P U B L I C M E E T I N G BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2013 – 1:30 P.M. ROOM B14 – ADMIN BUILDING MINUTES

If anyone attending the Public Meetings needs special assistance, please provide advance notice by calling 258-4877. Missoula County will provide auxiliary aids and services.

1. CALL TO ORDER Commissioners Present: Commissioner (Chair) Michele Landquist, Commissioner Jean Curtiss, Commissioner Bill Carey

Staff Present: James McCubbin, Deputy County Attorney, Marnie McClain, Deputy County Attorney, Jennie Dixon, Community and Planning Services (CAPS), Todd Klietz, CAPS Floodplain Administrator, Steve Niday, Public Works Land Survey Manager, Steve Hutchings, Public Works Chief Building Official

2. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE

3. PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS Meals on Wheels Proclamation was read by Commissioner Carey declaring March as “March Meals Month”

4. PUBLIC COMMENT None

5. ROUTINE ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS Weekly Claims List ($1,394,175.90)

Executive Session Commissioner Carey made motion that the Board of County Commissioners approve the Bi-Weekly Claims List in the amount of $1,394,175.90. Commissioner Curtiss second the motion. The motion carried a vote of 3-0.

6. HEARING (Certificate of Survey) Winter Family Transfer

Jennie Dixon gave report and asked Ms. Joanne Winter the basic family transfer questions.

Public Comment None

Executive Session Commissioner Curtiss made motion that the Board of County Commissioners approve the request to create one (1) additional parcel by use of the family transfer exemption based on the fact that there does not appear to be an attempt to evade subdivision review. Commissioner Carey second the motion. The motion carried a vote of 3-0.

7. HEARING Appeal of Floodplain Permit (Konstantin Tsuber – Grant Creek)

Todd Klietz gave report and showed PPT Presentation.

Mr. Tsuber, Owner: I’m building this for my family; I’ve been waiting for this moment for a very long time. During the building period I ran into a few problems, I’m trying to solve them with Todd and the County. The six inches to raise my first floor, so I have to do that? If necessary I can do that, but it’s going to cost me more money, plus at this point I cannot do anymore work until I fill my crawl space at least two feet minimum.

Chair Landquist: Part of the problem resides on that fact that it took some years and some millions of dollars to fix the floodplain mistakes that had happen before you started building this house. The county would be at a big risk for the status of our floodplain certifications and some other things, let alone what it would do to the home owners there and you would have to get flood insurance. Todd maybe you could explain that a little more as far as what risks it poses to us if we were to start giving waivers to anybody out there.

Todd Klietz: When the County submitted to FEMA our plans to put the mitigation project forward, we certified to FEMA that none of the parcels that would be removed would have issues with overland or with groundwater inundation. That was one of the conditions that FEMA approved to remove all those properties from the floodplain. All but one was actually removed, of the homes that were there, the vacant properties remain in the floodplain but as far as the actual structures, only one structure remains within the 100 year floodplain. Whenever the Commissioner’s issue an appeal or a variance those decisions are sent to the State and to FEMA for their review and obviously I have no idea what FEMA would do with that. One of the things that they would likely be looking at is to see if whether or not we were violating the terms of what we had proposed to them, ensuring that none of the homes would have overland or groundwater inundation going into them.

Public Comment None

Minutes Page 2 of 13 Commissioner Curtiss: We understand that this is going to be not an inexpensive fix for you to do but it is fixable, which is much better than having to take down the house. Almost two years ago we spent quite a bit of time in another neighborhood of our community that is in the floodplain area…floodway, with houses that were be inundated by the high water. This area has already had that issue and we’ve worked to try and fix it so I would hate for us to give you a variance and then someday you would have to replace the floor anyway because it got wet. I think that’s our main problem is that we do have one family that we will finally be buying their house from them because it was ruined through the flood insurance program and such. There was some money to buy their house that was ruined by flood waters. I understand this will be a hardship on your family but I think in the end it’s better for you to do the work now, rather than have carpets and things that need to be replaced later. Todd, is the garage required to be above the floodplain too, even if there are no mechanicals?

Todd Klietz: Yes, the garage slab can be at the 100 year floodplain elevation, it can’t be beneath the 100 year floodplain elevation. Just like the crawl space can be at the 100 year flood elevation. Provided all mechanicals are two feet above.

Commissioner Carey: It’s unfortunate but I think our regulations are fair and reasonable and we need to stand by them.

Commissioner Curtiss: I have a question for our Building Permits person. Steve, my concern is that to require him to raise that concrete floor by three inches, that it’s hard to achieve to pour concrete that thin and not have it all crack, how do you make concrete stick to concrete and all that? The feasibility of it, I guess.

Steve Hutchings: It’s definitely feasible. It would just be an ear cap of concrete that they place onto of the existing slab. I didn’t realize that the slab was that low. If you had to raise it three inches then that would be above the level of the mud slope plate that’s on the slab right now that supports the wall structures. I imagine you could probably put some galvanized tin around that and pour the slab up to the three inches; otherwise it would be an inch and half over those slope plates.

Commissioner Curtiss: My next question is to Marnie.

Konstantin Tsuber: May I make a comment? My floor in the garage, at the highest point it’s higher than minimum. I did a slope down to the garage door, so the highest concrete floor meets the requirement.

Commissioner Curtiss: Okay, thank you. Marnie, my question is; if this is an appeal about the regulations, if we don’t grant this but tell him that there’s a whole other process to do a variance, then we could do a variance on just the garage? We could consider a variance. Are there facts that will keep us from being able to grant that variance because we can’t make a case for it?

Marnie McClain: As you all know in granting variances, there’s a list of elements that have to be found. In going through variance elements, there’s always some that you are better able to make positive finding for, I do think this one will be a little challenging just

Minutes Page 3 of 13 considering that the work was started without a permit. This is someone who regrettable made it his problem but it’s certainly something we can take a look at.

Chair Landquist: Does that variance request come before us also?

Marnie McClain: Yes.

Commissioner Curtiss: And the elevations that were provided by Eli & Associates, does it take into effect different heights in the garage because of the slope? Which is a recommendation for building codes to have your floor sloped to the door.

Todd Klietz: No, we have one elevation for the garage slab and that’s it.

Executive Session Commissioner Carey made motion that the Board of County Commissioners deny the appeal request and that the conditions of the floodplain permit #12-25 be upheld. Commissioner Curtiss second the motion. The motion carried a vote of 3-0.

8. HEARING (Continued from January 9, 2013) Petition to Abandon a Portion of Old Lolo Creek Trail

On the phone for comment: Jim Evans with the Nez Perce Trail Foundation. Unable to reach: Vera Sonneck, the Cultural Resource Program Director for the Nez Perce Tribe.

Steve Niday: I was one of the viewers appointed with Commissioner Curtiss on February 7, 2013. Viewers on site at the proposed abandonment were: Commissioner Curtiss, Steve Niday, Lisa Moisey, Steve Smith, Patrick Baird, Corey Van Ostrand and Dave Trusty. Read viewers report. (pdf)

Commissioner Curtiss: The reason the State Law requires us to go and do a viewing is so that we can see on the ground what is there, but also we need to look at what the public’s use in the future might be. It’s also to see the constraints that it’s putting on private property. It’s unfortunate that sometime in the past a surveyor put on the plat, of some of the properties in this area, a section marked ‘old abandoned road’. So in his mind, maybe, I don’t know the surveyor, it might have meant not used, but it never went through the official abandonment process that we’re talking about and going through today. I think the biggest issue in this case, it’s easy to see that having that public right-of-way going through someone’s private property especially when it’s not a road that’s used on a regular basis or needed to access their property, that it is an encumbrance. It’s also important, I think, that we look at the fact that this is a congressionally designated historic trail, it’s on maps, it’s also probably where Lewis & Clark walked, those kinds of things. I think it’s important for us to just recognize that historic and cultural importance of this section of the road and unfortunately the law does not allow us…Montana State Law does not allow us to convert a road right-of-way such as this into a non-motorized roadway, which probably makes more sense right there. If we abandon the public’s right to use it and the Nez Perce Tribe was very adamant and that’s unfortunately the person that couldn’t join us on the Minutes Page 4 of 13 phone because she’s probably on a different line or something but they really asked us not to abandon. Other portions have been abandoned so we’re trying to protect that. Also the Nez Perce National Historic Trail Comprehensive Plan talks about the fact that some of this old trail is in public ownership or public responsibility and some is private. For us to lose an additional piece of that trail for public use, I think would not be a good move on our part.

Commissioner Carey: I agree with everything Commissioner Curtiss said and just to add, I think it’s very important for us to honor the Tribes wishes in this particular matter.

Chair Landquist: This area, I have pictures for the record, there’s nothing much left of the historical significance here other than a place in time on the ground. The reason this ground looks as nice as it does is because of Mr. Trusty’s good stewardship. This area has been burned, it’s been helicopter logged and it’s been flooded significantly, the pictures show the flooding and of the fire. I thought Lisa was going to give us an idea here…a presentation on how many partials up the way have been abandoned the trail on the road and how many have been relocated in case a pathway is ever needed to go up the highway. Again, I couldn’t find the folder in my office before coming down here but I can make those things available for the record. I spent part of yesterday taking pictures of the signage at the beginning of highway 12, the National Forest sign that talks about the trail and significance, not only to Lewis & Clark but to the Nez Perce and the Salish Tribes, as well as the historic marker for that highway. I also spent time going to the Harley Davidson shop and have some maps available online that I couldn’t seem to get printed out but that Hwy 12 corridor is of significance interest and nationally recognized as a motorcycle touring road by motorcyclist, as well adventure cycling. After reading the article in the Indy and Jim Evans quote regarding, ‘even if Trusty puts the parcel up for sale his group doesn’t have the funds to purchase and protect it’. I do see this as an encumbrance on Trusty’s property, he is willing to give an easement to the front near the highway, in case a trail ever comes up, like others before him had been asked to do. I do think we’re not treating our constituents based here equally and I think it would do more in the public good and the greater interest for all concerned. I do think this causes a hardship on Mr. Trusty and his property when he’s out a pile of money now. When he first started this process it was with the intent to abandon the road, then it was shown the road was actually on Plum Creek’s property and he was infringing on it. He went through the trouble to work with Plum Creek to purchase his little sliver of land that still doesn’t give him enough property to put any extra houses on, which is not what he wants to do anyway, it was an expensive proposition to survey out and purchase that land from Plum Creek. He was told first to try the exempt process through the County, that was a couple $100, that didn’t work, then he had to go through sanitary review, that was a couple $100 and then he had to finally get to the point where he could do the road abandonment, that’s another couple $100. Trusty’s out the money, he’ll be paying taxes on that land that he can’t use freely, like he would otherwise. If you could see these pictures, I walked part of this late yesterday afternoon, I know the land but we walked it to the survey marker on the neighbors place and up the deer trail…the game trail onto the other flat road up there and these pictures will show that this ground has been significantly pushed around. He was showing me yesterday where this piece of yard was, the original piece but this part here got filled in from the mud slide matter and so on. Also, I wanted to make mention for the record that when, and I can make copies for the record also, when this subdivision called Lolo Creek Trails was being developed some years ago and the trail runs in back of that subdivision, one of the conditions of approval for that was to protect that trail. The

Minutes Page 5 of 13 developer was going to put signage in, then it turns out a few years later he gets a waiver from having to do that.

Commissioner Curtiss: No he didn’t, I have a copy what we said he had to do.

Chair Landquist: Because he couldn’t get anybody to adopt it.

Commissioner Curtiss: Right, but the trail is still there, it’s still marked and it’s not built upon.

Chair Landquist: Barely.

Commissioner Curtiss: And on his deed it has to say Nez Perce, non-motorized public access easement.

Chair Landquist: To walk that trail you’re going to be holding on ~ it’s so close to the peoples fences in their backyard, you’re going to be touching private property fences to try to use that trail Jean.

Commissioner Curtiss: Mistakes we made in the past don’t make it a good idea to make mistakes in the future.

Chair Landquist: There wasn’t anybody that stepped forward in the past and now to be treating people differently instead of looking at a way to gather all the other interested parties that have a vested interest in preserving this trail, to include the view shed that is much more significant from the highway that is designated. You see a lot more scenic beautiful as well as the historic trail monument such as, the lady in the bonnet, we always called it locally but from…and we can make pictures from Bud Moore’s Book, The Lochsa Story. I think we’d all be better served if collectively all the various entities worked together to designate highway 12 as the scenic highway, a historic view shed, whatever, because the times going to come when that highway is probably going to be subjected to change. Rather than have people try to trespass behind people’s homes…that road is within a few feet from your back door and some of your neighbors back doors. I just think we’re not treating people fair. I realize that as new information makes itself known that we should at least give some weight to that information. I think in this case it’s absolutely wrong.

Jim Evans: We have this type of situation on 1,170 miles of the trail where developments have come up to apex of the trail. Keep in mind, it’s not really a trail but a corridor because in 1887 when the Nez Perce were fleeing and they bypassed Fort Fizzle, there were about 800 people and about 3,000 head of horses and you don’t go head to tail on something like that. What we’ve done in the past on places where private property or we go through the middle of them, we’ve been getting an easement from the owners and places that are County owned, we have leased that land from the County for a number of years to preserve it. We’re quite willing to work with the land owner there because from that property line, if I understand right and look at the ownership, on up I think belongs to Plum creek, if I’m not mistaken. Plum Creek has been giving us easements or right-of-ways through a lot of the checker board areas that we traversed in that. Highway 12 is a designated auto tour route for the Nez Perce Trail so that’s already taken care of but the land portion of it, the route, we’re looking at a corridor that’s usually about a ¼ of a mile

Minutes Page 6 of 13 wide through the areas. We’d be happy to work with the land owner to protect his investment and maybe actually a foot trail or equine trail could be moved up the hill so that we would not come close to his place, it has been used in the past. About 12-13 years ago I led 250 head of horses from the Nez Perce Trail there for the horse club called Chief Joseph Ride; they pass through there every 13 years, so it has been used for that.

Commissioner Curtiss: Mr. Evans, have you talked to the tribal elders about the idea of relocating onto Plum Creek land and whether or not they would be in favor of that?

Jim Evans: There are three tribal entities of the Nez Perce, yes we’ve corresponded with them and as the agency, the Forest Service has developed a Comprehensive Management Plan and all those things will be put into that plan. Just from past usage for the last 42 years that horse club has used it every 13 years ~ we have come down through there. We have negotiated with Plum Creek and continuing the land acquisition thing that we’re doing with them and as we do there’s 61% of the trail, Nez Perce National Trail is on private property and we’ve got easements probably on 30% of that 61% right now, so we have a big uphill. Where we get money to pay for easements is we do grant writing and we do individual donations that’s how we operate. So we’d like to see something worked out to do the preservation of as much as possible of that particular route because it is archeology wise, it’s never been proven that’s exactly where it goes but from historical records it’s pretty well documented that’s where it went.

Commissioner Curtiss: Mr. Evans are you willing to visit with the three different tribal entities of the tribe to see if they agree to that and maybe also talk with Plum Creek?

Jim Evans: Definitely.

Chair Landquist: I spoke with Plum Creek, at least Lori Woods from Plum Creek the other day and she was actually surprised (because she helped facilitate Dave buying this little sliver from them) that this road abandonment had not gone through and was shocked that it was held up because she said that they’ve got the various trails marked on their property that goes above that and they haven’t logged it. They’ve kept it well preserved on their land, I know the Forest Service has done the same thing because there was public testimony at the last meeting from the Van Ostrand’s that the motorcycle ride up there that have seen the markers on the trees.

Commissioner Curtiss: Those markers are for when they went around Fort Fizzle.

Public Comment

Lee Dexter: I live just west of Dave and we’re talking about two different things here. The road actually used to be called Lolo Creek Road. Lolo Trail is up on a ridge. There was no way they could pass through the bottom there because of the way the creek went through and the down fall and stuff. If you look at the history of it with the way it was, everybody traveled the ridge. As far as horses going through there 13 years ago, that’s all private property and most of that has been abandoned through our property, there haven’t been any horses through there as long as I owned it and I’ve been there since early 90, that’s more than 13 years ago. The horses that did come down came down highway 12, which was kind of a neat deal. We’re talking about two different trails; Lolo Creek Road used to

Minutes Page 7 of 13 be there before it became Highway 12, so if that solves anything. We already have most of that abandoned through our property and there isn’t a very big piece that’s not going to be abandoned.

Chair Landquist. There’s only a couple 100 feet left on the property to the west that hasn’t been abandoned, right Steve?

Steve Niday: I was going to address your question about which sections had been abandoned. If you’d like me to I can do it via this map up here?

Chair Landquist: Okay.

Steve Niday: Continued to show the map and point out the properties.

Chair Landquist: I know we did an abandonment for Leibenguth too, further up the way and did a relocation.

Steve Niday: There’s been a ton of stuff abandoned to the west.

Chair Landquist: But now you’re saying that the record or the law is saying that because it calls itself a road we can’t turn it into a trail or we can’t relocate it and make it a trail.

Steve Niday: We can alter.

Chair Landquist: But in this case nobody’s willing to.

Steve Niday: One of the other things that I wanted to address since this idea of the location of the trail seems to be important to the discussion and there’s obviously lots of different opinions as to which trail is which. I think it’s generally understood that the Nez Perce Tribe on their exodus avoided Fort Fizzle by going up high on the ridge and it’s designated on the quad map and national forest maps, there route goes up on the ridge and comes back down and around avoiding Fort Fizzle and here. The Lolo Trail also known as Lewis & Clark Trail is down in the bottom along the foothill and a couple of ways I’ve been able to substantiate that and that is in 1870 the GLO Surveyors were in here running their section lines. Now 1870 is seven years before the Nez Perce Tribe did their exodus and those surveyors tied this trail, it’s faint but if you overlay the position of this trail on a current quad map its down in the bottom at the base of the mountain, it’s not up high. There are other GLO surveys. You can see here (looking at the map) it wasn’t surveyed in 1870, it was surveyed a few years later and it so happens that as you move up the creek through our area of interest, the surveys took place over a period of about 20 years. This 1870 one is the earliest one. In 1879 they actually show two trails and a road. The ridge parallel in Sleeman Creek is where the tribe came down after avoiding Fort Fizzle. I mentioned this because of this idea of where the trails were, the trails were down in the bottom, for the most part, other than when they went high to avoid the Fort. Now if go farther up the canyon, several miles up the canyon, the main trails did climb up on the ridge but this close to the mouth of the canyon they were down in the bottom. Lewis & Clark Trail is designated such because Lewis & Clark took that route. Lewis & Clark was guided up that canyon by a Nez Perce guide by the name of Old Tobie. Old Tobie took Lewis & Clark up a trail that they used, which was down at the bottom. We know there are Minutes Page 8 of 13 a lot people that think in this area it was up high, but I just don’t find the evidence to support it.

Chair Landquist: Mr. Trusty you were about to say something at the mic?

Dave Trusty: Before I purchased that piece of ground from Plum Creek I asked them if they’d take their easement off, I talked to Lori Woods, she said they would and the County would have no reason not to take theirs off of it. It’s actually a road to nowhere, goes to my back yard, it can’t go any further than that. It’s always been called the Lolo Creek Road over the last however many years. The County Commissioners have started calling it this trail and that’s why we’re here today ~ because they started calling it a trail, it’s always been a road.

Jim Evans: It’s fairly factual and without doing an archeology survey specifically, we actually can’t say they walked that road. And they did come down the ridges and past Fort Fizzle and came off the ridge probably down through that area. Lewis & Clark of course, that’s pretty well documented that they went up the valley and not on that way. I really would like to sit down with all the parties concerned as a non-profit independent and try to arrive at a consensus to where the actual trail was and that road is abandoned on each end of it, it’s not much use as a road. The concept of a trail for the Nez Perce, as I said is a misnomer; it’s really a route that they took so we have been…the Forest Service has been negligent in going out and actually doing the archeology work to determine exactly where the trail is going or has went. We’re doing that on the east side of the trail, we’ve done several and probably 90% of the time the historical records and peoples recollections it’s pretty accurate but without doing that formal study that Comprehensive Management Plan that they’ve talked about and supposed to do, it’s questionable if they actually walked a road down that road. Of course, it probably wasn’t a road at that particular time but when you have that many people and that many horses, you take the route of less resistance to get them through. So I think this is something we need to sit down with, as an interested third party, we’d be happy to interface with the tribal and you’ll find differences of opinions for whatever tribal group that you talk with about it and again, we’ll offer our serves to do that.

Art Greydanus: I live at the west end of that road and that road was put in there, I think it was by the County, Lewis & Clark or even the Indians didn’t have a bulldozer to put it in the side of that steep hillside, so it couldn’t have been a trail. There never was a trail there on that hillside, the lower end of that was abandoned in 2000 or 2002 maybe. Plum Creek said that they had to log that hillside, well since then they logged it with a helicopter and now they don’t need that road anymore and they tell me they were going to abandon it when this came up. I’d like to have my ground abandoned too because there’s no way they can ever get through there, they can only get in about 400 feet from Dave’s line into my place and the rest is abandon, so where are they going to go?

Chair Landquist: Well they can certainly have fun on that game trail Dave took me on yesterday afternoon. We do have some documentation that’s been put in the record from 1895 from when residents/tax payers from that area that I guess owned those parcels back then, asking for that road to actually be adopted as a county road. That is essentially what Dave thought he was requesting to be abandoned.

Minutes Page 9 of 13 Commissioner Curtiss: I think what the difference is that through this process we learned that the Congressional designed trail and the Lewis & Clark Trail are all shown on maps to be lined up with that. Of course, we often build public roads and took petitions for public roads over an existing two track, which used to be a one track where a horse walked, so that’s the problem here.

Chair Landquist: Well I think the good news here today, if there is any, is that Jim Evans is interested in working with the other parties and sounds to me like there might be a possibility of working maybe with Plum Creek to relocate an official part of that so that the pieces can connect again because the stuff on Art’s place has been abandoned, so it wouldn’t do him any good to not create some new easement there.

Commissioner Curtiss: I think the Commission should talk a little bit more before we close the hearing because to me we either take the recommendation of the viewers or we recess the hearing and wait and give some opportunity for some other conversations so we wouldn’t close it.

Chair Landquist: That would probably be beneficial to Mr. Trusty, other than he’s still waiting around for an answer, but at least then if this were to come back before us he wouldn’t have to repay more fees. Dave, are you agreeable to that? Rather than the decision coming down today, to say no we can’t abandon that, wait for some more communication to take place between the Forest Service and Plum Creek and the other Nez Perce Trail Association and the other tribes.

James McCubbin: Can I make a suggestion in that regard?

Chair Landquist: Sure.

James McCubbin: Jean just mentioned if we’re going to continue the hearing we need to set a date certain so we don’t have to re-notice. But the other thing I wanted to note is when we go back through historical records and Steve can talk about this as well, this is less of an issue now but when we go back to historical records particularly on road petitions and you look for when the hearing was held and so forth and if something is left open, it can become really difficult to keep those records straight. What I would recommend is if it doesn’t look like this can be resolved rapidly and I don’t think there’s a way to know how long discussions might take. I would suggest that you go ahead, close the hearing, make a decision on this petition but then be open to the possibility of waiving fees for a future similar petition because all the background work has been done, we’ll have these records available and Steve will have the knowledge still available. It’s pretty rare when it’s appropriate to waive fees but this might be that kind of situation, I think it would accomplish the same goal but still make sure that we have clear records on the recommendation.

Chair Landquist: I was going to ask about the possibility of waiving fees and moving forward.

James McCubbin: That’s always a discretionary decision.

Minutes Page 10 of 13 Chair Landquist: Dave, do you have a preference on that? Did you understand what Mr. McCubbin said to us? We have two choices before us; we can either close the hearing, take a vote most likely based on the viewer’s report that votes going to be to deny your request. But, with the caveat if the request comes back to us after various parties get together we would be agreeable to waiving fees for this request so you wouldn’t have to repay because we’ve already got tons of information on it.

You have two choice; we either deny and close or we can leave it open which does get problematic for tracking meetings and stuff and see if the parties will all talk to one another and relocate that off your place. We have two alternatives here that we’re looking at, do you have a preference?

Dave Trusty: No

Chair Landquist: So you don’t care either way? Okay.

Commissioner Curtiss: We had a meeting with Plum Creek and others the other day; I didn’t hear her offering up.

Chair Landquist: I think she had to get a plane to Atlanta the next day so she did what she could by phone. Steve do you remember the maps that they said they used?

Steve Niday: She said she had a contact at the Forest Service that she’s going to try to reach that might provide some enlightenment about the trail up on the hill.

Chair Landquist: She was going to contact the two local guys from Plum Creek but there was an acronym for the set of maps that she said they used.

Steve Niday: Was it the website that they go to?

Chair Landquist: Yes. So I think more discussion could be done on that because I think Plum Creek already has some areas above there that are delineated.

Commissioner Curtiss: But as Steve just shown the maps older than the exodus.

Chair Landquist: Yes, but I don’t know what Plum Creek’s showing.

Commissioner Curtiss: There’s more than one trail, that’s the issue there. That is the one that’s marked by the markers apparently.

Jim Evans: Speaking of maps, in the original Comprehensive Management Plan for the trail, there were a series of maps that showed where the trail was and on page 5 it does show where it goes up on the ridges and the comes down. Has anybody looked at that in depth, from that particular standpoint? That’s where the designation came from.

Steve Niday: I did not look at the maps in the plan; I’m relying on the Forest Service map and the quad map that depicts that Nee-Me-Poo National Historic Trail. Just for the record, I’m not an expert at the location of this trail, I’ve done a minimal amount of research really after the discussion with you and Lori made me doubt myself about the location of Minutes Page 11 of 13 the trail. I wanted to prove to myself where I thought it was again, reprove to myself. I’m in no way an expert on the location and my supposition could be proven wrong.

Commissioner Curtiss: I think the problem is we know we have a public right-of-way and we know where it is because it was a petitioned road. We also know that Congress designated the Nez Perce Historic Trail pretty much to line up with that right-of-way, probably because it made sense and we know that with 800 people and 3,000 horses, somebody walked there, unless the creek was real high. I think that the question before us is really because we have a public right-of-way, should we keep it so that it can coincide with the designated trail of historic and cultural significance? If you haven’t gone to the Forest Service website or searched the Nez Perce Trail and watched the video, which we did as a Commission a few weeks ago, to remind ourselves of that actually shameful part of our history where we were running the Native American people off their own lands across our Country, you should watch it because it’s significant. We have the opportunity here to make sure that part of that piece of the trail stays in public responsibility, I guess. None of us can exactly prove where it’s at. We’ve seen on an 1860’s map where the trail was marked, there were trails on hills, there were hills on the bottom, it depended on the time of year, it depended on if you were hunting or if you were going down to fish, it depended on a lot of things as to where people in the area actually traveled. We are responsible for a piece of history too, I think.

Deanna Dexter: Have you been up to that road and looked at it yourself?

Commissioner Curtiss: Yes, I was the one that viewed it.

Deanna Dexter: Do you really think that’s gonna go to another trail, on that road?

Commissioner Curtiss: It is a piece of history that we’re supposed to not just throw away. I understand, I have a piece of an old county road that goes through a piece of property that I own in the Swan, same deal. People drive on it, they think they can get through to Forest Service land, they come through to try and hunt, I understand but it accesses Federal Land and so I can’t abandoned it either. It isn’t like I don’t understand people’s issues here but it’s an important piece of history too. I think that may be our best decision today is to go with the viewer’s report. I also don’t think it’s a good idea for three County Commissioners to go against a Sovereign Nations request not to abandon it. And then if Mr. Evans and the tribal entities and Plum Creek are able to negotiate, okay let’s put the historic piece over here 50 feet or whatever it is and we can still honor that history and that cultural, then we can come back here. Yes, I did walk.

Commissioner Carey: With that are you ready for a motion?

Chair Landquist: If there’s no future public comment then I’ll close the public portion and we’ll go into our deliberations or motion.

Commissioner Carey: I think before us is an opportunity to preserve in some small way right now, the significance of a historical trail and I think it’s in the public’s interest to not abandon this public right-of-way so I’ll make that motion.

Minutes Page 12 of 13 Executive Session

Commissioner Carey made motion that the Board of County Commissioners deny the petition to abandon this public right-of-way. Commissioner Curtiss second the motion. Chair Landquist abstained. The motion carried a vote of 2-1.

Chair Landquist: I don’t think we’re treating everyone fairly and I hope to God that some of the things we discussed here today, if they come into fruition, that Mr. Trusty is fortunate enough to be contacted by some of the other interested parties that fees would be considered to be waived.

Commissioner Curtiss: While we still have Mr. Evans on the phone ~ Mr. Evans you have our Parks person, Lisa’s, contact information correct?

Jim Evans: Yes I do.

Commissioner Curtiss: Okay so why we don’t count on you to use Lisa as the conduit here if there’s further conversation to be had.

Jim Evans: I would be very happy to do that.

Commissioner Curtiss: Thank you Mr. Evans.

Chair Landquist: And the number that we use to call you is?

Jim Evans: 208-940-0053. As a side; we have a virtual tour on our website and you can go on that virtual tour and hone in on Fort Fizzle and through Google earth you can actually take an aerial view of the whole area. That might be very helpful to people to look at that. The website is NezPerceTrail.net.

9. OTHER BUSINESS None

10. RECESS Being no further business to come before the Board the Commissioners are in recess at 3:05.

Minutes Page 13 of 13