Central Montana Resources Conservation & Development

Board of Directors meeting

Wednesday, October 18, 2006, 10 a.m.

SMDC Conference Room

In Attendance: Edgar Lewis, chairman; Diane Ahlgren, Ron Ahlgren, Dick Ellestad, Richard Moe, Ken Ronish, Ed Arnott, Doug Hitch, Larry Lekse, Ken Minnie; Monty Sealey, Central Montana RC&D Coordinator; Carrie Mantooth, Central Montana RC&D Assistant Coordinator; Loren Randall, CPA; and Jim Dullenty, Lewistown News-Argus.  

Call to Order: Chairman Edgar Lewis called the meeting to order and everyone introduced themselves.  

Minutes and Treasurer’s Report: Treasurer Diane Ahlgren reported a balance in the checking account of $360.54 and a balance of $7,111.61 in savings, not including a small amount of interest for the last few months. At the last meeting, the board asked that $4,000 be taken out of one CD for cash flow. One six-month CD has a balance of $11,496.12, is earning 3.75 percent and a roll-over date of Feb. 3, 2007. The other six-month CD has a balance of $30,414.19, is at 2.75 percent and has a roll-over date of Dec. 2, 2006. Monty submitted a bill for Carrie Mantooth’s time and expenses totaling $1,766.75, which will be fully reimbursed by DNRC and have already been deducted from the checking balance. Ken Ronish made a motion, seconded by Richard Moe and unanimously approved to accept the treasurer’s report. Diane also presented an entity authorization form from Basin State Bank for signatures, which will authorize making changes on the CDs without garnering signatures from all the signers. Ken Minnie made a motion, seconded by Ken Ronish and unanimously approved to complete the entity authorization form. Carrie will also get the minutes regarding this action to Basin State Bank.

Monty said checks have also been written to Northwestern Energy for $79.92; Securities Building in Billings for $1,102.50 – both for office expenses for Rick Downs with RTM Homes. Central Montana RC&D had authorized $6,000 for RTM and Monty said there is about $250 left. Ken Ronish made a motion, seconded by Ron Ahlgren and unanimously approved to pay these bills. Monty presented an additional request to pay Greg Larson, executive secretary of Montana RC&D Association, $835 for his time and website fees. Central Montana RC&D is acting as a pass-through for the state association, and will be reimbursed. Ken Minnie made a motion, seconded by Ed Arnott and unanimously approved to pay this.  

Audit: Loren Randall, CPA, was present to give the audit report as of June 30, 2006 and 2005. He distributed copies of the report and noted that assets in 2006 were $54,404 and $35,806 in 2005. He said 2006 was higher because the Central Montana RC&D received two years’ worth of reimbursements from NRCS. He said the audit he does for this organization is purely a financial audit, as it isn’t big enough to do a compliance audit (we would have to be at $500,000.) Central Montana RC&D received clean opinions on the financial statements. Loren said he would like to meet with the treasurer, Diane, to get the accounting records from now on. Monty once again noted that he avoids running grants through Central Montana RC&D so as not to complicate the audits. Ken Ronish made a motion, seconded by Ken Minnie and unanimously approved to accept the audit.

 Announcements:

 Consulting Agreement for Carrie: Monty said a new contract should be signed for Carrie and he also asked for a rate increase to $20/hour. Monty added that she deserved a raise and hadn’t had one in several years. Dick made a motion, seconded by Larry and unanimously approved to renew her contract at the higher rate.  

Memorandum of Understanding: The MOU between SMDC and Central Montana RC&D had been mailed out in the board members’ packets. Carrie explained that the MOU was sent to remind board members which types of projects SMDC works on versus RC&D, as the CEDS is updated and Central Montana RC&D area plan is written. Edgar asked that the following changes be made: On Page 1, last sentence, change “Directors” to “Board of Directors,” and to get current signatures to sign the MOU. Larry made a motion, seconded by Ken Minnie and unanimously approved to accept the new MOU with these changes.

 Area Plan/CEDS: Carrie is working on both these. Monty said comments from public meetings in area communities that SMDC and RC&D have been involved in will be reflected in the documents, as well as other planning processes such as the housing plans and resource assessments, etc. Monty and Carrie again asked for public comment and urged board members to take the request to their respective communities and submit needs, strengths and visions for inclusion in the plan. Monty reminded them that these documents become plans of work for SMDC and RC&D, so if they have projects they’d like to see staff commit to, they need to submit those requests. Carrie said she’ll have a draft of the area plan at the December meeting.  

Groundwater/Surface Water Legislation: Monty distributed two press releases from Ground Water Montana . The first was about the abundance of groundwater in Montana , and the fact that only 2 percent of total water usage is groundwater. In comparison, other states use more groundwater compared to surface water. Wyoming uses 14 percent groundwater; Oregon uses 17 percent; and Idaho , 27 percent of surface usage. The article continues by talking about the movement in Montana that would severely restrict groundwater use; and discusses how important that groundwater development will be for Montana ’s economy. The second article talks about the abundance of unused groundwater in Montana and said a large portion of Montana ’s groundwater resources are found in confined or semi-confined aquifers that are not directly connected to surface water. Discussion followed of upcoming legislation in Montana that could effectively restrict or shut down any new wells. The board of directors agreed that Central Montana RC&D needs to stay abreast of these issues, as it affects agriculture and the entire economy. Dick Ellestad noted that at Big Springs, FWP has the water right and only allocates the water used by the City of Lewistown . Monty will keep the group updated on legislation being introduced.

 Project Status Reports:

Ø      Clean Air Renewable Energy Bond (CREB): The county commissioners who were present said they haven’t heard anything more about the CREB application submitted in June on behalf of a number of Montana counties and entities. Larry said the applications were all sent to IRS, but there was a flood in the basement where they were being stored! Discussion followed that there is still much to be done before CREBs could be implemented in December 2007 – for example, legislation for Northwestern Energy to buy the power created by this wind energy; and legislation allowing counties to sell bonds. The group agreed the concept is good, but there is much to be done. Richard Moe said Montana used up the allotment and the smaller scale projects in Montana are an advantage.

Ø      Judith Basin County Hazardous Fuels Reduction: Carrie reported that Judith Basin County Conservation District has hired forester Dan Hull for the project. He retired after nearly 30 years with DNRC and is very experienced. Carrie met with Hull , Bitter Root RC&D forester Byron Bonney and Judith Basin County Conservation District’s Theresa Wilhelm last month in Stanford and the project is finally moving along. They are working with a landowner on a small acreage, but plan on doing more there and have several other applications. The deadline for the grant has been extended to June 2008.

Ø      Homebuyer Education: Carrie has a class next week (Oct. 23-24) and said her September class was good-sized – about 11 people. There has been very little demand for one-on-one counseling. She also reported that she is using NHS/MHN’s NStep program. Every class participant completes a 2-page survey about their race, income, education, etc. Carrie completes the data entry and NHS reimburses Central Montana RC&D for that. The information is used in grant requests by NHS/MHN for homebuyer education funds.

Ø      Roundup Housing: Monty said the Roundup housing plan is about half-way completed. His office help was working on this, but has quit. Ken Minnie said the self-help housing project that HRDC was looking at in Roundup is not proceeding at this time. There was little interest in Roundup and they couldn’t find land with services for the building project. Ken said they hope to get the housing plan done first and revisit the issue. HRDC is also looking at doing a mutual self-help housing project in Harlowton. Loren Randall said he is familiar with a project building 50 homes in Kalispell and said there are some issues that he could discuss with Ken after the meeting in order to avoid some problems.

Ø      RTM Homes: Monty again noted that there is a little over $250 left of the $6,000 Central Montana RC&D committed to Rick Down’s expenses as he worked to put the project together in Montana. In return, Central Montana RC&D received 1200 shares in the RTM corporation. Monty said RTM is negotiating in putting 12 homes on a reservation, which would help kick-start the project. RTM is still working to raise the $300,000 in stock sales and is currently at about $200,000. If they reach $300,000 and the project doesn’t proceed within the first year, Rick (who is a 51 percent stockholder) won’t receive anything back, but stockholders would. Monty said they held a public meeting last week in Roundup and Monty (who is licensed to sell stock for RTM) received about six checks after that meeting from RTM investors. The goal is to be in production in Malta next spring. The facility will be at a former car dealership, which was donated, and the owner received half its value in shares. There was a $100,000 land donation (also taking shares) in Roundup, but the landowner will get his land back if the project fails in the first phase. Monty also said RTM is putting a board of directors in place and Central Montana RC&D is invited to have a board member. Monty also brought a request to the board for a loan to RTM. Carrie asked Loren if the RC&D could even do that, and Loren said as long as it isn’t federal funds, the board could lend it. Monty said the DNRC and homebuyer education funds aren’t federal, but Monty said he would advise against making the loan. Ken Minnie and Edgar agreed. Discussion followed about having a board member represent RC&D. Ken Minnie made a motion to appoint Ken Ronish, with a proxy provision, seconded by Richard Moe and unanimously approved.

Ø      Musselshell County TIFID : Larry said the TIFID is moving forward and they are in the process of establishing the district. He said the process has been held up by the railroad spur changes, and noted that the district must be continuous. The committee is meeting with Bull Mountain Coal Mine representatives on Friday, and Larry said the mine will be part of the TIFID. They are working to get the zoning done by the first of the year in order to use 2005 tax base. Larry said the project will very likely proceed. He said Fallon County formed a large TIFID, but wanted 100 percent of the revenue and the Department of Revenue challenged them. Discussion followed that if a TIFID gets “greedy,” the Department of Revenue is likely to challenge them because they are losing funding.

Ø      Bull Mountain Coal Mine: Monty talked about an Oct. 17 article in the Billings Gazette concerning the long road ahead until a proposed coal-to-liquids refinery is a reality. The article said it will be a long and expensive road to get the plant on the ground and will take five to seven years.Gov. Brian Schweitzer made the announcement about the proposed plant several weeks ago. The article points out that the project is just a preliminary agreement to perform a feasibility study on whether a coal-to-liquids refinery might work. Financing the project would be the real test of the project. Monty also referred to another article about the 16 proposed power plant project in Texas (11 by one company) and the 154 proposed coal-fired plants in 42 states – all motivated by the price of oil. Doug Hitch asked if the power plant at Roundup was still in the works, and Monty said, yes. He said California and Texas have said they won’t buy power unless it’s very clean. Montana has adopted stricter mercury emissions standards. Monty said the proposed power plant in Roundup has an advantage in that it has a permitted mine.

Ø      Central Montana Regional Water Authority (CMRWA): Monty said the only objection received by DNRC on the water right is from Fish, Wildlife and Parks. The comment period ended Sept. 15. Monty said the engineering firm working for CMRWA, Great West, will negotiate with FWP in an attempt to settle their objection. FWP wants chemical tests of the Big Springs and the Utica well water in order to see if it’s the same water and they want a full environmental assessment on the entire project area, including the pipeline route. The EA has to be done anyway, but the exact route hasn’t been determined. Monty said the quadrants of Big Springs are 200 feet higher than the static level of the well, so all hydrogeologists would agree that water can’t run up hill! Grant requests for a second production well have been submitted to DNRC and Bureau of Reclamation. Monty said having the second well would contribute much needed data, and CMRWA hopes to drill the well sometime next year if they can get funding.

Ø      Grass Range Irrigation Ditch: Monty said he’s looked at the site twice, but has some questions about what the project would be. He said HB-223 funds may be a good source and suggested Grass Range Mayor Ron Ahlgren contact the Fergus Conservation District about sponsoring an application.

Ø      Lewistown Boys and Girls Club: Carrie said she has not met with the club’s director.

Ø      Other Project Requests: There were none.

Ø      Other Business:

-              Monty brought a request to the board from Snowy Mountain Development Corporation to split the cost of conference room and office chairs. Homebuyer education courses are held in the SMDC conference room. The total cost for 20 conference room and 10 office chairs for visitors is approximately $2,500. Monty said homebuyer education funds are available. Ken made a motion to share this expense 50/50 with SMDC, and transfer money from savings, seconded by Larry and unanimously approved.

-              Dick revisited membership with the Northwest Biofuels Association and suggested Central Montana RC&D should join. Dick made a motion to pay the $150 dues, and transfer this money from savings, seconded by Ken Minnie and unanimously approved. Ken also noted that producing corn for bio-oils and feed is becoming an issue.

 

Next Meeting & Adjournment: The next meeting’s date was changed from Dec. 20 to Thursday, Dec. 14 at 10 a.m. in the SMDC Conference Room. If no further business, Larry made a motion, seconded by Ken R. and unanimously approved to adjourn.

 Minutes prepared and respectfully submitted by:

Carrie Mantooth, Central Montana RC&D Assistant Coordinator

 

           

 

 

 

 

 

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