Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay.

Good morning, all. I will call the Monday, August 31st, Board of County Commissioners meeting to order. Chris, will you do roll call, please?

Commissioner Holtz.

Here.

Commissioner Chilcott.

Here.

Commissioner Burroughs.

I'm here. Commissioner Chilcott, will you lead us this morning? Thank you, Craig. Public comment. For those participating via Granicus, you may call 406-375-6513 in order to provide your public comment. And the first item on our agenda today is the fire season update. Who's going to go first? Eric.

Good morning. Good morning. Pretty light activity on county lands. We had one burn pile, two structure fires, and one vehicle fire over the past week, and that was it that I could see other than we had quite a few smoke reports that were called in that were related to some of the Forest Service fires that I think Matt will probably cover. No changes recommended in restrictions. We're gonna be looking at the that the burn ban, obviously, and when to lift that with our partners and such in the near future. We'll probably schedule permitting, try to schedule another meeting next Tuesday morning, since we do have some significant fire activity still going on. time will tell what the weather system that comes through later in the week will bring hopefully quite a bit of precipitation and, and maybe some relief in the temperatures. So that's what I got. Thank you, Eric.

Matt.

Good morning. Good morning. So another busy week here on the bitter national forest. We had nine new fires in the last week. Um, Still have our nature grove on the landscape sitting just under 1,000 acres. Do have our type three incident management team that's getting fully fleshed out there and really starting to fire on all cylinders. We still have the three heavy equipment task forces and five crews working on that. Still holding about a quarter mile above private and Highway 38 there for those furthest east residences. but anticipating that to keep chunking its way back down the hill here in the next day or two. Falls Point up at west of Lost Trail Pass, we just transitioned that from the smokejumper IC back to a district IC, and the smokejumpers are de-moving today. That'll leave some district folks and two hand crews up there, but that one hasn't moved from its footprint in about four days, and feeling good about how that one's sitting. Put two fires out, or were called out this morning. One was near Hell's Half Lookout, the other was near Spot Mountain Lookout and Repeater Site. Both of those were a tenth of an acre but called out. Still have a few more further out into the Idaho portion of the Selway, Bitterroot, and Frank Church wilderness that are on the landscape. Both of those are around 300 acres, but a long ways from any values at this point. As was mentioned, There is some chances for some lightning this week, but there's also precip amounts vary quite a bit from a couple of tenths all the way up to over an inch at some of our locations between now and next Monday, so the next week. So if we actually get that, we should see a slowdown there. That should give us the time to finish these pieces on Nature Grove that we're currently working on, looking at transitioning some crews that came to us midway through their tours, so looking for some transition there. Still able to compete for some resources nationally. The Northwest had slowed down, and so we're seeing some movement. We're not fully flush, and you can't get everything you want, but there's definitely movement that's better than it was a month ago, so... I think we're currently sitting at high. It's predicted to jump back down a little bit with that precip, but both in our low and our high country, even with the precip, are going to show a little dip and then probably come back up. So I think we're sitting right where we want to be for fire danger on being at high. If we get wetter than that, then we'll size that up. But that's where we're sitting at right now. Any questions?

Very good. Thank you. Do we have any evacuations currently going on?

We're pre-evacuating for those upper residences in 38 there, but it's just for that upper piece for now.

Okay.

No other evacs have been instituted yet. We are using pilot cars along Highway 38, and some additional road closures are going to be instituted on the 714, the Gerd Ridge Road. They're going to look at getting that closed in the next day or two. They're putting in a contingency line there, and that's just a tight road they don't want the traffic on.

Very good. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Does anybody else have anything for us?

Morning, Ken. Morning. Since our last meeting, the only request we had was to help Forest Service with local resources for some night ops on the Grove Fire. Other than that, we've been pretty quiet as far as outside resource requests.

Good. Thank you. Those nine new fires, Matt, were they lightning?

Yes, those were all. All the ones we staffed were all lightning. There were two abandoned campfires, one up the West Fork and one here on the face, I believe, of Blodgett, I think. But otherwise, those staff fires were all lightning from this last week.

That's good.

Yeah, public seems to be, for the most part, listening. Even with all the activity, we had somebody show up at 3 a.m. at Black Bear Campground overnight here wanting to set up camp. So we'll keep doing our messaging, keep working on it.

Give them a Pulaski and send them up the mountain. We considered that. Very good.

Thank you, gentlemen. All right. With that, we will recess until 10 a.m. for a discussion with a possible decision on a where. Good morning, all. We will reconvene with a discussion and a possible decision on a where providing services at West House. So, Sheriff Holton, do you have something for us?

Okay. Thank you.

Do you have anything or do you want to kick it off?

Okay.

And maybe we can just go to aware right off the bat and have a conversation about it. So I. we all met last week to discuss services or lack thereof that have been provided recently. We keep, we, the commissioners keep, uh, I would say it's a 30 or 50 or maybe even 70,000 foot view of West house. You know, we, we budget and, uh, that's pretty much been the involvement in West house. And for a long time, it just kind of sat over here and did its own thing. And, uh, i think we had some some hits and misses throughout the years but it sounds like it's gotten to the point where it's uh basically just kind of been neglected over there and so i'd be interested to have aware come up and talk to us about the transition and where we're at now and what the plan is moving forward there's somebody from aware here thank you come on up and have a seat at the microphone there and

identify yourselves if you would.

Sure.

Hello, my name is Jake Henderson. I thank you all for having us today. I'm a senior director for outpatient services at AWARE.

Hello, I'm Jen Wilborg. I'm a senior director for mental health residential with AWARE.

Where are you guys out of? Are you in Montana? Yes, we're in Missoula. Missoula? So what's been going on at West House?

Yeah, I can take the lead on West House. So AWARE, I think it was in March, made the decision to temporarily close due to safety concerns in the facility. We took over in December. And we were working towards reopening in June. And at that point in time, we were asked to step away from the premises We haven't been back in West House since then.

What were the safety concerns in December?

Well, they were actually in March. So during some internal investigation of operations of the facility, there were concerns about how admissions were occurring. That led us to dig in a little bit deeper. There are some concerns with the doors on the ED units, locking doors. inwardly towards where the residents would be. In addition to that, some of the cameras were not working properly. The other concerns that were occurring in regards to the patient that was in the ED unit was that she was not medically screened by our nursing upon admission, and she had an active UTI, so that initiated further concerns in that circumstance. In addition to that, when we were digging a little bit deeper in just how it was operating under the former facility operators, we were concerned about documentation and just daily notifications of maintenance. AWARE was not aware that we couldn't go in and do the maintenance. It's how we operate our regular facilities. That came to our attention as we were trying to fix the camera systems, the internet system, and the doors. And our maintenance lead, Steve Francisco, was operating with your county maintenance. And they asked us to exit the premises. So we have not been back. Due to that, the staff that were assigned to go live back in June have been reassigned to other positions within the agency. So that's where we're at right now. We are now lower staffing than we would be. because those people need to have job opportunities throughout the summer.

So these deficiencies, where did those go? Were those sent, emailed?

Steve Francisco, our facilities manager, was in connection with the county's facilities person in June. And since then, I can reach out to him to get more information on that.

aware of those seem like some pretty big decisions to happen talks to happen amongst maintenance staff don't you think like our our COO and our CEO was also participating in those discussions okay yeah with our maintenance person with the county yes yeah I think your mic's off, Bill.

Yeah, I would have to ask. We were in a meeting. Yes, sir. And that's where we said, have you raised any of these issues with our maintenance people? And we coordinated that.

Yes, sir.

And this is now August 31st, and I'm hearing that. So you're telling us that someone at the county has precluded you from going in there.

Bill, please turn on your microphone.

Sorry. Oh, there you go. Thank you. Do I need to rant all over? No, you're OK.

Sorry. Yes, sir. Basically, in a nutshell, we don't have a contract to operate in West House. And we can get more details from our CEO and COO on efforts to secure that contract. But as it is today, we don't have a contract to operate in the facility. We ramped up. We were ready to, as Jen said, we were ready to implement. We had full staffing. We did retraining. But in the absence of that contract, to be able to actually operate and wherever that communication happened, we, since that time, have taken those employees and put them to other positions that are where. So we're happy to have the conversation. If we could look at getting a contract that we could operate in that facility, we're happy to look at that further, but that's where that left off, and we didn't receive communication after that. So we appreciate you guys coming to invite us today to discuss that.

Part of the issue was that we Commission didn't receive any any outreach from aware that we're aware of So I'm chairman. Nobody called me.

Nobody sent me an email crickets, so Yeah, yes, we may have been talking we apologize we may have been talking to Not talking to the right people that so but we're here. We've we're ready to discuss.

It just seems like some big discussion decisions to happen with what i hear is maintenance that like our maintenance that our maintenance staff precluded you from using the building it's my understanding that we were asked to exit so somebody has the full understanding because you're saying you're saying my understanding and our ceo and co has more it sounds like they should be sitting here as well probably if they have the information of who was contacted and who was coordinated with um Sounds like maybe they should be sitting here too. I don't know, what is your interest level in running West House at this point?

As of right now, AWARE would like to be able to operate West House under a new contract.

So if we were to sign a new contract with AWARE, how soon could you initiate services?

We would need time to rehire facility staff at this time.

What was the service from December to, I'm just trying to get a time. When did AWARE take over for Western?

AWARE took over the residential facilities on December 1st from Western, which included crisis.

And so you operated from December 1st to sometime in March when you had these deficiencies?

Yes.

And when did our maintenance staff tell you you couldn't be in the building anymore?

I believe it was June 15th.

That's a long time between those two time frames.

Yeah, I believe a meeting was scheduled for July. I can get that date.

What happened between March and when you... So December to March you operated. March you found some deficiencies, which is a lock and a couple other... Sounds like process issues.

Client concerns, yes. Staff concerns.

Where did those go and what happened between March and this other...

So during that time, we rewrote our policy and procedure manual, did training, got everybody in the facility certified. We were in communication with...

Shouldn't that have happened beforehand if we had a contract for you to run the facility? Like, I guess I'm wondering... Why do I care if I've got a contract with you and I'm paying you money that you are now training your staff and writing policy? Shouldn't that be like, we have a contract. You have certified, competent staff with policies and procedures. Why would we be writing policy between March and June?

We were updating them. because the ones that we were working under that were transferred over with Western were inadequate upon identifying that there was some concerns with admission.

So from December to March, you were operating under the policies of?

Aware is still in acquisition process with Western, currently in this moment.

So it's not complete yet?

It's not complete yet.

I see. And so from that time you were working under Western's policies? Correct. And that's what you found deficient? Correct. In March, okay.

Yes.

Thank you.

The sheriff has his hand up.

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't see you, Steve.

Whose beds were they? Those are our... I can't answer that.

I don't know if those are county beds or western beds. I mean, there's been a couch removed from there. The electric breakers are blown. The GFIs won't reset.

So, I was in there first.

Why is a wearer taking furniture out of West House?

I don't have that answer.

Who does?

Steve Francisco.

Sounds like Steve should be here.

I do have Mr. Francisco's cell phone number if you'd like. Just throwing that out there.

Thank you.

We'd be happy to meet wherever this communication got to. Steve Francisco is our statewide facilities director. He sets up contracts in order for us to operate in facilities. And I think we don't have a contract to operate in that facility. who he's been in contact my understanding is he was in contact with with the county commissioners or with you guys if that's there was some break in that I'm not sure that we would we're here we would love to and I agree the communication however this is happening it's been dragging on we would love to be sit down if that's with you mr. chairman we would love to have that opportunity and set that up or whoever we need to talk with.

It's part of the reason we're here today.

Yes, sir.

Thank you. So can I go back to you all have commented a couple times, no contract. I know there's an issue with the building contract. There's no lease there. But we have the contract for emergency mental health services that's active right now. goes through november of 2026 which were so i guess i'm not sure why we keep going back to there's no contract we have a yes sir we have a contract for jail diversion uh is that that's this one emergency mental health services this is when we call for uh the screening on a potential involuntary commitment. And we've been through that. There's been a lot of issues with that right on down the road through the court process and so forth. So we do have a contract, and that includes the emergency mental health services. So I guess I just want to be clear. We have some contracts going on.

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. We do have some contracts going on with the jail diversion and providing evaluations to divert away to West House through an evaluation.

Okay.

That's the other one.

That's Behavioral Health Services. And then we have – okay, we don't need to debate the contracts right now, but there is some contractual – relationship going on and i guess i see what commissioner burroughs is expressing his frustration with is just we've had no west house service and it's just falling off i don't want it to just lay out there not medically screened patient with the active UTI, I was involved in that. I know it led to an employment issue for you all. We don't need to talk about that publicly. But to shut down West House over that patient, we're going to have a big disagreement there.

Sure.

So, yeah, we're at a high level of frustration right now.

We'd love to, when we're here today, that's why we came down. We appreciate you all inviting us. And however the communication's been going, we're here. If we could get something together and get the right people on our teams to be able to move forward, please.

I think we need to talk about that because I'm looking at the contract now. $110,000. the term of the contract is December 1st, 2025 through November 30th, 2026. So why are you saying we do not have a contract to operate West house?

That contract that I believe you're looking at is, uh, what is provided for medication management within, or could you please, uh, familiar contract for emergency mental health services with aware, uh,

detention center diversion, involuntary commitment, mental health education. So are those services being fulfilled under the current contract?

This contract is for what we provide out of the jail with providing diversion from the jail through evaluation, which would be over two It would be providing that service over to West House. But this is the connection to West House, this contract. This is not the actual contract to operate within West House, if that's correct. Yes, sir.

So Mr. Chairman, my understanding from our jail commander is that that's a struggle also right now. Maybe some information from Captain Reynolds on that would be appropriate. Put him on the spot.

Thank you. Appreciate that.

Who denied that?

West House referrals. The referrals need to be made to whoever's at West House at the time. And by contract, our state center can make those referrals. And so pretty much it's on a suicide watch. And we need a professional during the off hours or even during business hours.

Bonnie's not available, whatever. And then we call West House.

So is AWARE not providing those services now?

TODD BANDUCCI- To us, no.

TODD BANDUCCI- So it's been sure.

TODD BANDUCCI- We had one exact We were not operating in June. There was no West House to refer to.

So if I could, I think Matt's using the phrase West House. It's aware. That's who's providing the services. Chris works for you. Kat used to work for you. That's who's supposed to be providing the services. So he's using the phrase West House as like our slang term.

I'm not aware of any calls in July. We still have Chris on staff and a few other MHPs. So I don't know if it just went to a number that We're not answering. I don't know. I'd have to have further information.

Because that referral wouldn't have had to go to West House. That could have went to a handful of other locations, right? So I guess the question is, is when you guys abandoned the duties over at West House where we ran out of the contract, did you assume that our, or was there an assumption that our emergency mental health services went as well? Was that the assumption?

We're still operating within these contracts. There's no, in the absence of West House, there's no place we're referring over to.

There is in the contract, though. The contract lists a handful of places they can go. It doesn't have to be West House. It can be Dakota House. So I guess that's absolutely unequivocally untrue. like per the contract. So even if we abandoned West House and shut the doors, your contract still requires these duties and they can be referred to a handful of other locations. So am I wrong or?

No, I believe that what may have occurred in July is we don't know where those referrals went. When Jake and Amberlee met with you guys, we told you that we still had Chris Weber, I do know that he did one roughly May, June. So I would assume that wherever the referral is going, we don't know where it's at.

So that's what he did in, I want to say it was June, was the involuntary commitment process screening, not the jail?

And then the jail diversion piece is Barb, correct? Do you want to speak to that? Bonnie. Please. Yeah. I would have to look into that piece. I'm not aware of those.

So 4-3 and 4-4, we had two requests for services that were denied is the bottom line.

I don't understand what a denial of request for service under the contract is. They say AWARE says we are not going to do that?

I am not aware of those denials, so I'd have to dig deeper.

Who is aware of what's going on? Who runs this program?

I run this program, and I was not informed of these referrals.

Who denied it? I have no idea. That's what I'd have to look into. I was asking our staff.

And there was no supervisor.

I'm not aware of that.

I don't know. I guess, how do we go forward?

So I hear you say you have an appetite to run a mental health crisis facility here.

We do.

So I guess, Mr. Chairman, to be candid from our end, and I don't deal with Matt's detention center stuff. My office deals with involuntary commitments and the fallout from that. I appreciate what you've said, and I hear you have an appetite. I'd like us to take a pause and explore what other options we have.

I think that that's the wise choice.

And then maybe we reconvene another time.

That would be my desires as well. I think there's too many unanswered questions. If we chose to go with AWARE and develop a new contract, how soon could we get West House open?

If a contract was redone, it would take me roughly 30 to 60 days to rehire staff that have been reassigned. Okay. And I don't know if the same staff will want to come back, so we would want to do the training we were doing before.

You say the same staff would want to come back or would not want to? I don't know if they would. Oh, you don't know.

Yeah, several of them have either taken other positions in our agency or other jobs.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah.

And if I could ask for a clarification, when you refer to 30 to 60 days just in your general plan, are you looking at both the voluntary and involuntary?

We would hope to open both.

OK. Any comments from the board? from the detention center side or the sheriff's office?

I was in there less than a week ago. The breakers don't work.

There's furniture missing.

So can we just, just so everybody's clear, mostly for myself, we have the behavioral health contract, we have the emergency mental health contract, and then we have AWARE. So those two, the behavioral and the emergency mental, those have dollar amounts paid by the county to AWARE associated with them.

Then there's the... To be clear, we have that...

What's a while? So we paid January of 2026 for those other contracts. Then we had some issues come up. We stopped paying. Now we have the West House agreement, which does not have a dollar amount. Well, it's got a rent paid. Why do you want that? There's got to be money involved. So you're getting paid by the state and then per service for beds in there is how you're generating revenue off West House?

Yeah, so it'd be Medicaid rates.

Medicaid rates?

Yeah.

Okay.

Which actually don't break even on these types of facilities, just to be honest.

So why would you want to run West House then?

AWARE has a commitment towards crisis services and prevention from higher level of care.

So where's the funding coming from to subsidize that? Is that federal money or somewhere else?

Currently we are subsidizing with our other services that we provide as an agency.

I guess just as a business person who runs a business, why would you do that? Like, I don't understand unless you're going to ask for money in a new contract to help subsidize it from us. Like, why would you? I mean, I understand you could say because we care. but that only lasts so long before you run out of money, and my guess is that probably maybe is what happened with Western Montana, but why would you take revenues from one part of your organization, shift it into a losing proposition being West House?

We wouldn't want to do that necessarily, and I think wherever, again, where this communication broke down with, I'm not sure, but that's why we're here today, and we'd love to talk with you, but as far as setting up a contract West House the county owns that building we don't we can operate provide services out of there but that would require setting up a new contract with you guys and to see what that would look like the Medicaid rates don't cover it another Counties throughout the state, usually that's a collaboration between the provider, the county, so it's a mixed funding source. But going into something that's knowing that we're going to lose money or not be able to sustain it, we're not interested in doing that. We are interested in working and partnering with people.

So the new lease agreement would probably have a cost to the county associated with it? like a request for funding from the county?

I would guess that, yes, that would be a request, but we would also want to partner with the hospitals locally and also seek additional funding through grants. That's what we're doing in other counties at this time.

Why would the hospital kick into that? I just wondered.

By history, it's to divert from the ER.

So there's examples of other communities where the hospital actually helps fund some of this?

Nationally, and we're working on those in our other three cities currently. So up in Kalispell is our most current example of this. We're working towards opening Glacier House, which is currently a voluntary crisis facility. And we are working on a partnership between the county moat funding and through the logan health so glacier house is currently closed then is that glacier was closed prior to aware coming into western okay yeah yeah sounds like we might have a little leverage on the bitter root health ceo then to help get some funding for west house maybe

Those models divert people away from the ER. I get them to a safer place. It's that, you know, West House is that in-between. They don't quite meet criteria, but it helps divert people away from the ER, and that helps hospitals as far as how they've allocated their staff.

So it appears to me that West House's business model is very much the same as Western's business model was on the surface.

Yes, sir.

Western was unsuccessful. It didn't work for them. Correct. How long before it's not going to work for you? I mean, the model's wrong.

I would agree the model is wrong with you, just to be quite honest. It is. Yeah. There are legislative actions going in this year regarding crisis, which may assist, but we don't know that future. I'll be honest.

Okay. So our other... for the emergency contract references Dakota House. Is that in Missoula? Yes, sir. What's the status of Dakota House? What's going on up there?

Dakota House is also closed currently.

Are there any that are open?

No.

So none of these little... How many are there?

Under Western, there originally was, I believe there was four or five. Multiple of those facilities were closed when AWARE stepped in to support Western Montana. At this time, Glacier is ready to hire and reopen in Kalispell. That's through work that's been done over the last year with AWARE. Dakota House has been currently closed with conversations with multi-agency partners to reopen and may actually reopen as a mother and child SUD program. That's the current wish for that facility. Other agencies in the state of Montana have outpatient crisis occurring in their crisis facilities currently.

So if I could follow up. Oh, go ahead, Jake.

Thank you, sir. Going back to Chairman Jeff, Mr. Burroughs, that model did fail. The model that was operated for 22 years did fail. It's not been around. It's been fading for years. And it's been fading for many, many years, if that's sustainable. And as we've gone through this acquisition with Western, which we're still finishing up, the acquisition with Western is not complete. They're starting to wind up, but it's not fully complete. So I would begin where we're here and with... There has been, I'm sure, been a lot of maybe miscommunication or missed opportunities to communicate through this, and we'd like to remedy that, but to have those conversations. But yeah, with those models, there's a reason that we are not seeing them across the state as much anymore, and something has to be redesigned. We're in conversations with the state, other partners of everybody wants these models, but how do we support them? And that's a... Sounds like somebody writes a check for them is the way you support... I mean... Basically, yeah. At the end of the day, someone has to fund it. Medicaid dollars alone will not fund these. And there's been reductions in Medicaid rates that we're experiencing now and gearing up for. They cannot be sustained solely through Medicaid.

Well, I'm aware of the business model and billing Medicaid and Medicaid... not paying for six, eight, 10 months, 12 months. It's an impossible model. It cannot work. And the solution to that is not something that we can solve in this room. We're relying on somebody else to solve that problem. But the problem is there, and it will not go away until those that have the ability to solve that problem solve it. That's dollars to it. Right.

How long would it take you to put a number to what? I mean, the contract probably doesn't need to fundamentally change that much. It sounds like it just needs an influx of cash into it. How soon would it take to get that number, whatever the needs are? I mean, I don't think there's a sense in totally rewriting the contract and going through that whole process. if it's going to be a budget number, that's just not feasible for us to do. So it sounds like sooner than later, if you could say, here's what we need, you know, we need a maintenance person. We need this X amount of dollars and we need this. Then at least we can wrap our head around what it looks like. But if you come back and say, we need $250,000 top rate West house, probably going to be a note. Like we're not going to do that.

We have a, pretty advanced financial team which can provide you with pro forma and a cost um we can take that back to our chief financial officer and get you a timeline okay yeah i think that's the most important thing we just need to know around about here's how much it's going to cost you for us to manage around west house and see if that's feasible or not for us um I can speak as the senior director. Some of the things that I have done is I actually am scheduled to go out of state in October to meet with other agencies that operate crisis services out of state to see what their models are currently looking like. I also did that late fall last year. And there were several models for small counties like Hamilton that we were able to meet with. so we can also provide some information on that for you as well.

Thank you. The sad thing is in that interim we are going to have people in crisis and we need to help them somehow. That's a conundrum for us.

Correct.

how to accomplish that and to serve our citizens.

Can you get us a number in a couple weeks?

Probably less than that, knowing our team.

Okay. Would you all like to press send that to you, Chairman?

If you would send it to commissioners at rc.us.

And rc at mt.gov.

So then we'll all get it and that'll be helpful. So we'll look forward to receiving that and we'll schedule another meeting as quickly as possible.

Once that information is received?

Once that information is received. So we will set another meeting and try to solve this problem. Yes?

well can you look can you look into that so we asked a handful of questions that some other people have that info

I mean, I'm really interested in why we were denied. Somebody made a call to say, no, do not provide this service, and whether that was because we haven't got paid or we don't want to do it or what. I mean, I think we need some answers to those questions because that's pretty significant. Because it sounded like somebody said, yes, I'll do it. Wait a sec, my boss or somebody just told me, no, don't provide that service.

Yes, I'll be investigating that when I get back to Missoula today.

Thank you. Thank you.

Would the commissioners, if it's possible, have Mr. Francisco here regarding the maintenance of and the?

I don't care about the maintenance folks being here or not. I mean, it sounds like that. It was just the way to start the discussion that it sounded like we had a couple of maintenance folks talking about closing a mental health facility for a little bit, which seems kind of strange to me.

Yeah, I would say that Steve Francisco is a director and he does all of our contracts and facilities. He's not actually maintenance.

Okay.

and the maintenance team works directly under him.

Yeah. Because the maintenance person that he was talking to was our maintenance director, but not somebody who would make decisions on whether or not the doors stay open or not at West House.

Yeah, I would speak that for a wear during this acquisition, we haven't been provided with all the direct contacts for folks that Western was working with previously. So I would guess that that was part of the challenge here.

Okay. Steve.

Okay. I was speaking more towards our CEO.

Yeah, that was Nick Matthews. Yeah.

Okay. Mr. Francisco, that's who he was trying to get hold of, Nick Matthews.

We'll look forward to hearing back from you with more information. Thank you, guys. Thank you very much.

So no BCC decisions made.

No BCC decisions made. And we will recess until 3 p.m.

Okay. Okay.

Okay, we will reconvene with public hearing on the Linn Conservation Easement Phase 4. Welcome. Planning.

Thank you, Commissioners. So this is Linn Conservation Easement Open Land Board Project number 202602. Tax ID 178800, 16700, and 166900. We did receive agency comments and public comments. Teller Wildlife Refuge submitted a comment letter in support of the Lynn Conservation Easement. Public comment number one, Linda Seed. All of these are in support of the Lynn Conservation Easement. So public comment number one, Linda Seed. Public comment number two, Stan Lila and Jared Bartell. Public comment number three, Michael and Amanda McArthur. Public comment number four, Thomas Lund. Public comment number five, Koss. Public comment number six, Kimberly Copes. Public comment number seven, Brad Uren. And public comment number eight, Alan and Roberta Bursch. All in support.

Thank you.

And I gave you all the comment letters on the back of your staff reports.

Thank you.

So the applicant and the property owner is Rocky Lynn. The qualified sponsoring land conservation organization is the Bitterroot Land Trust. A total of 70 acres of the property are proposed for the conservation easement. It's located about one mile north of the center of Corvallis. Here's the map of the proposed Linn Conservation Easement of 70 acres right here. Teller Wildlife Refuge is right here and Gingrich Conservation Easement is right here and it's right off of East Side Highway. The proposed funding total request from the Open Lands Bond Program is $101,500. Oops. Sorry. Conservation values conserve working agricultural land. The property is in an active agricultural production and is primarily irrigated pastures for livestock grazing. The NRCS identifies 87% of the land as agriculturally Important soils, 60% as prime farmland. If irrigated and 26% of soils of local importance, the property has excellent water rights from the Corvallis Canal. Wildlife habitat, the property is irrigated hay fields and seasonal wetlands and it's located in proximity to the Bitterroot River, provides valuable wildlife habitat and areas for wildlife movement. The wetlands among the surrounding grasslands provide foraging grounds and cover for local important wildlife and Several species of concerns, parts of the ranch are located within the Willow Creek Bitterroot tier. Number two, the swamp are aquatic focal areas. It is also adjacent to the Teller Wildlife Refuge, which is managed for wildlife habitat and protected by a conservation easement, which makes this conservation valuable. The proposed conservation easement offers excellent scenic open spaces views of the property's agricultural land and wildlife habitat, visible from public roads, including Eastside Highway and Chaffin Lane. Chaffin Lane, which provides direct access from the center of Corvallis to open space beyond, is especially popular with joggers, bicyclists, and families with strollers. The conservation easement will protect the scenic values of the property as well as expand and enhance the protected open lands that surround this property. When the open lands board subcommittee met and the open lands board, met the project scoring worksheet report. The scores ranged from 57 to 71 points with an average of 64 points. Any questions?

Thank you. Okay, thank you.

Does the land trust have anything for us? Thank you. Do you need the mic? You've got a mic. That'd be good. You're welcome.

You need to turn your mic on, Jake.

There you go. Perfect.

Can you hear me now?

Yep. We can hear you now.

Thanks. I'm going to try it. Great. Jake Blessing here, conservation project manager with the Bitterroot Land Trust. We want to thank the commissioners for taking the time today to consider this project. We also want to thank the open lands bond members for volunteering their time to discuss the project and visit the property. The county staff, planning department staff for facilitating the process and the taxpayers for funding the open lands bond. Lastly, we are also grateful to Rocky Lin, the landowner who is present today, for generously working with us to conserve his property in Corvallis. There's a fair amount of overlap between Shan's presentation and mine, and so I'm going to try to strike a balance between being thorough and not telling you stuff twice. And yeah, so Mr. Lin has owned this ranch for over 40 years. During this time, he's managed it as a cattle operation, which he continues to do today. And he also ran quite a noteworthy quarter horse breeding operation on the property for a time. And he wishes to conserve his land for its agricultural resources, wildlife habitat, and open space values. So as Shannon said, it's located north of Corvallis here. So the property boundary is in yellow here. It's on the west side of East Side Highway. And Chaffin Lane kind of runs north-south through the property. It will add to over 2,000 acres of conserved working lands in the Corvallis area, aside from being adjacent to Teller, which is protected with a conservation easement. It is within one mile of three total existing conservation easements. And it's within a three mile radius of thousands of acres of working agricultural lands. So as Shannon said, the easement will conserve 70 acres across three parcels. There will be one residential building envelope around the existing farmstead, which is over here in the black catch marks. And there's also one agricultural building only envelope on the east side of the property over here. The easement will allow up to two residences to be built. There's one currently, so that would allow for one more. There's excellent soils on the property, water rights from Corvallis Canal, and currently about 94% of the property is irrigated by either flood irrigation or sub-irrigation systems. The easement will allow for no splits, so the property must transfer as one tract when that comes to pass. These are just some pictures of the property. going clockwise. We've got some of Rocky's cattle on the upper left. On the top right is a pasture with Timothy looking green and the Bitterroot Mountains in the background. Bottom right, we love western toads because they are a species of concern. There are a few kind of moderate-sized areas that have some standing water in the irrigation season, and those get used by toads and migratory wading birds and waterfowl. It's a working pasture, but it's great for wildlife. And then bottom left, that's a fence line with Rocky's property on the right and the Teller Wildlife Refuge on the left. There's currently open space all the way from Rocky's property to the riparian forest of the Bitterroot River in the distance which you can kind of see right here and then of course the mountains in the background. The conservation easement will provide multiple community benefits. I should advance my slide here. Of course it will support agriculture in an area that's experiencing development pressure. It will conserve valuable agricultural and water resources. It will protect wildlife habitat including that for waterfowl and elk both of which use the property regularly and provide scenic views of open space from the public roads next to the property. This is a summary of the project funding. The request from the open lands bond program is for 101 $1,500 which comes out to $1,450 per acre and it comes leveraged with funding from NRCS. This is already secured funding for 50% of the appraised easement value. And here we have a diagram of the open lands process. The take-home is that by the time The project has reached this stage. Any major concerns have been identified and resolved. The Open Lands Bond Program Board includes members with a wide range of experience and expertise to help evaluate these applications and make sure the county is investing the program's funds effectively. As you can see, projects are vetted thoroughly. We've gone through all these steps here. including the Open Lands Bond Board application review and site visit. The Open Lands Board has recommended the projects to the county commissioners for approval. The project also advances the goals of the Open Lands Bond program, which are to preserve open lands, including working farms and ranches, to protect water quality of streams and the Bitterroot River, and to maintain wildlife habitat. So conserving the land property helps achieve these stated goals. The project also aligns with the objective and the narrative of the 2025 Ravalli County Natural Resource Management Plan. One of these objectives is to promote the maintenance and improvement of Ravalli County's natural beauty and scenic character for the benefit of county residents and visitors. It also states that agriculture is an integral part of the history and culture of Ravalli County and contributes significantly to the county's economic stability. So conserving the Linn property will serve to further the primary and fundamental goals of the natural resource management plan. And that's all I've got today. Are there any questions?

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Mr. Chair, I move to approve the Linn Conservation Easement Phase 4 Open Lands Board Project 202602 in the amount of $101,500. And I will second that motion.

It's been moved and seconded to approve the Linn Conservation Easement in the amount of $101,500 from the Open Lands Fund. Is there any public comment on that motion? for the discussion.

I just have a clarification. Can you amend your motion to include resolution 4807? Sure.

Okay. 4807.

Skip. Thank you. Skip Chisholm, Hamilton. I just heard about this, and I speed read through this. You know I love these projects as a private citizen for the future of this county. I can't imagine that anybody could find anything wrong with this. So thank you ahead of time for what I hope will be an approval by the commissioners.

Thank you, Skip.

Anybody else?

Thank you. I want to thank the land trust for the work that they have done on this. And I appreciate the county staff and the open land board's input and work putting it all together, and especially want to thank the voters who voted to fund this project. And I appreciate my neighbors, and they approved and backed me and supported me, and I thank you gentlemen for allowing us to be here.

Thank you, Robert.

Thank you, sir.

Anyone else? Further discussion? Call for a question. Jeff? Aye. And I vote aye as well. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. And with that, is there any public comment on items not otherwise on our agenda? To adjourn. We are adjourned.