January 12, 2015

COMMISSIONERS’ PROCEEDINGS        

          January 12, 2015

          Commissioners Doug Tucker, John Grewell, and John Prikki were present.  

8:30 Pledge of Allegiance.

9:00 Earl Atwood met with Commissioners to discuss the Beartooth RC&D lease agreement renewal. Beartooth RC&D has performed general maintenance on the building throughout the last year. They like the current arrangement and would like to renew the lease agreement. Commissioners are concerned that rent revenues do not provide additional resources for large building maintenance costs and would like the new lease to have more concrete language regarding maintenance and repair of the building and a clause added for automatic renewals of the lease.

9:30 Sheriff Josh McQuillan, Disaster and Emergency Services Coordinator Darrel Krum, and Tom Kohley met with Commissioners to discuss the GEOComm GeoLynx 911 System Support Renewal for December 1, 2014 – June 30, 2015. The contract was prorated for 7 months so that future contracts will be on the County’s fiscal year. Commissioner Tucker moved to accept the renewed contract with GEOComm; Commissioner Grewell seconded; motion carried.

Also discussed rural address changes for the highway reconstruction. Affected landowners will receive a letter regarding the forthcoming address changes.

10:00 County Attorney Alex Nixon, Sheriff Josh McQuillan, Disaster and Emergency Services Coordinator Darrel Krum, Tom Kohley, and Tom Miller, Justin Damn, Rick King from Industrial Communications and Electronics met with Commissioners regarding the Simulcast project contract and proposal to update repeaters in the County. The Commissioners would like to finalise the exsisting contract and a enter into a new contract for repeater replacements. They discussed the penalty for not completeing the project on schedule. Commissioner Grewell moved to impose penalty of $21,500 to the outstanding contract balance; Commissioner Tucker seconded; motion carried.

To finalize the project Industrial Communications is proposing installing 11 new repeaters in the County to replace the exsisting repeaters. Because of the Quantar Repeater’s age the signal is drifting on each repeater and preventing them from synching on the simulcast system. Because of equipment lead time the project would spill over into the next fiscal year.

          11:00 Aaron McDowell and Planning Director Brent Moore, met with Commissioners to discuss Red Lodge Rural Fire #7 Impact Fee. The fee was implemented in 2007 to fund Fire District infrastructure to accommodate the growth in the Red Lodge area.             

The fee needs to be reviewed and the Commissioners would like the Fire District to be more involved in justifying continuance of fee. There is also an Alternative Fire Plan fee in the Subdivision Regulations and Brent and believes that having both fees is confusing and hard to explain to developers and landowners. The Fire District has purchased water tenders with Impact Fee funds to help transport water to fires. Commissioners and Brent believe it makes more sense to have the fee across the county rather than in just one district. Commissioner Prinkki will work with the Fire District Board and revisit the issue at a later date.

Adjourned