Flathead Irrigation District Meeting
September 23, 2020
Lake County Extension Office. 1:00 PM.
300 3rd Ave. NW., Ronan, Mt.
Tape Recording Folder 1. 16:16 2020
Attending Commissioners: Paul Guenzler, Bruce White, Dave Vincent and Janette Rosman.
Absent: Excused David Lake.
Pledge. Recording: Janette Rosman for FID. Recording Folder 1-16/16
BIA was not able to attend meeting.
August minutes: Bruce White made a motion to approve the minutes with one spelling correction. Dave Vincent, second. Approved.
September Warrants: Whaley & Associates PC, $600.00 monthly fee, Click Here Designs, LLC, $55.00 monthly feel for web site. Dave Vincent made motion to accept the warrants, Bruce White second. Passed.
By-law Changes: Janette Rosman made motion to change Article VII Section 1. The District shall meet in a regular monthly meeting on the FOURTH Wednesday, 1:00 PM of each month. Article 7. Section 2. The funds and bookkeeping of the Flathead Irrigation District shall be maintained in accordance to MCA 85-7-2136 (1-5) The County shall collect assessments of the District and be treasurer of those funds. Dave Vincent second. Passed. Both items had three readings before the vote was presented.
Letter to President Trump: In support of Daines 3019 Senate Bill regarding CSKT Compact. Dave Vincent said presently we don’t know what we would be supporting until we know the amendments that have been added and suggested we table letter. No further discussion or action was taken. Cassie Dellwo stated Amendment has not officially been presented to Congress.
Cassie Dellwo: Cassie stated she was only going to discuss the Petition to reopen Manley Ruling on MVIW lawsuit, January 2018 in order to dissolve FJBC checking account and percentages Flathead, Mission and Jocko District hold ownership to St. Ignatius District office. (Funds withdrawn from FID Admin account to pay $101,000.00 FJBC bills that Mission and Jocko District were excluded in paying their percentages will be a discussion for another time). Cassie petitioned for Manley ruling a year ago when FID approved her to send petition to Mission and Jocko, requesting Manley to distribute balance in FJBC checking accounting and place building in all three districts name. Ray Swenson’s communication with Cassie thinks all the funds in the checking account should go to Flathead District and the District office should be divided up equally between the Districts and he feels strongly about the equal ownership and has supporting evidence. Cassie said we don’t know how building was paid for, was it gifted to everybody? How much did each District pay? Janette stated, Dick brought this to her attention, the only supporting evidence would be FJBC forming documents that states the percentages each District pay according to the number of irrigated acres. FID percentage is 79.9%, Mission 13.80% and Jocko 6.30%. Cassie would like permission from the board to continue the petition for Manley to open the case and place building and checking account in ownership of all three Districts. Dave Vincent made motion to have Cassie move forward on Manley lawsuit and placing District office in all three District names with FJBC percentages. Janette Second. Motion passed with the following votes: Janette, Dave V., Paul voting yes, Bruce voting no. Bruce stated the Mission and Jocko were concerned about FID selling the building. Janette responded there has been no discussion of selling the bldg.
DOJ Victim Abuse Statement from FID: Janette shared that she was filling out Victim Impact and Financial Loss Statement that DOJ needed from FID. (The following information was discussed but not the details. I felt it was important for irrigators to have this information. The financial loss statement included $42,909.50 paid to Anderson Zurmuehlen, $917.00 AZ paid the county for copies of warrants and $1,000.00 deductible for MacO insurance. Total came to $44,909.50. FID share of that total was $35,817.00. It is not likely we will be able to collect the $1,000 deductible because I did not have a receipt for it. Preston Tescher called me back and had questions on the $917.00 that AZ was charged for copies and wanted to know if Mission and Jocko participated in that payment and I said yes).
Janette has written a Victim Abuse statement and it is her opinion and not the opinion of the FID Board. Each commissioner had an opportunity to write a letter and email it directly to Preston Tescher. Johanna Clarks Court date is November 24th at DOJ in Missoula.
Black Mountain Software. I have included more details in writing up the minutes regarding the process of Whaley Accounting cancelling Black Mountain Software. August 27, 2020, Nichol Scribner, Sanders County sent an email out to Whaley Accounting, Black Mountain software, R. Rupel, Lake County, and the three Irrigation Districts regarding Sanders County Irrigation. The email stated that Sanders County was able to resolve the upload issues with Whaley Accounting assistance. The email Whaley Accounting received on August 26 from Nicol Scribner stated, “The files you sent are not correct.” Here are the instructions for file format we need. The files will make it impossible to bill correctly for Jocko, Flathead Irrigation districts. Whaley’s responded we have decided to not use Black Mountain Software and Whaley Accounting created a workable format that worked for Sanders County. Black Mountain contacted Whaley Accounting and asked if they were going to continue to use their software and Jim Whaley said no. I was aware of this decision and I told Judy Day FID would approve their decision to not use Black Mountain software knowing there were agencies that we receive data from, Election Office, BIA, Sanders County, Missoula and Lake County, all of them make up their own spreadsheets and do not use the Software. Whaley Accounting stated in an email, “It was picking up the bale twice.” This year they were able to send the irrigation billing to all the treasurers (Lake, Missoula and Sanders) on time. This was a big decision so I Janette Rosman make the motion to approve of Whaley Accounting discontinuing the use of Black Mountain software. Dave Vincent second. Passed.
Richard Erb addressed the board members via emails with concerns he had regarding the Board not reviewing Whaley Accountings FID financials. The emails were submitted to Whaley Accounting and WC responded in an email stating, “We went over his concerns and found an overwritten formula on our spreadsheet.” Richard stated at the meeting he has concerns about Whaley Accounting and Board not reviewing Whaley budget and
financial reports.
FlatheadIrrigationDistrict.org: Janette will be visiting with Michael Hewston, Click Here Design, to review the website and possibly make some changes. The changes we have discussed will be routine maintenance and no additional charges will be incurred.
Public Comment: Irrigators attending the meeting had some concerns about the operations of the FIIP. One of them stated it is important that we have the complaints and concerns of record. Janette has agreed to keep a file regarding FIIP complaints when irrigator writes the complaint up, date and sign it then gives it to their commissioner. An Email is acceptable when sent to their commissioner & Janette. Document will be filed for future reference. Bruce asked if BIA got any quota’s out. Paul said on August 17, the .6 quota was raised to .7. Letter from Larry dated Sept. 8 also stated water was being turned off, on 14th. There were irrigators who were unaware water had been turned off. Ted, Camas will have no ditch rider next spring & wants help from FID. He also has concerns about original FJBC documents at Bruce Fredrickson’s office in Kalispell. We need to bring them back to District office. There were other comments that I was unable to hear on the recorder.
Adjourn: Janette made motion to adjourn. Dave V., second. Janette Rosman, Secretary