time,” said Missoula Livestock Auction Manager Craig Britton, “and no one has ever seen cattle prices this high.”

The highest prices at the auction on Thursday for steers went to Stevensville rancher Ed Cummings. Cummings sold fifty head with an average weight of 552 pounds for $1.74/lb. That comes to about $960.48 per steer, according to Britton. He said in the late 1980s those same animals would have brought only $300 to $400.

John Swope from Lone Pine got the highest price for heifer calves. His calves, averaging 440 pounds each, sold for $1.60/lb. Dennis Smith, of Stevensville, sold some black steers averaging 669 pounds each for $1.525/lb. Some yearling heifers of Donna Marks, averaging 678 pounds each, went for $1.33/lb. Britton said some cow/calf pairs went for $1,600. Fat cattle were selling for $1.25 per pound and some 1,400-pound animals were going for $1,600 to $1,800 each.

“All in all,” said Britton, “there were way more livestock buyers than we had livestock.” He said the reason is supply and demand. He said there are fewer ranchers now than ever and a lot more people in the world.

“It was the highest prices I’ve ever seen in the livestock industry,” said Britton.

“This is really on fire,” said Ed Cummings a rancher north of Stevensville. He said beef he sold for $1.07/lb in 2003 was going for $1.50/lb today.

There are a lot factors at play, it seems, besides simple supply and demand. There is the opening and closing of certain markets to U.S. beef. Japan, for instance, closed its market to imported beef from the U.S. and Canada over the outbreak of “mad cow” disease. Japan is now accepting hamburger meat from the U.S.

Cummings thinks that events in the world economy today have made investing in commodities a good choice. Coupled with the rise in demand and shrinking supplies he thinks the outlook is good for Montana ranchers. He thinks that the parallel rise in the cost of grain will tend to favor the 1950s style of raising grass fed cattle.

“It’s a sign of hope in an otherwise terrible economy here in the Bitterroot,” said Cummings. It’s also good news for those concerned about the loss of agricultural land through the subdivision process.

“Profit for the rancher,” said Cummings, “does more to prevent subdivision of agricultural land than any growth policies or zoning ever could.”

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Tourism tax district on the way

By Michael Howell

The Ravalli County Commissioners passed a Resolution of Intent last week on Monday, April 4, to create a Tourism Business Improvement District (TBID) in the county. State law allows the establishment of such special taxing districts by the local government to generate funds for promoting the interests of the district’s members, in this case the tourism businesses in the county. The taxes involved would be determined and collected in a similar fashion to the currently existing statewide “bed tax” except that these taxes would be collected separately and go into local district coffers instead of to the state. Business owners identified as operating within the proposed district now have 15 days from the passage of this Resolution of Intent to submit a letter of protest.

For the last four years, the Chamber Board, under the leadership of Executive Director Rick O’Brien, has included in its budget a modest amount of money with which to market the tourism assets of the valley. The Tourism & Marketing Committee of the Chamber, which is made up of facility and marketing professionals from throughout the valley, meets monthly to discuss ways to market the valley effectively.

According to information provided by Carol Smith, chair of the Bitterroot Chamber of Commerce’s Tourism and Marketing Committee, the Chamber’s Board of Directors dedicated substantial funds over three years to pursue the creation of a TBID in Ravalli County. After the Chamber introduced the concept to a group of Ravalli County hoteliers in March, the Chamber encouraged the hoteliers to form a steering committee to seek signatures from at least 60% of the owners of lodging facilities in the county, as required by law, approving the creation of such a district. They exceeded their goal.

Smith notes that TBIDs have successfully been established in other parts of the state. There are now 12 TBIDS in existence, including the cities of Billings, Bozeman, Butte, Glendive, Glasgow, Great Falls, Havre, Helena, Kalispell, Miles City, Missoula and West Yellowstone. Red Lodge and Shelby are currently working on establishing a TBID, she said.

Steering committee member Marie Christopher, of Townhouse Inns, said the proposed tax for the local district would be $1 per guest per night in any lodgings that have been identified as coming under the district’s jurisdiction, which is generally tourist lodging of every sort including hotels, motels, resorts, dormitories, condominium inns, dude ranches, and guest ranches.

Christopher said that gathering signatures for the petition to create the district was no easy task. She said it took a lot of time and collaboration with the Montana Office of Tourism and the Department of Revenue to complete the project. In the end they got 67 percent of the signatures needed. The law requires only 60 percent of the lodging owners on a square footage basis need to sign on.

The law (7-12-1102-1144 MCA) creating the opportunity for business improvement districts such as this, was passed in 2007. It allows for property owners within the proposed district to protest its formation. The protest must be in writing and must be delivered to the governing body or its clerk, if any, not later than 5 p.m. of the last day within 15 days after the date of the first publication of the notice of the resolution of intention.

The district’s board of directors is initially set at 5 to 7 members who serve without compensation. The business director of such a district must be the executive director of a non-profit convention and visitors bureau operating within the district.

Powers granted to the district by the law include the power to:

(1) sue and be sued, enter into contracts, and hire and terminate personnel needed for its purposes;

(2) provide special police, maintenance, or cleaning personnel for the protection and enjoyment of the general public using the business district;

(3) landscape and beautify public areas and to maintain those areas;

(4) contract with the governing body to maintain, operate, or repair public parking facilities;

(5) contract with the governing body to maintain streets, alleys, malls, bridges, ramps, tunnels, landscaping, and other public facilities as mutually agreed upon;

(6) promote private investment and business expansion in the district;

(7) provide for the management and administration of the affairs of the district;

(8) promote business activity by advertising, decorating, marketing, and promoting and managing events and other actions designed for the general promotion of business activities in the district; and

(9) perform such other functions as are necessary to carry out the purposes of this part and to further the objectives of the district.

An annual budget and work plan, devised in consultation with the non-profit convention and visitors bureau, must be presented to the Board of County Commissioners and must go through a public hearing before being adopted. Smith said that it is hard to predict due to a number of factors but the district is estimated to potentially produce from $40,000 to $50,000 annually. She said that, using county records, it has been determined that there are about 86 lodges identified within the tax district. The budget must also include provisions for liability insurance insuring the district, the board, and the local government against legal liability for personal injury and property damage in an amount determined sufficient for that purpose by the governing body. The district if approved is authorized for not more than 10 years. Extension after that would require further action.

“The annual impact of visitors to the Bitterroot is enormous,” said Smith. “In order of visitors' expenditures, fuel is first, followed by restaurants and bars, then retail. Lodging is fourth! Yet the hoteliers are willing to place a surcharge on their room nights to support tourism marketing for the Bitterroot Valley. The Chamber applauds them for the success of their efforts. We intend to do everything possible to support and assist them in improving the tourism business in Ravalli County.”

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Crowd turns out to support Stevensville restaurant

By Victoria Howell

Concerns over a Stevensville restaurant, which drew a significant outcry of public support, appear to have been resolved for now.

An overflow crowd of more than 50 people attended a meeting of the Stevensville Planning and Zoning Committee on Wednesday, April 6, in response to a rumor that the Town of Stevensville was planning to shut down Matt’s Morning Munchwagon/Winky’s Café.

Matt Northup, owner of Matt’s Morning Munchwagon, told the Star that Mayor Lew Barnett had come to his business at 110 Main and told him that he was being shut down and should be at this meeting. Matt passed the information on to his co-tenants and customers and that effort, along with a letter to the editor in the Star, brought supporters of the popular eating establishment out in full force to Wednesday’s meeting.

At the meeting, Mayor Barnett told the group that he had received numerous phone calls from other business owners complaining that the restaurant was perhaps operating an illegal drive-through window, was creating parking problems, and also that the grease trap might not be legal. Barnett said he thought it would be best for all concerned to meet and talk about any perceived problems.

Ben Longbottom, chair of the Planning and Zoning Committee, told the audience that his committee only dealt with planning issues, such as building use and parking, and based on what he understood was taking place at the current business, it was in compliance with Stevensville’s code. He added that his committee was merely advisory and any formal complaints would have to be handled by the town’s building inspector.

Longbottom said that due to the size of the building, no off-street parking was required. He said drive-through windows are not allowed on newly constructed eating establishments, but that the window at Matt’s/Winky’s was allowed as a non-conforming use as long as it hadn’t been abandoned for 12 months or more. At least one audience member testified that the drive-through window had been in use off and on even when no full-time restaurant was operating in the building.

The crowd was ready to defend the current tenants and their right to continue serving food, and several people spoke in support of the restaurant, but Longbottom effectively put an end to the testimony when he said he believed the business was in compliance. His pronouncement drew a large ovation.

Later in the meeting, when most of the folks had left, including the owners of Matt’s/Winky’s, the issue of the restaurant was again raised when Dennis Monroe, Stevensville building inspector, showed up.

Monroe had previously submitted a letter to the mayor, at the mayor’s request, summarizing all dealings he had had with the restaurant and its tenants. He wrote in it that he had recently been surprised to see a full sit-down restaurant operating at 110 Main and had concerns about handicapped accessibility and also the grease trap, but he had not yet had time to do an on-site inspection as he was busy with the new school construction and the water and sewer projects. Monroe said he would visit the restaurant and decide at that time whether or not the tenants would have to meet any additional requirements to remain open.

Rob Butler, owner of the Burger Shack which was previously housed at 110 Main and is now located at 205 Main, said he had spent over $10,000 to put an appropriate grease trap at his new location and he just wanted things to be “fair and consistent” for all businesses.

But Howard Knight, a member of the Planning & Zoning Committee, took issue with Butler. He characterized the actions of the mayor, the building inspector, and Butler, as “collusion and corruption” and walked out of the meeting, telling Longbottom, “I’m tendering my resignation.”

Longbottom reiterated that his committee had nothing to do with the issue of the grease trap and the meeting adjourned shortly after.

When contacted by the Star, John Palacio, Environmental Health Specialist with Ravalli County, confirmed that the city building inspector deals with any plumbing matters within the city limits. Palacio said an eating establishment can only open with the building inspector’s approval. However, when he did his initial health inspection, Palacio said he did see a functional grease trap and the tenants told him that the grease trap had been approved. Palacio added that all the necessary county requirements have been met.

On Monday, Monroe told the Star he had visited Matt’s/Winky’s on Saturday and again on Sunday and he believes the issue has been resolved. Based on his reading of the Stevensville Development Code, Monroe said the business falls under “non-conforming use,” meaning it does not have to comply with the regulations for new businesses. He said the use of the building has remained the same and was never closed for more than 12 months. Because of that, an upgraded grease trap is not required. If the building had a change of use, such as the building where the Burger Shack is now located, an upgrade to current code requirements would be needed. However, Monroe said the tenants at 110 Main failed to get a permit when they installed the grease trap and they will still have to do that.

If Monroe had ended up citing the business for any reason, he said they would have been able to take it up with the newly established Board of Appeals.

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