Missoula County Government: {UPDATED} Missoula County Weekly: July 26-30

Press release from the Missoula County Government:

07/26/2021 7:00 AM

Tip of the Spear: Conversations with Dave, Josh and Juanita – FY22 Budget 

Missoula County commissioners discuss the Montana Department of Revenue property assessments and how those assessments impact the Missoula County budget process. They explain the commissioners' role in reviewing department budget requests and how they balance the requests to meet the needs of Missoula County. Residents are invited to join the budget meetings and offer impressions on specific budget details. *NOTE: The preliminary budget hearing mentioned in this video has been moved to 2 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 11.***

“Tip of the spear” is the ethos that guides everything we do at Missoula County. It represents our can-do culture, it reminds us to do innovative work and it challenges to get to “yes.” 

Make sure to stay safe with the smoke. Find updates on the current air quality!  

Commissioners to hold preliminary budget hearing 

UPDATED: Missoula County commissioners' preliminary budget hearing has been moved to 2 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 11. A presentation on the budget will be made at this meeting, but no action will be taken. Members of the public and media can participate by attending the meeting in the Sophie Moiese Room in the Missoula County Courthouse or virtually via Microsoft Teams. Information on how to join via Teams will be available soon. To provide comments, email bcc@missoulacounty.us or call (406) 258-4877. As a reminder: the more specific the comment, the more helpful it is for the commissioners when making their decision. 

Find information on past budgets. 

Missoula County invites public to participate in Pathways and Trails Master Plan 

Missoula County’s Parks, Trails and Open Lands is seeking public input to help lead the creation of a Pathways and Trails Master Plan that will focus on improving trail connections between and within communities outside the City of Missoula’s urban area.  

The master plan is the first of its kind to focus on areas outside of the urban area and will be a long-range planning document to guide Missoula County in the development and prioritization of regional and local shared-use pathways and trails. The plan’s overarching goal is to understand the extent of pathway and trail needs, from development through maintenance, and the resources required to meet these needs. This will lead to strategic development of new facilities as well as implementation of a maintenance regimen upon completion. 

Read more. 

Missoula County Awarded $39,000 for Map Missoula Initiative 

For the second year in a row, Missoula County has been awarded a Montana Land Information Act grant to support Map Missoula, a project led by the Clerk and Recorder’s Office. The $39,046 awarded by the Montana State Library will continue last year’s efforts by funding temporary staffing and internships. Map Missoula aims to expand the current geographic information system capacity of Missoula County to improve access to place-based information and provide accurate data to decisionmakers. 

Read more. 

Commissioners approve Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) resolution

Read the full resolution. 
Watch the meeting.

Disadvantaged Business Enterprise presentation open to public, local businesses 

The Office of Civil Rights within the Montana Department of Transportation will present information about the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program to the Missoula Board of County Commissioners. 

The presentation is open to the public and local businesses are encouraged to attend. Topics covered will include:   

• An overview of the program 

• What businesses are allowed to be registered as a DBE 

• The advantages of being registered as a DBE 

• How to register as a DBE 

• Business income and personal wealth limits 

The MDT Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) Program encourages and supports the participation of companies owned and controlled by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals in transportation and other contracts. More information about the program is available at https://www.mdt.mt.gov/business/contracting/civil/dbe.shtml  

The meeting will take place 11 a.m. Tuesday, July 27, via Microsoft Teams. Missoula County Auditor Dave Wall is available to answer additional questions at dwall@missoulacounty.us. 

Join the meeting 

Election Integrity Series: Why does your ballot look different than someone else’s, and how does the Elections Office account for this when processing ballots? 

Ballots all have a “ballot style” or unique combination of contests and candidates that will appear on a voter’s ballot depending on what jurisdiction they live in within the county. Staff account for these different styles in the second part of their “reconciliation process” by sorting the ballots into bins based off their ballot style. Then, the ballots are removed from their affirmation envelopes and a team of two verifies each affirmation envelope is for the correct ballot style and records it on a report. The report is a “reconciliation report,” which is signed by two elections judges and attached to the secrecy envelope before the bundle is sealed and stored for processing for election day. The ballot reconciliation report will remain with the same batch of ballots through the process until the ballots have been counted.  

The Missoula County Elections Office has many processes in place to ensure the integrity of all elections. We’ll walk through those processes in this series, and constituents are always welcome to visit the Elections Center for an in-person tour. 

Watch the slideshow below, and visit missoula.co/electionintegrity for more info on how your ballot is handled and processed. 

Visit our Missoula County Events Calendar to see what events and classes the county is hosting! 

Missoula County employees are working hard for you! 

Hi! I am Violet. I’ve worked in the Missoula County Commissioners’ Office since November of 2020, and my work mainly consists of administrative support for the commissioners in their great work here in our community. Some things that I do as a part of my regular job include preparing agendas and minutes for commissioners’ public meetings, collecting public comment on important issues from constituents and managing the use of the Sophie Moiese Room in the Missoula County Courthouse Annex.  

My favorite part of my job is providing information to constituents, be that telling them how to find previous commissioners’ meeting minutes (on our website, they go as far back as 1865), letting them know how to submit public comment or just letting them know the best ways to participate in local government and have their voice heard.  

One project that I'm proud to have worked on this year is the huge undertaking of the Big Sky Passenger Rail Authority. This initiative, spearheaded in large part by Commissioner Dave Strohmaier, seeks to restore passenger rail service throughout southern Montana. I’ve loved getting to work on the BSPRA and work with people across the state on accomplishing such a huge and important initiative. 

Learn more about the Missoula County commissioners at www.missoulacounty.us/government/administration/commissioners-office and the BSPRA at https://www.bigskyrail.org/. 

Missoula County in the News: July 17-23 

Pathways and Trails Master Plan outreach meeting July 28 
Missoula County hires PR firm as it embarks on zoning-code update 
Missoula County awarded $39,000 for Map Missoula initiative 
Missoula County, city and health look to sway cleanup of Smurfit-Site property 
More industrial proposals land near the Wye in county’s new development district 

Vaccines are available to everyone 12 and older!  

Make an appointment at covid19.missoula.co, and share your experience on social media with the hashtags #endthepandemic, #vaccinatethe406 and #gotmyshot406. 

Stay up to date with Missoula County's COVID-19 vaccine distribution success! Visit covid19.missoula.co/vaccine-information and click on the Vaccination Distribution Map and Dashboard blue button. The data is updated every Monday. If you would like to track data across Montana, visit the Montana Response page. 

Upcoming Commissioners’ Meetings: July 26-30 

To join commissioner department, administrative and public meetings via Microsoft Teams and view the agendas, visit the Missoula County Commissioners’ Meeting Minutes and Agenda Portal. Please note that agendas for department and administrative meetings are published two business days before the meeting, and public meeting agendas are published the Friday before the meeting. Administrative and public meeting video recordings are available on the Missoula County YouTube page after the meeting, and MCAT plays the public meetings live on their Spectrum Channel 190. Email bcc@missoulacounty.us or leave a voicemail at 406-258-4877 if you have any questions or comments on an upcoming meeting. 

• Monday, July 26 
  Public Works Update 
  Community and Planning Services Update 
  Zoning Code Update 
  Fairgrounds Update 

• Tuesday, July 27 
  Public Service Agencies Update 
  Commissioners’ Administrative Public Meeting 

• Wednesday, July 28 
  Litigation Update 
  Chief Officers Update 
  All Community Council Virtual Town Hall 

• Thursday, July 29 
  Chief Administrative Officer Update 
  Commissioners’ Public Meeting - Preliminary Budget Hearing 

This press release was produced by the Missoula County Government. The views expressed here are the author’s own.