Commissioners, Pioneer Days Co. meet about MREC

Members of Pioneer Days Company from Ronan met with Lake County Commissioners Gale Decker and Bill Barron Aug. 28 to discuss the future of the Mission Range Event Complex (MREC). Commissioner Steve Stanley tuned in via speakerphone.

“We are here to ask about moving forward with the Mission Range Event Complex property that was purchased a while back,” said Mike Bartel, a member of the Pioneer Days group, who said they had approached the Ronan City Council as well.

“What we would really like to do is obtain a lease for it (MREC) from the city and the county, lift the ag restriction, and move forward with it.”

Bartel said Pioneer Day’s plan would be to utilize the grounds as another place to have the annual Pioneer Days rodeo and “lots more stuff,” such as a flea market, concerts, powwows, etc.

Currently, the rodeo is held at the Ronan fairgrounds. Problems with the current venue include safety, lack of parking, and not enough seating or a set-up area for the rodeo, according to the Pioneer Days contingent.

To illustrate the parking issue, Ronan City Council member Julie Moore said there was a 3-on-3 basketball tourney during Pioneer Days between Ronan High School and Ronan Middle School, and there was no place to park on 3rd Ave. Parking lots at the elementary and the high school were full. She said she hoped the 3-on-3 was over before the rodeo started.

As far as seating goes, Pioneer Days organizers put up a sign that reads “Limited Seating after 7 p.m.,” and the rodeo doesn’t start until 7:30 p.m., Bartel said. He added that numbers of rodeo attendees are down because people know there’s nowhere to sit.

The rodeo has outgrown its venue “in every aspect there is,” Bartel said.

It’s a complicated matter, according to commissioner Decker. The commissioners had conversations with former Lake County planner LaDana Hinz about lifting the property's agricultural restriction, and Hinz had told them it would require a lot of time and expense to do so. Since nothing was happening with the MREC property at the time, the commissioners did not pursue it.

The commissioners said they understood that if the city owned that property, the ag restriction would go away.

Former Ronan Mayor Kim Aipperspach agreed.

“All of us have probably done a disservice to the city of Ronan for 18 years,” he said. “Had MREC been going, Ronan would still have a motel, maybe two, and we’d probably have a restaurant that stays open past four in the afternoon.”

Questioned about whether the MREC land could be annexed into the city, Barron said the commissioners would have to agree.

The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes recently asked the city to annex 31 acres of the property on Mink Lane, and plan to use around six acres for a meat-packing facility. Lake County owns two-thirds of the remaining property and the city of Ronan owns one-third of it. There are no boundary lines between the city and county property Decker said, so that is also an issue.

From Lake County’s perspective, Decker said, “Our interest for a long time has been to trade the county’s MREC land to the city.”

In exchange, the county would like to acquire the baseball diamonds located east of the fairgrounds for expansion, and offered to put money into MREC infrastructure, such as a bike path, roads and possibly baseball fields.

Decker added that a document signed during Paddy Trusler’s tenure as a Lake County commissioner specified $90,000 worth of work and in-kind donations from the county if such a trade could be made.

“The fairgrounds in Ronan is a pretty valuable piece of property – one of the focal points of the town of Ronan,” Decker said. “Maybe we could expand it; maybe have a carnival, maybe make it a fair – really a county fair rather than what is is right now.”

Lake County is going to invest about a million-dollars worth of infrastructure into the fairgrounds in the next year, mostly in water and sewer work, Decker said. That project is already out to bid, according to Billie Lee, Lake County Director of Special Projects.

She also said the county has plans for maybe an additional million dollars in investments at the fairgrounds, including upgraded bathrooms in the community center and new roofs on the barns.

The baseball conundrum

Decker said Ronan Schools Superintendent Mark Johnston told him that now that the Montana High School Association has approved high school boys baseball, the RHS boys will be playing on the Babe Ruth field, which Decker said barely meets MHSA standards, and the school would be interested in a larger facility.

The baseball diamonds are a crazy quilt of ownership, between the Tribes, city, county and the school district, but the two baseball fields along Highway 93 are on tribal ground, Decker said. So different land owners add up to a more complex situation.

Also, the baseball association in Ronan has been opposed to moving the fields from their location near the fairgrounds and schools. Part of their concern is getting kids safely to the fields if they are moved to the outskirts of town.

The pedestrian path on Round Butte Road provides access and solves that problem, Decker said.

“They’ll stand their ground,” Ronan Mayor Chris Adler said, since members of the association either played on the existing fields themselves or their kids have.

A reverse swap

Michelle Marengo, Pioneer Days committee member, asked if a swap the other way – moving the fairgrounds out to MREC – was off the table?

Barron answered, “If we did that, it would cost between 10 to 20 million to move the fairgrounds out there.”

“Does it make more sense to put more money into the rodeo grounds and the grandstands at the (current) fairgrounds?” asked Lee.

Bartel reiterated that Pioneer Days would like a long-term lease.

“What we’d very much like to make clear, even if we do have an extended time-frame lease with both parties, we by no means have the intention of stopping growth out there,” he said.

Decker asked if the land was leased to Pioneer Days and then the lease was terminated for just cause on either side, what about the infrastructure?

Bartel said Pioneer Days people had put a lot of time and thought into this issue and discussed a stock-equipment company called Prefert that installs rodeo arenas. Speaking to other counties in Montana, Bartel found out that Prefert has some money in their budget, has granted some funds to other counties, and installed an arena, complete with roping chutes and livestock pens. All of this infrastructure could be taken out of the ground and removed if an issue occurred, he said.

Holding the Lake County Fair and Pioneer Days in conjunction came up also. Moore said that would bring more people into town. Bartel agreed and added that 4-H and FF kids have come to Lake County Fair Board meetings asking to put Pioneer Days and the fair back together again.

“We’d get more folks coming in and more money in the sales,” Bartel said.

Moving forward with MREC

Barron brought up what he thinks might be an issue with MREC land, and that’s wetlands. There’s an area of the proposed complex that might qualify, he said. He also asked if Pioneer Days would be interested in buying out the county,

Meeting participants kicked around whether the land could be annexed by the city first so it could be sold government to government, whether the land needed to be appraised, whether commissioners could sell the property at 10 percent below appraisal price, or whether they could sell it for what they paid for it, which was $85,000, according to Aipperspach.

Pioneer Days already has skin in the game. According to Aipperspach, who was Ronan's mayor when MREC began two decades ago, the group put up $20,000 or $30,000 to pay for studies because the county said they had no money.

At the end of the meeting, Aipperspach asked, “Any interest in doing a lease and removing the ag restriction?”

“Honestly not,” Barron answered.

“One thing we do have in common is we’re tired of nothing being done with MREC,” Barron added. “I’d love to be able to see it in the city somehow.”

“So we'll do some researching and see what’s up with the wetlands, and wait until we're ready to do something,” Decker added.

“Quit talking, and get to doing,” encouraged Adler.