Fallon County Noxious Weed Board Minutes – October 2024
FALLON COUNTY WEED BOARD
October 16, 2024
Members in attendance: Amanda Frickel, Roddy Rost, Wanda Pinnow, Lance Kono, Sara Berger & Dave Kirschten
- Wanda moved to accept the minutes from the previous board meeting with fixing “Shawn” to “Shaun”, Amanda 2nd – motion passed
- Sara asked if we wanted to hold elections for a new vice chair tonight. Dave said that it might be best to wait for everyone to be here. Sara noted that normally elections are held in December. Roddy said that if elections are in December that it would be easiest to appoint an interim Vice Chair for now and hold regular elections for both Chair and Vice Chair in December.
- It was decided that Wanda will be Vice Chair until elections in December.
- Sara explained that the new budgets were approved the final numbers just were not on the budget sheets.
- Shaun Crisler was able to get to the shop on October 4th to fix the doors and seals. The total invoice was $1800.
- Sara gave a recap on the summer. The crew was able to get a lot of the roads done and a good chunk of BLM, State, DOT and County land along with some work for the City of Baker. All 3 of the seasonals have plans on coming back for the summer of 2025 and Sara has heard of 3 more than may apply. All the equipment worked great this year. There were a few pumps that quit at the end of the season but that’s to be expected. Sara did replace those. They only ran the 2 gators. The oldest one overheats too much currently to be of any use. Karissa will continue to work until the end of October. She and Sara are finishing up winterizing the equipment currently and then per the County Weed Management Plan they will spray the cattleguards so that is done.
- There was discussion on replacing the 2 oldest gators. One is a 2015 with 1378 hours on it and the other one is a 2016 with 1156 hours. Sara noted that at her commissioner meeting they said to trade in those 2 gators.
- Amanda moved that Sara looks into all brands of UTVs and we purchase 2 new ones for the department, Lance 2nd – Wanda added to the discussion of looking at all brands, all places, make sure that the UTVs have what we need to make spraying successful, and that Sara presents quotes when she has them – motion passed.
- Sara gave a report on the trainings that have happened and are coming up. Dillon hosted the annual MWCA Fall Managers Training which Sara attended online; Spray Days will be November 19th at the exhibit hall with 3 speakers and lunch provided and the MWCA Annual Conference will be held in Great Falls again at the end of January. She did note that the workshop that was supposed to take place in September with the Conservation District, NRCS and Extension didn’t get put on but that she would reach out and see if they were still planning the one for January/February.
- Roddy brought up an idea for a grant. He discussed the Poison Hemlock in town that has been moving out of town also. His idea was to work on education for a year and then move into a grant to help with cleaning the town and the creeks back up.
- Sara advised that Kevin Braun told her that there is now a BNSF office in Baker. Sara said that she would go down and meet them this winter and see if we can come to an agreement on the railroad right of way. She asked for at least one board member to go with her.
- Dave mentioned board training with Dan Clark might be something we want to look into in the future, so we know the rules and right way to hold our meetings.
- Roddy moved to adjourn the meeting at 7:37pm, Amanda 2nd.
s\ Roddy Rost (Chair) s\ Sara Berger (Secretary)
