Looking back: Mineral County year in review

It seems like 2007 just started, but another year has come and gone. As we ring in 2008, it is not only a time for celebration as we await the good fortunes that the new year will bring, but it is also a time of reflection as we look back to the events that shaped the year. This week, the Mineral Independent takes a look back at the stories that impacted the county.

Julie Downing sentenced for stealing from school

On June 13, a tearful Julie Downing was led out of the Mineral County Courthouse to begin her five-year prison term for stealing over a half million dollars from the St. Regis School District over a seven-year period.

Blaming her actions on poor judgment and self-centered thinking, Downing had to be consoled by her attorney as she read her apology. "I am fully responsible and wholly regretful and will do everything in my power to pay back every penny I took from you," she said.

Besides the five-year prison term, Downing was sentenced to repay the school district $592,743, which included the amount she embezzled, $75,000 in auditor's fees and $2,500 in attorney fees.

Downing, who had worked for the school district since 1992, first came under suspicion in August 2006, when St. Regis Superintendent Becky Aaring discovered some unexplainable financial improprieties. The district then hired an accounting firm from Kalispell to audit Downing's financial records from July 1999 to June 2006. The audit discovered that Downing had embezzled over $500,000 from the district during that time, with $493,571 being used to pay for her personal credit cards.

"This case is about much more than money, it's about betrayal of trust," said Mineral County Attorney M. Shaun Donovan.

Planning board members quit over subdivision ruling

On April 25, Mineral County Planning Board members Joe Hanson and Pam Reed quit the board immediately after the county commissioners unanimously approved the Mountain River Estates, a 70-lot on 280 acres subdivision at Sawmill Gulch.

In late February, the planning board voted 6-3 that the commissioners deny the subdivision, citing the negative impact it would have on wildlife and the density of the subdivision as their reasons for denial. It was the first time that the planning board had cited a negative impact on wildlife as a reason for denial.

"The decision made by the county commissioners on the Mountain River Estates is an embarrassment to anybody in government," Reed wrote in an e-mail statement after the meeting. "Clearly, they didn't have the backbone to do anything outside the norm. I can see now why the developers wanted to just get pass the planning board and take their chance with the commissioners."

The April 25 meeting, was the third time the commissioners had met with the developers of Kennedy Commercial. In the two prior meetings, both of which lasted over four hours, most of the discussion focused on the subdivision's impact on wildlife and saw representatives from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks become the most actively involved in a subdivision hearing than they ever had been in the county.

In a commissioners meeting on March 29, Mack Long, the FWP regional supervisor, wanted the subdivision to be reconfigured and the density lowered to make a corridor for the elk that use the area for winter range. Long said it was unusual for the FWP to go to a planning meeting, but maybe the FWP had sat on the sidelines for too long. "Maybe we stood too quiet for too long and haven't said much," Long said.

At the April 25 meeting, the commissioners said that the FWP's comments came too late in the process. Commissioner Judy Stang said the FWP had never came to the meetings before and hasn't gave the county a plan for the elk. "We don't have a plan . Why have someone follow a plan that you don't have," she said.

St. Regis Teachers and Board can't agree on base pay

An outside mediator couldn't bring the St. Regis teachers and the St. Regis Board of Trustees any closer on an agreement on the teacher's base pay.

Vicki Knudsen, a labor mediator for the Montana Department of Labor and Industry, met with the board for over three hours and with the teachers for over two hours Dec. 12, but no resolution was reached.

The decision to bring Knudsen into the negotiations was made in late October, after nearly six months of unsuccessful negotiations between the teachers and the board. The teachers have asked for a seven percent raise to their base pay. Terri Barclay, the president of the St. Regis Education Association, said the teachers deserve the increase because their workloads have increased, their previous raises haven't kept up with inflation, and with their current pay scale St. Regis is unable to attract new teachers and keep the ones they have.

The St. Regis Board of Trustees have continued to counter the teacher's request with an offer of zero percent. They have reiterated that they would like to give the teacher's a raise in their base pay, but they don't feel that there is any money in the budget to do so.

The impasse in the negotiations in St. Regis is a microcosm of the problems schools across Montana are facing due to the lack of state funding, according to Lance Melton, the executive director for the Montana School Board Association. Melton said that school districts across Montana are struggling to make ends meets and are anticipated to need voted levies of between $14.5 million and $19.6 million just to maintain their current programs.

According to Melton, all three of the Mineral County school districts are anticipated to fall short of the funding necessary to preserve their current programs and services the next fiscal year, beginning July 1, 2008.

Melton said that the current system to fund schools is completely flawed and is useless for schools, which are seeing a drop in the enrollment. "The formula is not built to address school districts who are seeing a reduction of numbers," he said. Melton said the taxpayers have been asked to make up for the lack of state funding for too long. "Year after year we've been asking the taxpayers to shoulder more of the burden and they've came through for us. At some point there's going to be a break," he said.

Department of Revenue office moves to St. Regis

After an announcement, then a retraction, then another announcement the county's Department of Revenue finally moved from the basement of the Mineral County Courthouse in Superior to St. Regis.

On Aug. 17, Department of Revenue Director Dan Bucks and Department of Administration Director Janet Kelly announced the office would be moving to the building in St. Regis owned by County Commissioner Judy Stang.

The DOR had announced that they were moving to the building at the start of June, but put move on hold and started an open public bid process for the office space after the department received several inquiries from the public and media questioning the move.

After the public bid process, which gave preference points to offices in Superior and only two buildings were entered, Stang's building came up the winner. Bucks said the public bid process was extremely rare for the department and a way to assure the taxpayers that they had went the extra mile to make sure everything was done correctly.

After the public-bid process, Stang said she thought the complaints about her owning the office were politically driven, by people in Helena, who don't want her to become a senator. She the public bid process had cleared her name of any wrong doing.

Fires or lack thereof

With extremely dry conditions, record-breaking heat and wildfire burning over 140,000 acres in the Lolo National Forest this summer, Mineral County escaped the brunt of the fire season this year.

The county did have some wildfires, but nothing like the 47,500-acre Chippy Creek Fire and the over 11,000-acre Black Cat Fire that surrounded the county.

A lightning fire passing through the county Friday, July 13, ignited 15 fires across the Superior Ranger District. About 200 firefighters and support personnel, three helicopters, eight engines and water tenders responded to the fire and had them all contained by July 16. The largest of the fires was the Fisher Fire, which burned about 60 acres.

Another fire believed to be ignited by lightning burned nearly 25 acres on Verde Creek in July. The fire, located approximately two miles southwest of the Lozeau Quartz exit off Interstate 90, burned only a half mile away from three residential homes. All though all of the residents had been advised that an evacuation might be necessary, no evacuation orders were ever given.

No evacuation orders were given at the Forest Grove Fire, which started Sept. 2. The 140-acre fire burned near five residences, but the two helicopters making water drops Sept. 2 and the four firefighting crews that were at the fire by Sept. 3 quickly lined the fire near the houses.

The structure fires of the summer were mostly contained out on Diamond Road. A fire ignited July 24 at the Tricon Timber Post and Pole completely destroyed a 12,000-square foot maintenance building and a fire Aug. 27 at the Eureka Pellet Mill destroyed a building, used to house hydraulics. Nobody was injured in any of the fires.