Hill County considering new design for website

Hill County officials met Wednesday morning to provide updates on their department’s activities, discuss bills making their way through the legislature and talk about upcoming issues to be discussed in the coming weeks and months.

Hill County Commissioner Jake Strissel brought up the commission’s ongoing efforts to improve their website, which prompted questions from a number of officials who wondered whether it was worth the expense.

Strissel said they’ve been working with the Michigan-based company Revize, which which specializes in municipal website design, saying the new website would be more accessible, user-friendly and easier to update.

Hill County Attorney Lacey Lincoln asked what the county is paying now for its website compared to the $1,800 a year they would pay with the new website, wondering if it would be a cost benefit to the county.

Commissioner Sheri Williams said she doesn’t have the numbers on her at the moment but said they vary because the county now needs to pay a fee for any changes they make.

Some department heads said they’ve been able to make changes without a fee, but others said they’d seen fees as high as $70 per change.

Strissel said the discussion on the website is an ongoing one and they’d be happy to get people’s input on it.

He also talked about the Rudyard Senior Center, which finally saw its Preliminary Architectural Report completed, which is meant to give them an idea of whether the building is salvageable or should be replaced.

Strissel said they’ve seen estimates that it would cost between $300,000 and $900,000 to rehabilitate, but details would be discussed at a meeting at the Rudyard Community Commercial Club tonight at 7 p.m.

He said he also recently had a Zoom call with a representative from the Montana Opioid Abatement Council to discuss the first step on how to handle opioid abatement in communities like Havre.

Hill County Commissioner Mark Peterson talked about various upcoming projects, particularly highway projects.

He said the county and state are working on a Federal Land Access Program grant that could pay for a substantial amount of work on U.S. Highway 232, which is being redone, but very slowly.

He said if this grant can be obtained they can speed the process up, potentially by decades.

Peterson also talked about the project to rehabilitate Fresno Dam, a project that will impact recreational use of the are around the dam and limit the road across the dam to one lane for the duration of the project.

Peterson said the commission also recently had a meeting with the Montana Association of Counties to review health insurance options and discuss costs and contributions.

He said the county pays $1,411 per month per employee and if the county covers recent increases in costs that will be an extra $177,744 from them.

“When I say that, it’s really the taxpayers,” he said.

Peterson said they want to eliminate one of the plans offered by the county so that they can improve coverage for employees with spouses, children and families.

Hill County Public Health Director Kim Berg said if they eliminate the plan she’s thinking of, it would save the county money, which they could then use to raise their contribution to the plans that remain.

Peterson said the cost savings of eliminating that plan would be for the employee, not the county, but Berg and Hill County Commissioner Sheri Williams said he was incorrect.

Williams and Peterson encouraged employees to come to the meeting to have their questions on the matter answered and their voices heard.

Peterson said there are going to be more discussions on the matter over the coming month.

Other departments also gave updates on their recent activities, including the Hill County Health Department, which is working on restaurant inspections and also with a local citizen as well as restaurants work together to make compost for the local landfills.

Hill County Public Health Director Kim Berg said she is also tracking a few bills in the Legislature, including ones that will loosen vaccine requirements for schools and day cares.

Berg said these bill will increase risks to an already-vulnerable population and cost tax payers money.

She said her department is required by law to perform outbreak investigations and contract tracing, which can only be paid for with county taxpayer money.

She said neighboring states have seen outbreaks that cost millions to address and loosening vaccine requirements will only guarantee that more outbreaks occur.

Berg said there were also some bills curtailing local oversight of subdivisions, allowing inspections to be performed by people without proper credentials, which is a potential nightmare for environmental health.

As for issues closer to home, she said, the health department is understaffed and there will be times when everyone in the department is doing something outside of the office and no one will be at the department.

She said they will be able to make appointments for people, but people doing walk-ins might find no one there.

She also said their emergency alert buttons are malfunctioning and will need to be replaced.

Other departments also brought up their concerts with the Legislature, including Lincoln, who said one bill she’s objecting to would require her to file a notice within five days if jail time is being sought to address a misdemeanor.

Unfortunately, she said, the wording of the bill would effectively make it so that she would have to file extra documents for every single misdemeanor, which will massively increase her already-high workload.

Hill County Justice of the Peace Audrey Barger said she’s also objecting to a bill that would require the court to do more work to require defendants to show up in person as opposed to by video.

Barger said it isn’t a huge deal for Hill County, but there are a lot of counties that don’t have the infrastructure to make video appearances a regular occurrence.

Other departments at the meeting provided updates, including the Hill County Council on Aging, with Director Bill Lanier saying he’s working with the Montana Department of Transportation to make the crossing by the North Central Senior Center a bit safer.

Montana State University Hill County Extension was not able to be at the meeting but left a report with Strissel detailing upcoming events.

Strissel said Extension will have a printing workshop Friday at 10 a.m. in the 4-H Chuck Wagon on the Great Northern Fairgrounds with Bullhook Blossoms providing refreshments.

April 11, he said, they will have a Water Quality Workshop with presentations focusing on cover crops and forage testing, and ServSafe classes March 20 and 23.

Hill County Human Resources Director Brittany Pfeifer said she is working with Montana State Fund to improve the county’s safety training.

Hill County Treasurer Sandy Brown said her office has been more or less business as usual, but did make a request that employees try to stop parking in front of the courthouse, since those one-hour parking spots are meant for use by the public.

At the end of the meeting Peterson pointed out a notice at the bottom of this month’s agenda saying that it is very important that all county officials attend these meetings and thanked everyone present for one of the biggest turnouts he’d seen in a long time.