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About Dillon Tribune (Dillon, Mont.) 1989-current | View This Issue
Dillon Tribune (Dillon, Mont.), 26 Dec. 2018, located at <http://montananewspapers.org/lccn/2015269516/2018-12-26/ed-1/seq-1/>, image provided by MONTANA NEWSPAPERS, Montana Historical Society, Helena, Montana.
“ ; $ ET L ah WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 26, 2018 = Votume 137, Numper 52 KING HeapLines Since 1881 - Ditton, Montana - $1 01/01/2049°****\AUTO\*3-DIGIT 596 MT HISTORICAL SOC LIBRARY RESEARCH CENTER PO BOX 201201 ELENA MT 59620-1201 6200990000 DUNE BCHS Board hears different view of Spruce Street dispute By J.P. Plutt Dillon Tribune staff The Beaverhead County High School Board of Trustees met last week for their December meeting and listened to a Spruce Street update from Andy Allen, the person they hired as the district's awner’s representative for the construction project. BCHS Superintendent Gary Haverfield, in an interview Friday, said he requested Allen clarify the district's position against ac- cusations in a Nov. 21 Dillon Tribune article from Dillon Mayor Michael Klakken and members of the city council that the school had not followed procedure and were in the process of closing Spruce Street without permission. Haverfield felt it important that the board members have the first-hand information to answer questions from community members. “Obviously, there was a misunderstanding,” said Haverfield of the contentious stance taken by the city in recent city meetings. “We're not about blame or fault. That is not what we're about. What we are trying to do is work with the city and resolve this. We are always willing to work with people and this is no different, which is why we are going to a meeting on January 7. We don't want to go to a meeting and fight, we want to work together and fix this.” According to Haverfield, Allen’s duties as owner’s representative focus on representing the school district with all parties associated with the construction project, allowing the board and administration to continue their duties running the school. The project includes renovations of the main building, construction of a new building, construction of a parking lot and the closure and redesign of Spruce Street. Haverfield said he attended the first meeting with the city and that all of those points, including the closure of Spruce Street, were clearly identified as pieces of the project. “We had a lot of instructions for Andy when he was hired, and one of those was to communicate effectively with the city,” said Haverfield. “From my perspective I think he has done a very good the things that you have to de with a project like this.” Haverfield said that Allen's presentation to the board echoed that of a conversation he had with Ron Nemitz, the owner of the firm providing the architectural services “What they go by are documents,” said Haverfield. “We sub- mitted our documents and we received our permits from the city and the state. The documents clearly showed the sidewalk. The documents were approved and what is approved, we build. Eight months later, they are telling us we didn’t do what we were sup- posed to do.” Both Nemitz and Allen explained to Haverfield that in their work with other municipalities, it is at that approval phase where other towns would notify the design team of problems. Typically, they would take a red pen to the documents. In this case, they would have highlighted the Spruce Street area and given conditional peng fag A Hy Nef Mya ApEn RAPA] forcssggead tf ft! “ist Ray dhs py ee watt Council. approves wastewater study, zoning changes By M.P. Regan Dillon Tribune staff At its final regular meeting of 2018, the Dillon City Council last week ad- dressed rules for the city cemetery, approved a pair of adjustments to the city’s official zoning map and gave the okay for a study of the local wastewater treatment plant. The council unanimously endorsed the first reading of an ordinance estab- lishing rules for the city’s Mountain View Cemetery. The 18-page draft includes proposed rules for, among other things, hours of operation, fees, monuments, grounds conditions, interment arrangements, disinterment arrangements, re-sale of grave assignments, funding and record keeping. “This has been, I know, over a year— I almost want to say, two years,” said Mayor Mike Klakken of the length of time the ordinance has been worked on by members of city government, so far. The second reading of the ordinance will likely take place at the first city council meeting of January. If ap- proved again there, it will take effect a month later. Mountain View Cemetery sits on just under 40 acres off Sweetwater Road in Dillon. Established 130 years ago by a pri- vate company, the cemetery became property of the City of Dillon in 1920. The council also voted, 8-0, to ap- | prove a recommendation from its Water & Sewer Committee to autho- rize an optimization study of the city’s wastewater treatment plant by Water & Environmental Technologies (WET), which maintains offices in four loca- tions in Montana. Required by the state's Department of Environmental Quality, the $5,000 study will review data analysis, exam- ine pollutant minimization activities and put together an optimization report 6n the wastewater plant for the city. Continued to page 10 Choreography Around the World.” J.P. Piutt photo job of being that liason between the district and the city with all Committee recommends council reject LGBT ordinance By M.P. Regan Dillon Tribune staff The Dillon City Council's Judiciary Committee last week voted 2-1 to senda proposed non-discrimination ordinance to the full city council on Jan. 16—along with a recommendation that the full council reject it. + The unusual move came last Tues- day near the end of the third meeting over the past few months at which the Judiciary Committee discussed and took public input on a proposed non- discrimination ordinance (NDO), Originally put forth by the local , chapter of PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), the NDO would prohibit discrimination jased on, among other things, “sexual orientation or gender identity or ex- pression.” Jt defines sexual orientation as “heterosexuality, homosexuality or hisexuality” and gender identity or expression as “a gender-related ex- pression or behavior regardless of an individual's sex at birth.” < “In my heart I do not believe there ; aneed for this ordinance,” said Ray- mond Graham at last Tuesday's meet- ing, moments before he became one of the two Judiciary Committee members to vote to recommend that the full Council not endorse the proposed NDO. > “Because I can't see where these people are not protected,” added Graham, who like his fellow two Judi- ciary Committee members, Mary Jo O'Rourke and Dan Nye, also serves as one of the eight members of the Dillon City Council. “IT think in both the testimony and in the flood of letters, the need for a non-discrimination ordinance has been overwhelmingly and graphically described to us,” said O'Rourke of the dozens of letters the city has received in recent months on the NDO matter and the dozens of people who have offered oral comments about it at Judi- ciary Committee meetings in October, November and December, the second of which attracted about 100 attendees, “Well, I think that there were letters ‘and input from both sides. It wasn't all just one side. There were those that were opposed and those that were for,” countered Nye. “From what I've gathered from all the letters I've read and discussion with people on the streets, the majority of the people don’t want this. There is a group‘who do want this,” continued Nye, the longest-serving member on the Dillon City Council. Nye and Graham both said at last week's meeting they opposed the NDO proposal because they felt it would be redundant, “I don't think we need a law when there are already laws out there that protect from discrimination,” said Nye of his position on the matter, “I'm a person who doesn't think we need to rewrite laws that are already in existence. You still have to go to the Human Rights Bureau. And even if we did write one, it would have to be fairly close to what the state law already says now. So, why re-inyent the wheel?” Over the past decade, Helena, Mis- soula, Whitefish and Bozeman have all enacted ordinances similar to the NDO being proposed in Dillon, as has Butte- Silver Bow County. “First off, if it’s criminal, go to the police and they will help you if it wasa criminal issue,” said Dillon Mayor Mike Klakken of what recourse people have under state law if they feel they have been discriminated against. “If it was a civil issue, you would go to the Montana Human Rights Bureau right now. They would then consider and look at it and investigate it and then have a hearing. If they come back with a decision, the Human Rights Bureau, that it did not happen or it didn’t rise to the standard that it was harassment or that it was discrimination, then you can appeal that to the Human Rights Organization,” said Klakken, “The Human Rights Bureau has a very limited mandate,” said Richard Turner, a longtime Dillon resident who in 2015 brought a similar NDO pro- posal to the Dillon City Council, which ultimately rejected it after hearing hours of testimony from people during meetings. “It can investigate claims of state laws that have been violated respect- ing civil rights. But there are no state laws protecting LGBT people against | discrimination. There are zero laws. If | you're black, there's a law protecting | you. If you're a woman, there are laws protecting you. If you're gay, there are | no laws protecting you.” In a lengthy memo addressed to | Judiciary Committee members and | | not the one who did it - the county did included in their meeting packet last week, City Attorney Jim Dolan outlined his concerns with the proposed NDO, among them that the City of Dillon could be exceeding the scope of its au- thority by enacting the proposed NDO | and that it could be seen as attempting | | further action on the matter. to preempt state law. During discussions at city meetings in 2015, many expressed concerns that an NDO could trigger lawsuits against local landlords, employers and the city itself. That concern reemerged several | times this year during the debate over the NDO on the table right now in Dil- lon, with Klakken discussing it at the November meeting of the Judiciary Committee and Dolan also referring to it in his memo. “A good reason for passing an or- dinance is, number one, it’s needed. I Continued to page 3 | | a il Colter D. Stanchfield along with the rest of the men's chorus, work through dance moves while singing “Ha- nerot Halalu: A Song for Hanukkah” during the recent BCHS Choral Departmen, presentation of “Holiday Traditions Continued to page 10 Lima resident angry over bridge, creek changes By Casey S. Elliott Dillon Tribune staff Beaverhead County’s fix for Lima flooding earlier this year has angered a resident who wants everything put back the way it was. Lima resident Norman “Jim” Sloan told the Beaverhead County Commis- sioners Dec. 17 he wanted them to remove the new culverts put under the Lima Dam Road bridge to alleviate flooding. He said since they were put in, the flooding has just been worse, in different places. The city of Lima experienced exces- sive flooding earlier this year due to spring snowmelt and an ice-blocked creek under the bridge. The county installed culverts to redirect the water and cleared out the creek. But the new culverts block Sloan’s access to his property, Sloan said. He accused the county of having an | agenda, and having unqualified people | put in the new culverts. “It’s unfair treatment. I’m calling it corrupt,” he said. “There’s a good old boys’ system going on there, an agenda going on there I don’t know about. It needs to be gotten to the bottom of....Do you check the work of your road crew?” Sloan said his family’s driveway has been in the same place for over 80 years, and the only time the area flooded was in 1995. The new culverts have changed that he asserted, and there’s no place for the water to go but his driveway. The commissioners sent a letter to the Lima Town Council in October asking them to deal with a resident who was driving across the berm on the southwest side of the bridge near the newly-installed culvert. The letter did not name the resident, and stated that the driving is causing the road to erode in the area, posing a dangerous | situation for vehicles. The commission asked the council to consider extend- ing the guardrail past the culvert, to reduce the chance that the resident would drive across the berm. Sloan said the only erosion being caused from the new culverts is “the | erosion of my rights.” “I don’t know why the county has this thing against me having my driveway there,” he said. “You put that bridge and the guardrail in front of my driveway, and now the water flows uphill. Every time there’s water in that creek now, it floods.” Sloan added the roadway is unsafe now. He said he’s seen semi-trucks slide off the berm, when the roadway gets slick. “They are going to hit that guardrail, and then blame it on me,” he said. “I’m it. It needs to be corrected, and it can | be corrected very easily — remove the pipe, remove the guardrail, and put | the flood channel back where it was.” The commissioners thanked Sloan for his comments and did not take any In other action, the commissioners swore in Justice of the Peace Candy L. Hoerning and County Attorney Jed | C, Fitch, since both were going to be | traveling and not available on Dec. 31, when the rest of the newly-elected county officials would be sworn in. The commissioners also appointed a number of representatives to county boards at the meeting. They include: Daniel Cahill and Mike Blinn to the | Airport Board; Larry Volkening and Patti Rowland to the Airport Appeals Board; Carol Dickinson to the Cem- etery Board; Cathy Konen and Jules Continued to page 3 ae eine tii ro WT DILLON TRIBUNI aoe TODAY ~ CALL 683-2331
