Bobbie McKibbin, of “Drawn West Studio,” is the featured artist for September at River’s Mist Gallery of Fine Art in Stevensville. She is one of the foremost pastel landscape artists in the nation. She is both talented and prolific. She has works hanging in 50 corporate offices and 10 museums including the National Museum of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution. Seventeen pieces are currently on display at the River’s Mist Gallery. It is the largest exhibition of her work since her show at the Missoula Art Museum in 2005.

McKibbin was born in Philadelphia in 1951 and remembers quite distinctly a cheese steak sandwich that has not yet been adequately reproduced anywhere else on earth. Following graduation from high school, she got degrees in printmaking and painting from Miami University in Ohio. She then taught art at Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa for 31 years.

McKibbin’s work is realistic in style. Every painting, in a sense, ‘represents’ a certain landscape, a certain place, a real viewpoint of the world. It is also always a view colored by a certain time of day.

“Every piece is a moment in time at a particular place,” McKibbin said at an interview at her studio. “I am simply describing in pastels the amazing world as seen from one spot at one moment and trying to place my viewers there.”

McKibbin said that there are two main questions in life that keep coming up, ‘Who am I?’ and ‘Where am I?’

“Art, drawing, helps me to define myself and the landscapes help me define where I am. It is drawing and looking that anchors me in life and gives me stability,” she said.

McKibbin said that the process brings her a twofold kind of joy. A joy in seeing the world and a joy in creating a work of art.

“But it is the audience that completes the deal,” she said. “It is in a public showing, a sharing, that the work finds its true completion.” She said that this is why galleries like River’s Mist are so important. “I’m thrilled and delighted to have this gallery here,” she said.

Being a realist, of sorts, it’s no surprise that McKibbin finds a lot of inspiration in artists like Lucian Freud, John Singer Sergeant, Claude Monet, Edward Hopper and Edward Degas. You can see their influence on her work.

McKibbin will be giving a talk on Friday, September 17 at 7 p.m. at the gallery located at 317 Main Street in Stevensville. At the talk she will present a slide show of selected pieces of her earlier work done over the last four decades and discuss the changes that have led to the kind of work being presented in the current show.

McKibbin has been visiting the Bitterroot Valley regularly since 1991 and moved here to stay fulltime in 2007. Her studio is located at 372 N. Kootenai Creek Road, Stevensville. She can be reached at 777-3226 or e-mailed at bobbie@drawnweststudio.com. Or visit her website at www.drawnweststudio.com.

“I feel extremely lucky to be able to do what I do,” said McKibbin. Looking like the cat that ate the canary, she added, “I’ve got it pretty good here. I’ve got good friends, a great community and all of it surrounded by so much nature. I find living here very rich and supportive.”

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Rehberg visits valley

By Michael Howell

U.S. Representative to Congress Denny Rehberg was in the Bitterroot Valley last week on what he called a “listening tour.”

“I’m here mainly to hear what people have to say,” said Rehberg outside the new Valley Veterans Service Center on Fairgrounds Road.

Inside, Rehberg heard from Valley Veterans Service Center Director Robert Embree. Embree urged Rehberg to push passage of HB303. This bill would make eligible, for the full concurrent receipt of both veterans' disability compensation and either military retired pay or combat-related special pay, those individuals who were retired or separated from military service due to a service-connected disability. It would also repeal provisions phasing in the full concurrent receipt of such pay through December 31, 2013. The bill expresses the sense of Congress that military retired pay should not be reduced because a military retiree is also eligible for veterans' disability compensation awarded for a service-connected disability and allows the receipt of both military retired pay and veterans' disability compensation with respect to any service-connected disability (under current law, only a disability rated at 50% or more).

Rehberg said that the bill seemed to have bi-partisan support in the House and the Senate, but, he warned, “Pelosi can stop anything.” He said that the Republicans had installed a separation between quality of life issues in the active military and the veterans, but that the Democrats had collapsed it. He said as a result the focus on the vets is now lost in the big picture.

Embree also raised the issue of insurance. He said that if a veteran had no insurance the VA would step in and pay 100 percent of the costs of eligible cases. But if a vet does have some insurance that will pay 80 percent of the costs the VA won’t step in and pay the 20 percent. He said it didn’t seem fair to those who were able to afford some form of insurance.

Finally, Embree said veterans are prone to suffer hearing loss on the high end of the spectrum. He said that the current way of averaging hearing loss over only the middle frequencies leaves a lot of veterans receiving no benefits for a very real loss in hearing.

Rehberg asked for more details and then said that he would look further into those issues.

Earlier in the day Rehberg had visited a few Bitterroot Valley businesses, Bitterroot Tool and Machine in Stevensville and Blue Marble Energy in Corvallis.

“I heard concerns about the cost of health care and how that will affect businesses that under Obama’s health care legislation are going to be required to provide health insurance to their employees,” said Rehberg. He said that he was told by the owners of Bitterroot Tool and Machine that if they are forced to pay for health insurance it will certainly mean laying off some or most of their 16 employees.

Rehberg said that one alternative for businesses looking at a $6,000 to $8,000 cost to provide health insurance is to simply accept the $2,000 fine for not providing it.

“It would be cheaper and it might keep them in business,” said Rehberg.

He said that Obama’s health care reform may add a lot of people to the rolls but it does not address the high costs of health care. He said tort reform might be one way to reduce costs by reducing costly lawsuits.

Rehberg said that when he asked how the stimulus funds were helping them, small business owners said they aren’t seeing any help for their businesses. He said that stimulus funds weren’t helping businesses to expand. He said a break on payroll taxes for a year might help, or half pay for two years.

Rehberg said that his visit had been an eye opener for him on some issues and he always learned a lot on his listening tours.

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Skalkaho wild sheep update

Wildlife scientists continue to be baffled by the disease afflicting some of the wild sheep living in the Skalkaho area east of Hamilton. In the field, the disease showed some signs and symptoms similar to those of pneumonia, such as a deep and persistent cough, but it was not the typical time of year for such an outbreak. Other things made the diagnosis questionable as well, so no one was particularly surprised when the lab results came back negative for pneumonia.

“It was a little perplexing from the beginning,” said Bitterroot area wildlife biologist for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks, Craig Jourdonnais. “Now it’s even more perplexing.”

Jourdonnais said that the initial approach taken was similar to how the agency handled the pneumonia outbreak in the East Fork herd last winter. That is, to eliminate animals that are showing symptoms of the disease to cut down on chances of exposure to other healthy members of the herd. Once contracted, pneumonia amongst wild sheep is almost always fatal and can threaten the viability of an entire herd.

In the case of the Skalkaho herd, Jourdonnais said, a total of 15 sheep have been killed, all either showing definite symptoms or standing next to a sheep showing the symptoms. Half of those were lambs, the remainder were ewes, except for one two-and-a-half year old ram. However, since the lab results have definitely ruled out pneumonia, the agency has decided to take a wait and see attitude toward the infection and has quit removing sheep.

“We are watching the herd closely,” said Jourdonnais. He said that two lambs had recently been observed coughing.

“It’s a deep, body shaking cough,” he said, “but otherwise they look physically in good shape.” He said the sheep did not appear to be dying.

Jourdonnais said that Dr. Marshall Bloom, an administrator of Rocky Mountain Laboratories, had offered the lab’s services to try and help identify the cause of the ailment, as had a lab administrator in Bozeman.

“We haven’t taken them up on it,” said Jourdonnais, “because our experts also tell us that if you don’t know the virus that you are looking for, it is a little like throwing darts.”

Jourdonnais said that there were a lot of unknowns. He said the disease, if caused by a virus, may just run its course and subside. Or perhaps, he speculated, it’s an early stage in the development of something that leads a herd into pneumonia, which just hasn’t been previously observed.

At any rate, for now the agency is simply going to watch, he said. If sheep start dying or some other major change takes place then further action may be considered at that time.

Jourdonnais said that the sheep herd in the East Fork was recovering well from its bout with pneumonia last winter. He said FWP personnel were observing 32 to 35 lambs per 100 ewes and the lambs are in good shape. The herds near Bozeman and up Rock Creek are not faring as well. He said that at least six sheep in those herds are still showing symptoms and the new lamb survival rate was very low in both herds. He said that pneumonia had been detected in the sheep near Anaconda. He said sheep were showing outward signs of infection but that nothing like an all-age die off seemed to be occurring.

“Right now it seems real spotty and in just a few sheep,” said Jourdonnais.

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Canyon Lake Dam to get emergency repairs

Bitterroot National Forest Supervisor Julie King has signed a Decision Notice and Finding Of No Significant Impact for the Canyon Lake Dam Project, allowing emergency repairs to take place immediately. The decision authorizes the Canyon Creek Irrigation District (CCID) sufficient helicopter access to fly in needed materials and equipment to repair a sinkhole in the embankment of the dam beginning today.

“I’m authorizing these emergency repairs to take place immediately at the direction of Tom Tidwell, Chief of the U.S. Forest Service,” said Supervisor King. “The Chief reviewed our environmental analysis and determined an emergency existed. There is a short timeframe due to weather and water levels for the needed repairs to happen.”

Tidwell called for immediate implementation, citing hazards threatening human health and safety and natural resources on National Forest System lands. He also directed repairs to take place prior to the end of the scoping period – a 30-day window to gather public comments on the project. In a letter to the Forest he states, “Because a 30-day scoping period was established for this proposal and a decision to take emergency action is needed prior to the end of the scoping period, the Supervisor may issue a decision notice if necessary, prior to the end of the scoping period (September 13) taking into account comments received to date.”

The Canyon Lake Dam is located in the Darby Ranger District approximately 8 miles west of Hamilton. It is inside the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness area at the head of Canyon Creek. Failure of the dam could cause loss of life and property. The Canyon Creek Irrigation District, which owns the dam, informed the Forest Service by letter on July 29th of the sinkhole, which has eroded away a significant amount of the dam’s embankment. The District requested permission to complete emergency repairs prior to the onset of winter and next spring’s snowmelt. Repairs are estimated to take 3 to 4 days.

CCID will utilize a helicopter to transport small construction equipment and materials to the site which will lessen resource impacts on the non-motorized trail and also help complete the emergency repairs more quickly.

"All of the users of the Canyon Creek Irrigation Lake would like to thank the Bitterroot National Forest for their thorough yet timely review of this necessary work,” said Brian R. Bachman, Commissioner, Canyon Creek Irrigation District. “We hope to complete this emergency work within the next two weeks."

According to the District, the elevation of the dam at approximately 7,500 feet also requires that work be completed in early fall. “The principal spillway at Canyon Lake Dam is prone to blockage by ice and snow, which can limit its capacity during a high run-off spring,” said Michael Oelrich, Civil Engineer for Hydrometrics, a professional engineering firm that assists in operating the dam. “If this emergency repair is delayed, we can give no guarantee that we can prevent the reservoir level from reaching the sinkhole elevation next spring.”

Access for most personnel will be via stock or foot travel on Trail #525. The decision incorporates additional terms and conditions on CCID’s access and use to reduce impacts to the National Forest.

Copies of Decision Notice and Finding of No Significant Impact are available on request from the Darby and Stevensville Ranger Districts. For more information or questions concerning this decision or the appeal process, contact Chuck Oliver, Darby District Ranger, 821-4244 or Elizabeth Ballard, Interdisciplinary Team Leader, at Stevensville Ranger District, 88 Main Street, Stevensville, 329-3085. Only individuals or organizations who submitted comments or otherwise expressed interest by the close of the specified comment period may appeal this project.

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Former Stevi resident leads assault on pirate-controlled ship

By Michael Howell

As a small kid growing up in Stevensville, young Thomas Hartrick may not have even dreamed of leading an assault on a pirate ship and rescuing its rightful crew. But that’s what USMC Staff Sergeant Thomas Hartrick did last Thursday, September 9 at 5 a.m. Bahrain time in the Gulf of Aden.

According to information supplied by the Marine Corps, the Combined Task Force 151, which watches over shipping traffic in the Internationally Recommended Transit Corridor, first responded to a distress call from the Antigua and Barbuda-flagged merchant vessel the Magellan Star on Tuesday, September 7. The callers reported that they had been boarded by pirates and the crew had locked themselves in a secure compartment. A Turkish frigate and two US warships, the USS Dubuque and the USS Princeton, were soon on scene.

At 5 a.m. Bahrain time, on September 9, Staff Sgt. Thomas Hartrick led 24 Marines assigned to the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit Maritime Raid Force in a boarding operation aimed at rescuing the ship’s eleven crew members.

LtCol. Joseph R. Clearfield gave a more detailed account of the operation in a telephone conference call with the press from on board the USS Dubuque. He said that communications with the trapped crew had ceased when the crew’s cell phone died. He said communications were made with the pirates via bullhorns and other broadcasts but the pirates repeatedly waved them away and made threatening and hostile gestures.

The Marines had good information about the location of the pirates on board and successfully took them captive without a shot being fired, according to LtCol. Clearfield.

Staff Sergeant Hartrick said that it probably took about 10 minutes to round up the pirates, but it took another three and a half hours to rescue the crew. Without any way to communicate there was no way for the crew to know that the pirates had surrendered. Hartrick said that they had done a really good job blocking access to their hideaway by blocking stairwells and hallways all the way in.

Captain Alexander Martin, who was also on board, said that the nine suspected pirates surrendered immediately in four distinct engagements. They were all slender, black males wearing flipflops, and were obviously not a trained tactical military force, although they did carry five AK-47s and nine magazines as well as communication devices, some tools and some bladed weapons.

The nine suspected pirates were transferred from the Magellan Star to an unidentified Combined Task Force vessel pending decisions about their final destination.

Staff Sgt. Hartrick said that he was very proud of his men and the restraint they showed in an operation that could easily have become violent. He attributed it to good training.

This is Hartrik’s fourth deployment in his six years in the Marines. He currently lives in Oceanside, California.

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Break-in at Stevensville theater

Sometime between Friday night, September 3, and Monday morning September 6, someone broke into the Stevensville Playhouse theater, broke through some gates, made their way upstairs, dragged the safe into the bathroom and busted it open with an axe, and generally wreaked havoc, stuffing things in the toilet, spraying ‘silly string’ everywhere, trying to burn a manikin and throwing lights and lighting equipment from the second floor to the seating area below. There was also some graffiti on the walls.

Dan DePauw, president of the theater’s board of directors, said that he was appalled at the brazen disrespect shown the community by the person or persons responsible.

“We hope that the community will pull together and help us identify the people who did this so it doesn’t happen to anybody else in the community,” said DePauw. He said that he believed more than one person was involved. He said that one of them may have gained entrance originally through the roof and then possibly opened the back door for the others to come in. The doors were then re-locked after the burglary and the last person exited through the roof. He said that toy guns used as stage props were found on the roof along with latex gloves and footprints. He said that fingerprints were found all over the place inside on some of the broken items.

“Whoever did this was not the sharpest knife in the drawer,” said DePauw. He said they tried to light candy cigarettes.

DePauw said that a reward was being offered to anyone with information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the criminals. The reward stands at a total of $1,500. Crimestoppers will pay $1,000 and an anonymous donor is putting up another $500.

DePauw said that the thieves did not get much money from the safe. He said it contained only about $25 in quarters.

“It is the senselessness of the damage and the disrespect shown towards community property that really enrages me,” said DePauw.

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St. Mary's Mission designated a National Historic District

The director of the National Park Service, a division of the United States Department of the Interior, has announced the designation of Historic St. Mary's Mission in Stevensville as a National Historic District. The action now lists all the historic buildings at St. Mary's Mission in the National Register of Historic Places. The technical designation for the Stevensville location is "St. Mary's Historic District Boundary Increase."

Two structures in the complex of buildings were previously placed on the National Register in 1970. They are the present chapel, built in 1866 and Father Ravalli's cabin with pharmacy. The new "boundary increase" includes the 1862 cabin of Chief Victor, smokehouse, Father Ravalli's crabapple tree, Wolf River apple tree, survey stone, St. Mary's Parish Church, rectory, bell and bell tower. The present parish church built in 1954 is included by the government survey because it is a logical historic continuation of the original mission history. Included in the designation is St. Mary's Cemetery with the Indian burial plot. The Salish burial grounds contain an unknown number of Indian graves, once marked with wooden crosses. A wrought iron fence encloses the marble monument to Father Anthony Ravalli who died in 1884.

The National Park Service uses four principal criteria for the historic designation of a site. The criteria considerations are 1) cultural and historical significance, 2) association with a person of significance, 3) architecture, 4) archaeological potential. Dr. Ellen Baumler of the Montana Historical Society who conducted the labyrinthine application process reported that it is very unusual for an applicant to meet all four criteria. St. Mary's Mission fulfills each of these requirements.

In respect to cultural and historical significance, Dr. Baumler writes, "The divergence of cultures, the physical and cultural impacts of western migration on the native people, and the growth of settlements are rarely evident all in the same built environment. St. Mary's Mission, a microcosmic community that interprets these facets of Montana's heritage, is a rare exception. Jesuit priests and lay brothers founded a mission, which was the first in the Northwest, near the present mission site in 1841. St. Mary's Village evolved into the town of Stevensville."

Father Anthony Ravalli, S.J. fulfills the criterion for the association with a person of significance. As a priest, physician, surgeon, pharmacist, architect, carpenter, sculptor and agronomist, he was a Renaissance man who served the Indian and settler community both spiritually and medically. After his death, Ravalli County was named in his honor. Father Ravalli is included in the Gallery of Outstanding Montanans in the Montana State Capitol.

Dr. Baumler refers to the architecture with these words, "St. Mary's Mission Historic District retains almost all of its historic integrity. The pastoral surrounding and the 19th century character of the grounds evoke the setting and feeling of their origins. The historic mission church and steeple with its original bell appear exactly as they did when Brother Claessens expanded the church in 1879. The church's interior includes Fatther Ravalli's keen artistic touches and most of the original furnishings. Chief Victor's House and Father Ravalli's House and Pharmacy likewise appear as they did when first constructed in the 1860s. The complex forms a stellar example of vernacular log architecture of a very early period in Montana."

In 1980 a group of archaeology students from the University of Montana under the direction of the late Dr. Carling Malouf and Dr. Duane Hampton did preliminary archaeological excavations of the Mission grounds. During the excavation process they discovered the remains of building foundations and recovered eleven linear feet of artifacts. There is great potential for the exploration of this site, as artifacts of all types have been collected but never fully examined. Dr. Baumler reports, "These investigations revealed that St. Mary's Mission Historic District has excellent potential to contribute information about the material culture, habits, and relationships among its varied inhabitants."

The National Register of Historic Places is the nation's official list of historic properties worthy of preservation. Listing in the National Register is an honor that provides wider recognition of a property's historic values, and assists in preserving America's heritage.

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Brotherly love

By Jean Schurman

It hasn’t been the kind of summer that Kyle Anderson of Stevensville thought it would be. It began with lots of baseball with the Bitterroot Bucs, hanging with friends and doing what any normal 16 year old would be doing. However, that all took a drastic turn on June 13.

Kyle wasn’t feeling very well that morning and he and his parents, Mike and Sandy Anderson, decided that he shouldn’t make the trip with the Bucs to Dillon. By the next morning, his eyes had started turning yellow, a symptom of liver problems. By the time they had him tested in Missoula, his liver enzymes were extremely elevated and his liver had stopped working.

The Andersons took him to Spokane but the doctors couldn’t figure out what had happened to the liver. They sent him on to Seattle Children’s Hospital. There, the medical staff determined Kyle would have to have a liver transplant. The cause of the liver failure remains a mystery. It is also a mystery as to why the liver started to function again. But Kyle was not out of the woods. As sometimes happens with liver problems, especially hepatitis (although he tested negative for hepatitis), Kyle’s blood took a turn for the worse.

“His blood started looking funny right when his liver started improving,” said Sandy Anderson.

No one in Missoula could treat the condition, aside from giving the okay to give Kyle blood transfusions. So it was back to Seattle where he was diagnosed with severe aplastic anemia. As of Sunday, September 12, his condition is now “very severe aplastic anemia,” according to his dad.

Severe aplastic anemia is a disease of the bone marrow. The bone marrow produces red blood cells, which carry oxygen to all parts of the body, white blood cells that help fight infection, and platelets, which control bleeding. Because each blood cell only lives a finite number of days, new cells are always being produced. When the body can’t keep up with making new blood cells, some of the symptoms may be tiredness, shortness of breath, paleness, frequent infections, easy bleeding or bruising, tiny red spots under the skin or bleeding that is hard to stop.

Now, Kyle needs a bone marrow transplant. Although transplants can be done using a non-family donor, sibling donors increase the odds greatly. Kyle’s 21-year old brother, Ryan, matches Kyle on 10 of 10 markers.

Kyle and his mom have been in Seattle since August 13, going through all of the medical procedures needed to make the diagnosis and determine how to proceed. On Thursday, Kyle will undergo the first of four days of chemotherapy and ATV globulin therapy that is designed to ‘kill’ his immune system and his bone marrow system. Then, on Monday, the two brothers will each be in their own operating room. It will take about 40 minutes to draw the bone marrow from Ryan’s hips. After a couple of procedures, the bone marrow will then be put into an IV and given to Kyle.

“It looks like a blood transfusion,” said Sandy. “But it knows it’s bone marrow and will seek out the bones and fuse with Kyle’s bones to make new, healthy bone marrow.”

The process can take from 10 to 30 days. During that time, Kyle is at risk. His immune system will have been destroyed and he won’t have any way to fight an infection. He will have to remain in the hospital until his ‘numbers’ are acceptable. It will probably be another three or four months before Kyle will be allowed to come home and it will be up to a year before life returns to ‘normal.’

Once he’s through the critical stage after the transplant, Kyle will be able to have one or two visitors but he will have to avoid crowds. Sandy likens it to having a new baby because, like a baby, Kyle’s immune system will be brand new and will have to ‘re-educate’ itself.

During this time, Kyle will do what he’s done all summer - reading, video games, keeping in touch with friends through Facebook and texting. He will also be going to school. Robert Dobell, Stevensville principal, has arranged for Kyle to keep up with his studies through the newly formed Montana Digital Academy.

“We’re fortunate to have the Montana Digital Academy now,” said Dobell. “In years past, if a student needed to keep up with their studies, they would have had to use programs from out of state sources. This way, the curriculum needs that are set by Montana are met.”

Having the family split has not been easy. Sandy and Kyle have been living at the Ronald McDonald House in Seattle since August 13. When he can, Mike makes the trip out there. Even though they have insurance, there are costs that aren’t covered by it.

This Sunday, September 19, there will be a fundraiser in Stevensville. A $$ Bucs $$ for Kyle baseball tournament will run from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Stevensville Baseball fields. Then, from 4:30 to 8 p.m., there will be a spaghetti dinner and auction at the St. Mary’s Family Center in Stevensville. Auction items include lift tickets to local ski areas, guided river trips, and guided duck hunts, Griz football tickets, sports items and many more items. Donations can also be made to the ‘Kyle Anderson Benefit Fund’ at any Farmers State Bank. For more information on the fundraiser, call Julie Rolshoven at 273-2703.

Mike said that he is very appreciative of the event but he hopes people will also think about the bone marrow and blood donations too.

“We’ve seen the need for blood products and organs,” said Mike. “Kyle depends on others to live.”

He suggested if people are interested in donating bone marrow, they go to the website bearmatch.com. “It’s very simple but it tells people what to think about if they want to donate,” said Mike.

Mike, Sandy and Kyle all want to thank everyone who has sent cards and messages to them. Cards can be sent to:

Kyle Anderson/A285
Ronald McDonald House
5130 40th Ave NE
Seattle WA 98105

Kyle’s progress can also be tracked on the website http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/kyleanderson1.

“You never picture yourself in a situation like this,” said Mike. “But with people praying for us, and sending us good wishes, it’s amazing.”

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City gets new web site

The City of Hamilton has a new virtual image. Information about the City has been available on line for quite a while, but starting in September the city has posted a new, more attractive, easier to use and more informative portal to the wider world.

“Primarily we wanted to make it more user friendly,” said Deputy City Clerk Jamie Guisinger. But the new web site also makes a lot more information accessible as well. Every department is represented on the site. A lot of information about city business is also accessible, such as City Council agendas and minutes which are updated weekly. There is also a sign up option to receive City Council agendas by e-mail. Agendas and minutes of the Council’s various committees is also available.

A lot of business can now be conducted on line. You can find business license applications, building permit and other building related permits, special event permits and other applications at the touch of a finger. Guisinger said that eventually residents will be able to pay utility bills on line, but that function is not yet active on the page.

A copy of the Hamilton City Codes and Resolutions is also accessible on the site as well as information about the City’s various parks. Other plans for the web site include access to information about City plans, community development projects, and an events calendar.

There are some quick link buttons to the County, Chamber of Commerce, High School Districts, the Job Service, the library, the state, and the Bitterroot Star and Ravalli Republic newspapers.

“We are very interested in getting feedback from the community,” said Guisinger. “We want to hear from the public and are open to any suggestions for improving the site even further.”

The city’s web site may be viewed at www.cityofhamilton.net.

At its September 7 Meeting the Hamilton City Council:

• approved on second reading a change in zoning at the Ravalli County Council on Aging subdivision that would designate five lots as High Density Residential, one lot to Professional Services, and one lot to Commercial Manufacturing. There was no public comment and the changes were approved on a 6 to 0 vote.

• approved on first reading a change in billing procedures to allow the City to send utility bills to real estate companies and banks instead of simply property owners, as often these entities are in charge of certain properties during ownership transferences. The change was unanimously approved.

• approved unanimously a budget of $34,000 for the Hamilton Downtown Business Improvement District. The tax is assessed on residents who own property within the district.

• approved a 20 mill levy for the City’s Street Maintenance District. With one mill worth $11,535, the 20-mill levy will raise about $230,696 in revenue for the district. About half is spent on streets and roads with the other half going to sidewalk improvements.

• approved an assessment on several lighting districts that should raise about $85,000 for utility payments.

• approved a 5.6 mill Permissive Medical Levy that should raise an estimated $66,787 for employee insurance costs.

• adopted the 2011 fiscal year city budget with expenses estimated at $8,330,645 and projected revenues totaling $7,286,329.

• heard a report from Hamilton Fire Chief Brad Mohn that the City fire engine that was damaged in a high centering accident while on a fire east of town will cost up to $10,000 to repair.

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