Sorted by date Results 76 - 100 of 390
SEELEY LAKE - Seeley Lake Community Council heard updates regarding the Bob Marshall Music Festival, the status of the sewer project, Paws Up’s use of two motels for employee housing, and U.S. Forest Service summer projects during their regularly scheduled meeting Monday, May 10. Bob Marshall Music Festival Heidi O’Brien, Lewis and Clark Brewing marketing director, provided updates on the Bob Marshall Music Festival. She said they were ready to make any adaptations required should conditions change in the weeks leading up to the festival sch...
SEELEY LAKE – The Seeley Lake Sewer District Board will be discussing and possibly selecting an assessment method for the 2022 fiscal year at their May 20 meeting. At last month’s meeting the Board chose three assessment methods to consider and have published on their website for the public to look up how each method impacts their property. A link to the document can be found on the District’s website seeleysewer.org The first method, listed in the first column, is the “equal” method. This means that every lot within the District would pay...
SEELEY LAKE – A lawsuit filed last December against the Seeley Lake Sewer District seeking to force the District to construct the proposed sewer treatment plant and collection system has been dropped by the plaintiffs. The District’s defense attorney Jean Faure received an email from the Plaintiffs’ attorney Nathan Wagner April 19 indicating their intention to dismiss the case if both sides would be responsible for their own attorney fees. “After reviewing the provisions of the Resolutions, and the arguments made in your brief in light of the...
SEELEY LAKE – At its April 15 meeting, the Seeley Lake Sewer District Board adopted their fiscal year 2022 budget and discussed assessment methods and filling a vacancy on the Board. District Manager Jean Curtiss informed the Board that she plans to resign her position at the end of June. Director Beth Hutchinson felt that going forward at this time the District could use a manager that was more of a placeholder to meet state law and reduce their operating budget accordingly. She said the manager could be as simple as being paid to attend m...
Each year there is confusion regarding the budget for the Sewer District and the Annual Assessment Methodology that is sent to property owners with the cost of the assessment per parcel. I hope to explain the relationship between the two items and point out ways to be involved and give the Board input on the budget and plan of work before the budget is adopted. As you know, the qualified electors did not approve the bonds required to repay the loan portion of the project the District has been working toward for years. Therefore, at the March 18...
SEELEY LAKE – At their March 18 meeting, the Seeley Lake Sewer District Board passed a pair of resolutions that put the proposed sewer project on the shelf and resolved to find a solution to the groundwater pollution. They also worked on closing out the grants that were for the proposed project, worked on their fiscal year 2022 budget, discussed the process of appointing a director to the vacancy on the Board and got a legal update on the lawsuit against the District. Resolutions The Board passed a pair of resolutions dealing with the future o...
SEELEY LAKE - Seeley Lake Community Council discussed how to honor the memory of the late Council Chairman Klaus von Stutterheim during their regularly scheduled monthly meeting Monday, March 8. Council also heard updates regarding vaccines, the Sewer District Board and the Seeley Lake Ranger District. Vice Chair Jack Greenwood said Von Stutterheim’s contributions to organizing council meetings became immediately apparent following his passing. “Now that Klaus isn’t here, we’re finding out exactly how much work he did,” Greenwood said. “[W...
SEELEY LAKE - The Seeley Lake Sewer District voters have spoken....again....loudly and clearly. They do NOT want a $35 million sewer to grow the community for a half dozen developers who have touted the proposal. If the board is listening it should: 1. Return any unused taxpayer funds to the taxpayers. 2. Fire itself and disband. We can re-constitute the board down the road as a COMBINED sewer / water district if we elect to move in a new direction....
SEELEY LAKE - Voters in the Seeley Lake Sewer District rejected a pair of bonds by a 70% margin Feb. 23 that were proposed to pay for construction of a wastewater treatment plant and Phase 1 of the collection system. As a result of the failed election, the Sewer District Board received a letter canceling the primary funding package. The results of the election were discussed at a Feb. 24 Board meeting where Director Walt Hill also resigned his position on the Board. The General Obligation bond for the treatment plant was turned down by a vote...
SEELEY LAKE - The next meeting of the Seeley Lake Community Council will be this Monday, March 8 at 6 p.m. It will be held via Zoom, and the instructions for sign-on are at the end of this release. The first speaker will be Cindy Farr, Incident Commander - COVID-19 Response, Missoula City-County Health Department. Cindy will give an update on vaccination programs and progress in Missoula County. The second speaker will be Jean Curtiss, Manager of the Seeley Lake Sewer District. Curtiss will discuss the recent sewer election. Our third speaker w...
SEELEY LAKE – At their Feb. 9 meeting, the Seeley-Swan Hospital District Board received updates regarding vaccinations, Karen Ayers’ resignation at the Seeley-Swan Medical Center, Lazy Acres RV Park Subdivision and the sewer bond election. Partnership Health Center representative Abby Berow reported that 204 PHC patients were vaccinated Feb. 8 at the drive-thru Vaccination Clinic at Seeley-Swan High School. Everyone who received their first dose will return Feb. 28 to receive their second dose. Berow said PHC was responsible for scheduling the...
Seeley Lake Community Council vacancy filled SEELEY LAKE – At their Feb. 4 meeting, the Missoula County Commissioners appointed Seeley Lake resident Sharon Teague to the Seeley Lake Community Council. Teague and Seeley Lake resident John Richards applied for the vacancy. Teague will fill the remainder of Kris Martin’s vacant term through May 31, 2023 at which point she will have to apply for reelection to remain on the Council. Teague was welcomed to the Council at their Feb. 9 meeting. To view the recording of the meeting visit htt...
As you know, the Seeley Lake Sewer District Board sent a memo to voters and property owners in the Sewer District about the upcoming Bond Election. The Board would like to take this opportunity to clarify the facts. Supplemental materials can be found at www.seeleysewer.org. Our purpose is “to maintain and provide a healthful environment for present and future generations and to supervise wastewater treatment within the District.” The data shows the nitrate levels in groundwater within the District are trending upward. This concerns MT DEQ and...
I have been involved with preliminary planning, design and cost estimates for a sewer project for Seeley Lake since 1984. The current project, which began about 10 years ago, was agreed to provide a sewer treatment system for no more than $100 per connection per month. The current project design is estimated to cost $35 million to provide sewer service to approximately 515 customers. This results in the project construction cost to be estimated at $68,000 per connection. This sewer system is too expensive for our district. The board has been...
SEELEY LAKE - The fate of a pair of bonds to fund Seeley Lake’s proposed sewer system is in the hands of the voters with ballots being mailed out Feb. 3. If the bonds pass in the Feb. 23 election, the Seeley Lake Sewer District can move forward to finish checking off the conditions of the funding package and put the proposed sewer project out to bid. However the water gets muddier when looking at the impacts of a “no” vote. The Pathfinder reached out to the Missoula City-County Health Department, Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ...
SEELEY LAKE - I am writing in response to Curt Friede’s letter last week. Curt has given false information regarding the Seeley Lake Sewer Project. I contacted the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) last year and asked if Seeley Lake was on a watch list for sewer contaminates and the answer was NO. I asked if Seeley Lake had higher then the state law for contaminates in the water and the answer was NO. I asked if the DEQ would enforce a sewer if the project was voted down and the answer was NO. I have an email to verify this. So yes, I...
SEELEY LAKE - Curt Friede’s letter to the editor about the sewer proposal last week suggests we “get the facts.” Here are a few: Fact: Mr. Friede of one of the parties suing the sewer district board to force them to build the sewer. Fact: There is NO SIGNIFICANT groundwater nitrate degradation, in the groundwater OR the lake, that we know of definitively. The engineers recommended water quality testing in all four sewer “sub-districts” but test wells were drilled in only two. Of those two, only one was tested regularly and it consisten...
Walt Hill’s comments on our Seeley Lake sewer mess would be laughable except for the fact he is a respected community leader. His ignorance of the facts of the case are scary and dangerous. Here are some facts: • Sewer District residents have a right to KNOW all the truths about the sewer project...the reasons, the costs, the impact. The Sewer District Board has NEVER completely provided those facts to residents. • Sewer District residents have a right to PARTICIPATE in the discussion of this very important discussion. Past Boards have pooh,...
SEELEY LAKE - As you may know, I am OPPOSED to the General Obligation Bond for the Seeley Lake Sewer project that we will be voting on in February. Phase I voters will be voting on a Revenue Bond and the General Obligation Bond and both have to pass to get funded. If the Bond were to pass there will be funding available for the sewer and collection system for Phase I. Phase I people will find the following components charged to them every year: the debt for the General Obligation Bond, the debt for the Revenue Bond, Operation and Maintenance...
As reported in the Jan. 21 issue of the Pathfinder, Walt Hill provided “information” to the hospital district directors that involved an assortment of truths, half-truths, distortions and outright false information. It was painful for me as a fellow sewer district director to read what he put forth to supposedly educate another board’s leaders how to cast their district’s vote on the up-coming bond election. I hope that each of the district’s qualified electors will be able to vote in the best way for him- or herself based on an understan...
SEELEY LAKE - The Seeley Lake Sewer District Board had its monthly meeting on Jan. 21 when the Board discussed litigation strategy, a change in who qualifies for voting agents in the upcoming bond election and comments made by a Director at another public board meeting. The Board closed the meeting to discuss litigation strategy with their attorney regarding a lawsuit filed in December seeking to force the District to install the proposed sewer and mandate properties to connect among other things. After coming out of the closed session,...
Seeley Lake Sewer Board members have been hearing discussion in the community about the capacity of the wastewater treatment system designed to serve the Seeley Lake Sewer District. There seems to be a lack of information about the capacity. Great West Engineering wrote a Technical Memorandum as a design report to submit to the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). The preferred alternative chosen by the District Board was a sequential batch reactor (SBR) with groundwater infiltration galleries. In the Design Flow section of Technical Memo...
SEELEY LAKE - Seeley Lake Elementary (SLE) School Board members unanimously voted to extend their ice rink agreement with Seeley Lake Regional Outdoor Center for Kinetic Sports (ROCKS) for another three years during their monthly meeting Tuesday, Jan. 19. They also approved hiring for various positions and continued updating their 2000’s policy series. ROCKS Board members Garry Swain and Scott Eggeman spoke to the school board. SLE had a three year agreement with ROCKS that expired this year. The agreement allowed ROCKS to host the ice rink a...
SEELEY LAKE – At their Jan. 12 meeting, the Seeley-Swan Hospital District Board voted unanimously to designate Chair Twyla Johnson as the special district agent to vote in favor of the sewer bond that is being voted on Feb. 23. They also learned more about the possibility of the Seeley-Swan Medical Center being included in the residency program through Partnership Health Center. Board member Walt Hill provided background information on the letter the Hospital District received from the Sewer District. Hill also serves as a director on the Sewer...
To quote board publications, “The Seeley Lake Missoula Country Sewer District Board of Directors adopted Resolution #11192020, calling for a bond election on Feb. 23, 2021, by mail ballot asking the qualified electors in the District to approve a General Obligation Bond to finance a portion of the costs of the treatment plant and associated infrastructure and a Revenue Bond to finance a portion of the cost of the Phase 1 collection system. These bonds will replace the Assessment Bond methodology authorized through the Notice and Protest p...
