REGULAR MEETING OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
Tuesday June 14, 2022
ALL PRESENT: Commissioner Jones, Chair Commissioner Ostlund and Commissioner Pitman; Board Clerk Teri Reitz; Clerk and Recorder Jeff Martin.
PLEDGE.
9:30 a.m. BID OPENING – Open and Acknowledge MetraPark Request for Proposals for Ticketing Services. Proposals were received from TicketMaster, AXS and Tickets.com. Commissioner Ostlund made a MOTION to refer the proposals to staff for recommendation, Commissioner
PUBLIC COMMENTS ON REGULAR CONSENT AND FILED AGENDA ITEMS – Comments are limited to three (3) minutes or as set by the Board Chairman. Hearing no comments Commissioner Ostlund continued the Board Meeting.
METRAPARK – A.) Calendar/Events. Mr. Cody Reitz, Interim Assistant General Manager went through three months of Calendar/Events. B.) Ticket Sales. Mr. Cody Reitz, Interim Assistant General Manager stated that WWE has sold 2,200 tickets. Maroon 5 Tickets have sold 6,000 tickets and fair night show tickets are selling well.
CLAIMS – Batches 22-186, 22-187, 22-188, 22-189 & 22-190. Commissioner Pitman made a MOTION to approve the Claims, Commissioner Ostlund seconded. Passed Unanimous.
CONSENT AGENDA - FINANCE – A.) MetraPark ARPA Contract with Terracon Consultants for Construction Materials, Testing and Inspections for the Premium Parking Lot Reconstruction. B.) Yellowstone County Detention Facility Request for Proposals for Inmate Communications Services. C.) Bond for Lost Warrant for Lost/Stale Dated Check. D.) MetraPark Memorandum of Understanding Hi-Hog Farm & Ranch Equipment Ltd. E.) Facilities Contract Change Order #1 with Big Phish Construction for Painting Services for the Yellowstone County Sheriff’s Office. F.) MetraPark ARPA Contract Addendum #2 & Addendum #3 Ace Electric. G.) Request for Records Disposal. H.) Public Works Request to Expend for a New Loader for the Bridge Department. 2. PUBLIC WORKS – A.) Winkler Excavating Change Orders #1 and #2 for Bridge Deck Repair. B.) Contract with Sanderson Stewart for Groundwater Study and Recommendations for Brookwood Subdivision. 3. SHERIFF – A.) Addendum to YCDF/U.S. Marshals Service Intergovernmental Agreement for Housing Federal Inmates. B.) YCDF – Billings Public Schools Adult Education Contract Renewal for Period 7/1/2022-6/30/2023. 4. HUMAN RESOURCES- A.) Unum Insurance Renewal Rates. B.) Weight Watchers Agreement 11/01/22 – 11/01/24. C.) PERSONNEL ACTION REPORT – Detention Facility – 1 Termination.
FILE ITEMS – 1. AUDITOR – Payroll Audit May 16 to May 31, 2022. 2. COMMISSIONERS – A.) Easement NCPD-MT 58(55). B.) FY22 Budget Amendment for SD2. 3. FINANCE – Budget Transfer – JP Computers. 4. HUMAN RESOURCES – May 16 through 31 Payroll Audit. 5. PUBLIC WORKS – Road Material Contracts with Material Suppliers for the Coming Fiscal Year with Aggregate Resources, Inc., Knife River and Riverside Contracting. Commissioner Pitman made a MOTION to approve the Consent Agenda and place the File Items to file, Commissioner Ostlund seconded. Passed Unanimous.
PUBLIC COMMENTS ON COUNTY BUSINESS – Comments are limited to three (3) minutes or as set by the Board Chairman.
Commissioner Jones – Public comments on county business. This is the time for anything that you have that it's not on the agenda and the comments are limited to three minutes, and you need to come up and state your name and your address. Please as you're coming up, go ahead and form a line so that we have everybody ready to go. This is the open forum here.
Dave Kelsey - Morning commissioners. My name is Dave Kelsey. My address is 1902 Molt Rapalje Rd. Molt, MT. I'm here regarding the MetraPark management discussion that's been going on at the county level for several months now, and I'm here to recommend that you follow the county financial officer’s advice, and table the discussion about private management for the duration of that contract that you have with OVG. I think moving forward with anything else would really hamper being able to do that properly and in an open manner. I think the best thing would be to ride that out for three years and then decide whether private or public management is the way to go with that. And I appreciate the effort you've gone into to discuss this thing and so on. But my recommendation would be to follow that. And in closing on a separate note, I want to thank you guys for being here. With this floodwater situation coming up, everybody that lives along the Yellowstone, I've got friends that have just dealt with this flood along the Stillwater and Carbon County and Clarks Fork River, and they have been devastated so all of that's coming this way, so thanks for being here and trying to be prepared for that and everybody on the county level, I appreciate their efforts on that as well. thank you.
Commissioner Ostlund – Thank you.
Commissioner Jones - Thank you.
Harold Blattie - Good morning. I'm Harold Blattie, I live at 5202 Bell Ave on the West End of town here. And I'd like to just simply echo everything that Mr. Kelsey said, I agree with his comments completely. A couple of additional footnotes. I think one of the things that I have not really observed through the course of this conversation over the past several months is assurances to the youth groups. Particularly the 4H program and the Nile program, I think that some assurances to those groups would go a long way. They really have uncertainty about their future and how they would be treated under a management company. User groups or organizations like this are just essential to the wellbeing of the Community. Literally they raise good responsible adults that I think it's just a real critical component of the service that the county provides to the community. The other thing I'd like to comment about is that I know that you looked at a couple of communities that have gone through with this and I haven't seen anything in any meeting on whether you had any conversations with Cascade County. Cascade County tried privatizing their program several years ago and it didn't work out very well for them. They ended up actually breaking the contract early. I would encourage you to contact Cascade County and talk to them and find out what worked and what didn't work. Also find out the reason that they felt it necessary to get out of the contract that they had. With that, thank you, I much appreciate the opportunity to come before you to comment.
Commissioner Jones - Thank you.
Mark Morse - Good morning, Commissioners. Mark Morse 5201 Moon Ridge Trail. I think the last time I talked to you was on May 24th on the MetraPark issue. I don't think there's been any new information that's come out since then and I still urge you to follow your Chief Financial Officers recommendation. Out of the four of us here, you three and me, as you know, I take my seat on the Commission on January, I'll be the guy that deals with this decision the longest of any of us, and I think it's a huge decision. I think it's important and we need to get it right. You know, as evidenced by your discussion yesterday at 2:00 o'clock, we still have some pretty big issues at MetraPark that happened to deal with the skybox people. We have a lot to review and get our own house in order. Thank you.
Commissioner Jones - Thank you.
Gene Jarussi - Good morning.
Commissioner Jones - Good morning.
Gene Jarussi – Gene Jarussi, 1131 N 32nd St here in Billings, longtime resident of the county. I've dealt with the Commission over the last 40 years, long before any of you were on there, on behalf of the exchange club, on negotiating the beer contract with the club and I point that out only to say that at this point right now, I'm here simply as a voter and taxpayer, and I'm not here in any way on behalf of that club and its interest in Metra with that clarification in mind, I want to just simply point out that we hire, in that the taxpayers hire the Commissioners to do certain things in this county. You're hired to in turn to take care of our county roads. You're hired to take care of county weeds, things like that. Well, one of the other things that you've been hired to do over the last 40 or more years is take care of Metra. That's a private or, excuse me, that's a facility that was built, approved by and paid for and built here in the county by our taxpayers and I think it affects our taxpayers. The taxpayers expect you to manage that just like you manage your County Road, we want you to do the best you can. We understand that nobody's perfect, but we hired you to take care of that just like you're hired to take care of other county issues. So, with that in mind I think I will simply point out that in the recent election that the voters have spoken. And I think they want you guys as a Commission to manage our Metra facility. I think the voters have spoken and said, please do not privatize that management and the idea that companies out of California should come to Billings, MT Yellowstone County and run our county facilities, I think that is not held by a majority of the voters. And I would ask you to respect their opinion. Thank you.
Commissioner Jones – Thank you.
Russell Pierce - Morning.
Commissioner Jones - Good morning.
Russell Pierce - Russell Pierce with Pierce RV's, Pierce Homes, Pierce Leasing, Pierce Flooring in Billings, MT. I’ve been a longtime taxpayer here in Billings, and our company is almost 100 years old and we found out that you guys are looking at giving exclusivity to Bretz RV in Billings, Montana to be the only place that can do shows, RV shows at MetraPark. That's very concerning to us as a business. We help sponsor the Nile, we do a lot of stuff around here and by reading this it looks like we won't be able to do any of that as well as other dealers in our community, and that's very concerning. I know when the naming rights came out, you allowed people to bid on that. I don't see that there's a bid or anything. It's a $200,000 check that you're going to get from another company and not give anybody else an opportunity. I just ask that you guys deny that agreement with Bretz RV and allow us to do shows. We've done shows in Billings for 20 plus years here at your facility. We haven't the last couple of years due to COVID and we are looking at doing them again, but reading this, it doesn't look like that we’ll be able to do another show on your lot for 10 years. That's a lot of revenue lost. We bring in a lot of people from out of state that they get fed here, they take up hotels, all that stuff. If we're denied that, it's going to cost the county, the city and the taxpayers a lot of money. Thank you.
Commissioner Jones/Ostlund - Thank you.
Lesli Glen – Good Morning.
Commissioner Jones – Good Morning.
Lesli Glen – Lesli Glen, Rocky Mountain Compost, 3060 Farley Lane. Glad to see Commissioner Pitman here. I'm a little disappointed you couldn't be at the last one. Whatever it was could have waited for an hour for you to be here because it was important. I'm not going to be nice. If you've met me, you know when I'm mad, I'm not nice and I’m not going to pussyfoot around. I'm going to get mad. I got a phone call the day after the last meeting. Anybody want to guess who the phone call was from? Brad Murphy. How did Brad Murphy know about that meeting? Do they get that down in Casper? Anybody that doesn't know Brad Murphy, he runs a Casper facility, and works for OVG. He said I was wrong, that he hadn't been promised the job. Why did he call me in the first place? If he hadn't been promised the job, why? Why call me? Just let it sit. It doesn't sound right to me. He wanted to comp my trip, to come down to Casper to see what it takes for that facility to run. Well, OK, I understand that you want me to see, but how did he know? And the fact that OVG is calling me is out of place because they don't have the job. If they haven't been promised the job, he shouldn't be calling me. I don't appreciate that, call my business. The other thing too is I still haven't heard who tore the buildings down. Did you figure that out? We know who it was, so whether you admit it or not. The other thing too is you talk about you're going to do a lot of things for the 4H and for the horse people and the AG committee and everything else. Would you like to see what my bill is? I just had a horse show. It's my all-breed show. It's been growing every year. I try to pay as much as I can for the facility that is given to me. That facility, the show I was supposed to have on May 21st, I had to move at the last minute, because there was also Dennis Tryan’s roping that was put on top of me and that wonderful little warm up arena that we have fought for, for 20 some odd years and is normally pretty crappy to ride in got turned into a roping arena. I stood down there and I was sick to my stomach, and I thought, how am I supposed to have a show here? There may be some team ropers in this room. Some of you might be good, but a lot of you not so good. They won't move if you ask them to. I was also told that it's first come, first serve on where we put our stalls. That's uncalled for, first come first serve, I've been over there for 20 years having horse shows. I would have thought that..
Commissioner Jones – Ms. Glen your 3 minutes is up.
Lesli Glen - I don't care.
Commissioner Jones – Thank you very much for your comments but you're 3 minutes is over.
Lesli Glen - So when did you decide 3 minutes? Is this a City Council thing?
Commissioner Jones - We actually put it on the agenda and that's at the Chairs discretion. So, you're 3 minutes is up. Thank you very much.
Unknown Citizen – She can have my 3 minutes.
Commissioner Jones – No she can’t we don’t play that game.
Lesli Glen – Oh, it’s not a game.
Commissioner Jones – Your 3 minutes is up Ms. Glen thank you very much for your comments. Next person.
Lesli Glen – Well if anyone would like to see how much my bill is I’d be happy to show you afterwards. Because this is uncalled for saying we only have 3 minutes. It’s our taxes…
Commissioner Jones – Thank you very much you need to sit down please, next person please.
Lou Moffett - Good morning, commissioners. My name is Lou Moffett, 2214 Green Valley Dr. Billings, MT. I couldn't hear what Commissioner Jones was saying, but I'd like to give my 3 minutes back to this lady.
Commissioner Jones – That 3-minutes is for each person that stands up here. You can't pass that on.
Lou Moffett - OK.
Commissioner Jones - Thank you.
Lou Moffett – I completely agree with what all these people have said so far this morning they are absolutely correct, and I would hope the Commissioners would follow our Chief Financial Officers recommendation. I’d like to also thank all the residents at Yellowstone County. I worked Tuesday, Election Day at the Metra as an official and it’s the first time I've ever done that. And I am so happy for all the people that came and turned out and stuff, it was absolutely fabulous, and I want to thank everybody that came out and voted, that's very outstanding and the reason, if you don’t vote you can’t complain. Thank you very much and thank you Commissioners.
Commissioner Jones – Alright, thank you.
Kent Koolen - Good morning, Commissioners. My name is Kent Koolen. I live on Lyndale Lane here in Billings and I've been a resident of Billings for over 60 years. I would like to emphasize what Mr. Jarussi said about the voters having spoken. I think that was a referendum and the only reason that Mr. Pitman was turned out of office was because of his support of privatization of Metra, and that became the referendum for that election. When Mr. Pitman told the newspaper that he was befuddled, that he was turned out of office, I think he was ignoring the elephant in the room. I think it's very clear that the voters have spoken and to proceed with privatization now with a lame duck sitting in this Commission would be spitting in the eye of the voters and saying you don't care that you're willing to rule by executive fiat and that's not how this country is run. It's not how our government works, and that's why we get to vote and, like Mr. Jarussi said, you're hired to serve the public and the public get to vote, and they get to fire. They've made their wishes known. I think it would be a travesty to spit in their eye and proceed at this point, before the new man takes over. I appreciate your putting that aside, it needs further study and it's not appropriate at this moment. Thank you.
Commissioner Jones - Thank you.
Doug Becker - Hello, I'm Doug Becker. My address is 130 Byam Rd. Laurel, MT. We own Metra RV, we're a small dealer here in Billings, we do a lot for the community. We always have. John, we go way back. You know I was always out there trying to make sure the community was well taken care of. This deal with Bretz RV, I feel is totally under the table. Nobody heard about it. Nobody was given the opportunity to bid on it, or as a group to say, hey, this is what we should do. As far as the revenue that you guys will probably be passing up, yeah, you get a one-shot check, but where does it go from there? I think it's not fair what's happened here, and I don't know if you guys have signed a contract yet or not. But I would suggest you relook at that, and us dealers, there's everybody in the room here from all over the town will be more than happy to sit down with you if you want. Basically, I think you need to rethink it before you just sign the contract or whatever it is. That’s all we got to say, thank you.
Commissioner Jones - Thank you.
Jake Stromba - Good morning.
Commissioner Jones - Good morning.
Jake Stromba - My name is Jake Stromba, 1856 Airport Rd, Kalispell, MT. I am the regional manager for Bish’s RV. We just recently about two weeks ago acquired Big Sky RV and I'm here today as I got some calls from some local dealers to echo their message that they already spoke about, Pierce and Metra of course and I just want to share a little bit about Bish’s and why we buy companies and what we do with them after we buy them and the decisions, we use to make the decision on purchasing those companies. Big Sky RV reached out to us quite a while ago we've been working on a deal with them to acquire. When we come to town, we look at their values and if they line up with our values as a company and then from there can we be successful in that market. One of our decisions when we were buying that is this Metra facility and we can do multiple RV shows off site a year and we did intend on in the near future contacting our competitors and coming together in one place and maybe doing some monster shows, having this brought to my attention last night, that may not be an option. I just like to get out in front of everybody today and say please reconsider if you haven't made a decision already because I think we're all going to be able to keep your facility pretty busy. Thanks.
Commissioner Jones – Thank you.
Greg Bennett - Morning, Greg Bennett from Midway Auto and RV, 424 Hamilton Way, Powell WY. I'm here to represent Midway. Also speak about the deal with Bretz RV going to the Metra. Seems like you guys have a plethora of ticketing that's going on. If there at the Metra you're able to sell a lot of different things, variety of things and I think variety is what we want to keep. That's what the consumers want. I couldn't imagine you only allow country music to play there from now on. I would echo the message with the rest of the RV dealers that we're able to come together, that monster show sounds great. And I think that would be terrific. We're getting ready to open a new location just off the King Ave exit off the Frontage Rd there and are excited to be able to use your facility and do those things and we urge you to decline that check and make it to where everybody is able to go to that show and provide the variety of different camping and experiences that people want, and we look forward to serving the community here with Midway Auto and RV.
Commissioner Jones - Alright, thank you. Any further public comment?
Andrew Piccioni - Commissioners, my name is Andy Piccioni and I live on Peony Drive in the Heights, have been all my life. I object to the contract as well with Bretz RV and MetraPark. I guess my question is, are you doing this for financial gain for MetraPark? You're aware that the contract is for $200,000 and one show that we've been doing for 25 years generates about $20 to $25,000. The simple math is, by having multiple shows that some of these other dealers have stated, we can easily generate more revenue than one exclusive contract. As there are several other new dealers coming to town. You know, are you guys interested in allowing more exclusivity with like the home improvement show if they pony up a bunch of dollars, so no other, you know, no other shows can come in. What about a gun show? If a guys wants to do a gun show, it's just going be 1 gun show in town. We really feel that it's fair to have a variety and again, more revenue for you guys. We've been, doing that show since 1997, almost 25 years at the Metra. We missed one year because of COVID in 2021. We as Pierce RV have not participated in that show and we actually started the association along with Tour America RV, the Billings Recreation Showcase in 1997. We started that with them, and we ended that relationship with them after hosting multiple shows that I personally managed due to the fact that their relationship with other local vendors. The local vendors basically gave us an ultimatum to say we want to go with you guys, we will not do any shows with Bretz anymore, and we chose as a business we chose to support those other local dealers, some are here today we do shows with them, and we walked away from our agreement with Bretz and started our own show in March and they did theirs. We've done ours along with those other dealers, which Bretz does not invite other local dealers to their show. We feel that it's more important for all of the local dealers and that for the most of us we all get along really well and that it is in the best interest for the community and Fair as well. I urge you to not sign that contract. Thank you.
Commissioner Jones - Alright. Thank you. Any further public comment?
Garry Hellyer - Good morning, commissioners.
Commissioner Jones - Good morning.
Garry Hellyer – My name is Gary Hellyer, I90 Motors and RV, 8810 Sundance. This just isn't right. I mean, I know we're big hitter and we scare Bretz and scare, I know Andy’s scared of me. We've been paying taxes, and if I'm not mistaken, that's a public venue. I'm paying for that, and you're going to ice me out of this deal? I mean come on we're small potatoes we are squirrels trying to get nuts. That's it. And this is uncalled for. It's monopolizing. You're allowing that is how I would see it. Maybe I need to give you a $500,000 bid it up or something. I don't know would that help. This isn't right. It isn't about money. It's about your community. It's about everybody going to a show just like that young man did with Bish’s, and let's give him a choice. It's good, fair competition. I don't think anybody in this room's upset about competition. That's what we’ve done our whole live. Make it fair for the community and the people paying your wages. Thank you.
Commissioner Jones – Thank you.
Jessica Bickham - Good morning, Commissioners.
Commissioner Jones - Good morning.
Jessica Bickham - Werre with Radio Billings and we support the RV industry and to just do one show is not fair to everybody. I understand that, you know, the fairness is whatever. But at this point, we don't exclude anybody, and our job is to make, the radio industry, you know, we support all of them and to just take one and exclude everybody else isn’t Ok. Thank you.
Commissioner Jones – Thank you. Any further public comment? Seeing none were adjourned.
Commissioner Ostlund – I have some comments.
Commissioner Jones – Were adjourned. We had public comment, I asked everybody to get in line, so were adjourned. Commissioner Jones adjourned the meeting at 10:02 a.m.
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