REGULAR MEETING OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS

Tuesday January 18, 2022

          ALL PRESENT:  Commissioner Jones, Chair, Commissioners Ostlund and Pitman; Board Clerk Teri Reitz; Clerk and Recorder Jeff Martin.

          PLEDGE.

          Commissioner Jones asked if they are there any changes to the agenda? Commissioner Jones stated he would like to propose one thing.   Right now, we have this item on the agenda twice and one is the public hearing, and one is 2A on the Regular Agenda.  I think we should be able to combine that into just the public hearing, then we can take action after the public hearing.  Commissioner Jones made a MOTION I moved to take 2A out of the agenda, Commissioner Pitman seconded.  Commissioner Ostlund he would like to keep the two items separate, allow the public hearing first and the vote separate.  Commissioner Jones stated we don’t normally put them on two different times on the agenda.  We always have this one item, talk about it and then we vote, and we have discussion in between.  I don't see any reason to have two separate items.   Commissioner Ostlund stated that his original public hearing was for an opportunity for the public, Metra promoters and the event handlers to come in and discuss both options with board.  That was changed to this. I still think they are separate items.  Commissioner Pitman made MOTION to move 2A to right below the public hearing then are two separate issues, but everybody's still going to be in the room versus making everybody stay through the rest of the agenda, Commissioner Jones seconded.  Passed Unanimous.

Commissioner Jones stated that the first item on the agenda is a public hearing to discuss Request for Qualifications and Information Solicitation for MetraPark.  The Request for Qualifications and Information Solicitation is included in the packets so everyone should have a copy of it.  Commissioner Jones noted that before we get started, he wants to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to speak and be heard during this hearing, please address the Commissioner’s.  Dialogue will be allowed with the Commissioners at this meeting. Commissioner Jones asked everyone to be civil by not applauding.  We’d like to make it an environment where people are comfortable coming up and making their statements.  Commissioner Jones opened the Public Hearing.

9:30 a.m. PUBLIC HEARING – Public Hearing to Discuss Request for Qualifications and Information Solicitation for MetraPark.

Mr. Dan Brooks - I represent Billings Chamber of Commerce at 815 South 27^th Street. We come before you this morning and support, the proposal to go out and solicit additional information for management options of the MetraPark facility.  The chamber has seen in numerous other communities around the United States on our aspirational city visits, where options other than, direct public management, perhaps in privatization or, appointed authority, sort of a public private partnership has worked very well in other communities.  We're planning an additional aspirational city visit for later this year to Omaha, where they have a similar type of management of their venue, and we would invite you all to come and see how they do that.  We've taken elected officials on these trips before, so we thank those who have come with us in the past.  We look forward to seeing the options available for managing, whether it be remaining where we're at and making some edits to the current process or looking at a public private process for privatizing. We thank you for moving forward with looking at these various options for managing MetraPark.

Mark Morse, 5201 Moon Ridge Trail in Huntley. I would ask that you hire an independent evaluator to look at any proposals you received so you can get some fair and unbiased facts and figures on which to base your decision on the future management at MetraPark.  I have collected some signatures here today on a petition, and I'm going to send that around the room for anybody else who wants to sign it and we'll turn it in at the end of the meeting. 

Commissioner Jones - When you say independent evaluator, I guess I'm curious what that looks like. I've always believed, back from when I was in the legislature, that I always heard from both sides, and I had to take that information and weigh it and decide what was the best information and make that decision based on that.  Are you asking us to get an independent evaluator to make that decision for us?

Mark. Morse - Nope, you have the ultimate decision. I'm asking you to hire a third party to look at each proposal or any proposals you receive and for them to do a side-by-side analysis and give you a set of facts that's above board, transparent, open to the public, and everybody sees what facts and figures you use to make your decisions. 

Commissioner Jones - You're talking just about the RFQI and evaluating to see which one is appropriate.

Mark. Morse - Well, I think ultimately, I'm talking even further down the road, because right now you're doing a study Venture Management.  

Commissioner Jones - Venture Management just came in and actually did interviews with 20 people and they are putting together what Metra would like if we kept it the way it is currently. 

Mark Morse - Exactly, you’re going to have that proposal and then you’re going to have some proposals I am assuming for private management.  What I am asking you to do is get a company that can compare them for you and use whatever matrix they set up or you set up and it gives you a set of independent facts.  It's not the company saying here's what we're going to do for you. It's a third party that's looked at it that maybe has experience doing these things and can say here's how we grade each part of the matrix for each company. Commissioner Jones, okay.

Commissioner Pitman - What is this petition is for?

Mark Morse - We, the undersigned, request Yellowstone County Commissioners hire a consultant to study both options, privatization, and public management to MetraPark, to provide unbiased facts/figures for Commissioners to make an informed decision concerning the future of MetraPark management.

Commissioner Jones - When you say unbiased, I've never found somebody to be totally unbiased on a position. So, you know, that's the reason and I'll go back to the legislature, we got information from both sides, and we ultimately made the decision. So, any further discussion.

Jim Larson, I live at 2543. Burlington. I am opposed the privatization of MetraPark. I also have concerns that sitting commissioners can benefit from the privatization of Metra. I know that both Commissioner Pitman and Commissioner Jones have businesses that could benefit from the privatization of Metra.  I’ll address my comments to Commissioner Jones.  As the city of Billings has already addressed the massage parlors that Commissioner Pitman leased to.  Commissioner Jones, I know that you own Dickey's Barbecue and Billings, and your son owns the Dickey's Barbecue in Laurel.  I am concerned with your mode as a privatizing MetraPark. What assurances do the citizens of Yellowstone County have that a sitting county commissioner is not going to benefit financially from this action.  Are you willing to convey that you or no one in your family will bid to be a vendor or benefit financially from this action if passed? I do not have any issue with anyone making money, but it was wrong that you would use your position as an elected county commissioner for your personal gain. It's not ethical. 

Commissioners Jones - To clarify, my son does not know any of my Dickey’s. He's not involved in Dickey’s at all. So that's total misinformation. I've heard that around, I think staff, or somebody has been saying that I'm trying to take over concessions down at Metra, absolutely false, or that my son was going to, my son has nothing to do with any food thing.  He was involved at one point, that's been like 40 years ago and he hated the food industry.  Anybody that's concerned about my son coming and getting involved its absolutely not true. I don't have a trailer down there anymore, but I had that trailer there for, I think, five years in advance before I ever was even thinking about county commissioner.  That's not an issue. I have actually pulled my concession trailer out of there and I don't do any catering for Metra. I had been very specific on all the boards and everything else that I don't do catering.  I've drawn that very strict line past commissioners have catered.  I drew that line and I said, no, I'm not going to do catering for these events.  I've done that from the very beginning.  If you're going to challenge me on my ethical standards, that's not going to be an issue.

Commissioner Pitman - That's kind of a stretch and it's not true, but I'll just say I'm not financially benefiting.  There's no possible way to benefit.

Jim Larson - It's not true that you leased to massage parlors.

Commissioners Pitman – No, I do not lease to massage parlors. 

Jim Larson - You don’t now, but you did. 

Commissioner Jones - That's totally out of context and that was a totally separate issue.  That's throwing garbage at us and it's unwarranted.

Bill Dutcher - Good morning commissioners. I just wanted to clarify a couple things I do get the paper every day and watch the news.  And to clarify a couple of things, Don had mentioned Bill Dutcher anyway, 914 Yale Avenue, a citizen.  Don brought out about a missing money bag a few years ago in criticism of Metra management.  That money bag left with a courier transfer service and the money bag left the building.  It was between the former courier service and the bank where that money went to.  It did not end up at Metra, it was fully investigated by the finance and by the Sheriff's department.  Another comment was made the other day in criticism of Metra, and it mentioned, Denis, you mentioned having to pick up garbage. Last year on Martin Luther King Day, it was a weekend with 40, 50 and 60 mile an hour wind. Dennis went out on Martin Luther King Day when there was nobody working.  We were in the middle of COVID and had not had any events yet, right after that started high school basketball, Dennis chose to go and pick up all the garbage that had blown across main street from the city onto the fence, put the bags on the sidewalk, posted his pictures on Facebook and then left the garbage bags there for our guys to pick up and dump the next morning when they came to work.  I just would like to say one more thing since I read about these criticisms of Metra management, I've never heard this year, the fair mentioned, the fair is a third of the budget. You talk about being responsible to the taxpayers. This is one of the few facilities where the fair is at the same facility as the arena and the event services, not on opposite sides of the town as is most cities in the country have, and this year's fair with one staff that works all year long.  The fair expenses were 1.6 million, the revenue was 2.2 million. The fair made $600,000.  I have not heard that mentioned once this year that the fair made any money and I think that is being very responsible to the taxpayers of Yellowstone County.

Commissioner Jones - Mr. Dutcher was that money ever found?

Bill Dutcher - Nobody ever found money and the bank downtown didn't have a camera on that. 

Commissioner Jones - Mr. Dutcher did you pursue to get the money back from the bank or the courier?  Metra was out that money, right?

Bill Dutcher - The money left the building, and it was not from anything that happened with MetraPark. 

Connor Lorenz, 6339 Canyonwoods Drive.  I came here to ask questions because I've been having trouble meeting up with, you specifically, Commissioner Pitman.  Supposedly it's illegal for me to discuss stuff with you within the same week that I meet with another commissioner.  I just want to put that on the record that that was said in a Facebook message between the Commissioner Pitman and myself. I'm going to start this out with the Oakview Group because that's obviously a main concern that I have here.  I have a question for the three of you guys.  It's a bit rhetorical, I'm not going to lie, but does the Metra have any existing contracts with OVG at this point and time? 

Commissioner Jones - Yes. 

Connor Lorenz - When was that contract signed?

Commissioner Jones - I don't know.  

Commissioner Ostlund – It was signed July 20th.

Connor Lorenz - Do you know who was on the negotiating committee for all of that?

Commissioner Jones - Commissioner Ostlund or Commissioner Pitman do you know who was on the negotiating committee? 

Commissioner Ostlund - It was the result of a request for qualifications for a company that would come in and do a booking agreement with MetraPark.  We solicited that through our Purchasing Agent and met with them and they did a book arrangement agreement, and I have some comments about that later. 

Connor Lorenz - Since the contract was signed with OVG have you guys benefited directly or indirectly from that contract? 

Commissioner Jones - I don't know that we can really tell that, but indirectly, I would say yes, we have, because they're very tied in with Live Nation. There's a whole bunch of different ties that go out and I don't know that you can say that I think just having them on contract has actually spurred a lot more business. 

Connor Lorenz started asking another question.

Commissioner Jones - I'm going to ask you to wait until I'm finished before you start speaking. So, I don't know that you can say whether it was indirectly or directly.  Directly, I'm not sure that we have, but indirectly, I would absolutely say that there's been a benefit there for the contract.

Connor Lorenz - How many shows has OVG booked for the Metra? 

Commissioner Jones - I have no idea, none that I am aware of. 

Connor Lorenz - None that I am aware of as well.  Has Metra paid out funds to OVG?

 Commissioner Jones - They're doing that calculation, so I'm not really sure.  

Connor Lorenz – Ok, so with all the lack of results is that still like, this is still the direction that you guys would like to take MetraPark is towards privatization towards using another company where they're indirectly benefiting us possibly, but there's not really any concrete, direct benefit that's been seen, by working with any sort of outside company.

Commissioner Jones - This just barely started. I mean, we're into our, I think our first quarter.  We need to get the wheels underneath it and get the scheduling and everything we can't judge it at this point. 

Connor Lorenz - I agree that it's just started and that's the issue that I kind of have with all of this is the first public meeting on all of this was November 1st.  Did any of you commissioners have any discussions about privatization before that November 1st, 2021, date? 

Commissioner Jones - On August 9th, there was a discussion, and it was actually added to an agenda that should not have been on the agenda, but August 9th, we did actually have a discussion and it was in a public meeting.  It was not put on the agenda, so it was actually an illegal item on the agenda that was added on by Commissioner Ostlund and it was actually discussed at that point, and we actually did have a discussion because it was thrown at us. And I'll tell you the quote from Commissioner Ostlund.  “In the past, we had spent a lot of time looking at private management and all the research and Bill, you probably still got it.  It's never worked out anywhere it has ever happened.”  Commissioners Jones noted that we have cases all over the place where it's worked out.  Commissioner Jones also stated that Commissioner Ostlund said it decimates those groups when you go to management contracts, and you lose control of your arena, and it doesn't work financially.  Commissioner Jones states he looked at two places where it does work and works financially.  That was down in Casper, Wyoming and in Boise Idaho, and they're all over the place. 

Commissioner Ostlund – I’m going to comment on that because that's not completely accurate. There was no public discussion about that. That was brought up as a result of a lot of Metra employees and staff feeling threatened with their job because Commissioner Pitman had made some comments to the Metra employees about privatization and losing their job.  I brought the Metra employees in, and I asked Commissioner Jones and Pitman if there have there been discussions about privatizing MetraPark and Commissioner Pitman didn't say anything and Commissioner Jones said no, there have been no discussions about privatizing MetraPark at that point. That was the conversation.

Connor Lorenz – Are the Casper and Boise facilities multi-use facilities? 

Commissioner Jones - Casper is not, Boise actually is, and it's got a 12,000-seat arena and a 10,500-seat theater. Mr. Lorenz tries to interrupt Commissioner Jones.  Commissioners Jones stated let me finish talking.  He also stated that Boise has a huge equine center in the back which is incredible and does all kinds of different events. 

Connor Lorenz - Is the Casper facility a multi-use facility? 

Commissioners Jones – No.

Connor Lorenz – I wouldn’t compare the two of those.  I am here to advocate for transparency.  Do any of you possess a beer/wine or alcohol license? 

Commissioner Jones - That's not an appropriate question. 

Connor Lorenz – It is. 

Commissioner Jones - No, actually we're talking about the request for qualifications. 

Connor Lorenz - What about the privatization of Metra and being transparent about it?  That's something that myself as a local promoter had issues with is the lack of transparency, sir.

Commissioner Jones – I own a restaurant beer and wine license. I don't compete with Metra. Believe me.  Why are you asking these questions?  They're starting to get personal. Move on to what this is about.

Connor Lorenz – I was just looking for clarification on that, sir. Mr. Lorenz stated I apologize, have a good day. Thank you. 

Commissioner Pitman - Mr. Lorenz asked about why we couldn't have met together. The simple fact is open meeting laws. You can't do chain meetings. You can't call me and say, I want to visit with you and call Commissioner Ostlund and visit with him.  When he noticed that Commissioner Ostlund had put that he was meeting with you, that’s when I said, if you're going to talk about the same thing, you actually have to bring into a discussion and talk to all three of us. You can't have, and you did meet with Mr. Ostlund, and you did have that meeting.  I don't know what you talked about, but had you had the same lunch with me and had the same conversation. That's where you start violating. You start making a chain meeting and that just can't happen. So that's why my conversation with you was to come to the discussion. If you want to do that, if you want to have a private conversation with Commissioner Ostlund so you can load up the questions like you did that's fine you can do that. You just can't do it with all three of us separately.

Commissioner Jones - So next person please. Okay.

Shelli Mann 1006 Mary Street, up here in the Heights.  I am your constituent. I am also the general manager of the Boot Hill Inn.  Just a side note, I have visited that Boise event center on numerous occasions and visited with the hotel managers close by and they are busy every day.  Their calendar is packed.  I am here to urge you to move forward with the consideration of privatizing the management of the Metra.  For any business to remain competitive, we need to constantly analyze how we operate.  If the Metra is to remain as is, we could argue that you're doing okay, but when Vision 2025 comes to a reality, the operations are going to have to change to ensure that we can maximize the potential of the Metra, both short-term and long-term. So, as we look into the future, the real question here is not how well we have done, but how much better can we do? I ask that you consider all the options that are available to make our Metra the best that it can be.  Thank you.

Commissioner Ostlund - Shelli considering all the options, would it be fair to say that a third-party review of both public and private management in facilities like the Metra might be in order so that we know both the good and the bad of both options so that we don't overlook something for the taxpayers?

Shelli Mann - I don't know enough about that to speak.  My initial thought is that's more money for the taxpayers. Those things don't come cheap.  The other consideration is as Commissioner Jones says, can we find someone who is truly unbiased, but I would not be opposed to that.

Commissioner Ostlund - Well, we're spending a lot of money right now to look up one side.

Shelli Mann - Well, I can't speak to that Commissioner.  I spoke to how I feel about it. I have been working with the Metra for over 20 years and, I thank you for all that you guys have done. You guys are busy. And as we look at Vision 2025, you're not going to have time. And one other point of misinformation that I believe is out there, is that a private company coming in would fire all the existing staff.  That doesn't happen and I've talked with numerous event centers, and they have all indicated to me that that didn't happen. Those companies came in and maintained the proper staff until, you know, the future if things happen, we were all employers. We know that things happen. But I do think that that's important to clarify any other questions?  Thank you.

Aubrey Kincaid, 607 Yellowstone Avenue.  I have a couple of questions. What are the general steps leading up to a request for proposal? 

Commissioner Pitman - What we're doing right now, we've been having the meetings and asking for questions.

Aubrey Kincaid - Okay.  Would there be some steps or guidelines for it, though, right?  As far as how it's supposed to be done.  

Commissioner Jones – We put it together and right, it goes through legal, it goes through purchasing and everything else.

Aubrey Kincaid - Were those steps followed in the RFP offerees by Commissioner Pitman on November 1st, 2021? 

Commissioner Jones - What are you referring to?

Aubrey Kincaid - On November 2021, when there were offerees on the request for proposal, did you follow the protocol for an RFP. 

Commissioner Pitman - As far as I know we did. 

Aubrey Kincaid - Why do three past commissioners who all manage the Metra all oppose privatization?

Commissioner Jones - You know, I think they spelled it out on what they said, but what I would contend, and we actually got a letter from a constituent that said, you know, the past, I'm glad to see somebody actually looking at this and saying, hey, why don't we look at what the future should look like.  They actually went after Commissioner Ostlund and said, you know, you've been here for the last 20 years. We've had to tear down all these buildings and everything else. This was a letter from a person that had actually been told that we were going to kick out his event. I can send it to you if you'd like, he actually stated that, he had been told that all dirt vents were going to go away and that there are no more ag.  He also stated I got on and actually watched the program and he said that it was all lies and Commissioner Jones commented it was all lies.  That constituent said let's look at both sides. 

Aubrey Kincaid - If the Metra were to be privatized, would there still be taxpayer liability or would it all be on the private companies who are coming in? 

Commissioner Jones - That's the reason we're going through this process.  Commissioner Jones also stated that's a question that will definitely be answered is where is that liability now?   How much are they at risk? But it isn't, we're not privatizing MetraPark, we're privatizing management.  So, I keep hearing people say, privatizing, MetraPark, everything that I've seen that as far as private management, like pricing; pricing must be approved by the commissioners.  Commissioners aren't out of the picture. They're still, you know, working with this management company and making decisions, but that's all part of this RFQI in looking and saying, okay, what do we get out of this? And what don't we, and that's the reason it'll be, I'm interested to see what these agreements would look like and figure out whether it would work or not.  I really don't know that we have a lot of moving pieces at Metra. 

Commissioner Ostlund – I think I can provide a better answer for that. MetraPark facility is public, it's owned by the public. This proposal was for private management. If it works for a private management, the commissioners will have to set aside money for CIP and maintenance of the buildings.  The buildings are going to be public, and the taxpayers are going to be responsible for them. Public ownership of MetraPark will never go away. 

Aubrey Kincaid -The taxpayer would be responsible for the building and the maintenance of the new facility.

Commissioner Ostlund - Ultimately, they are on the hook, whether this works or not.

Commissioner Jones - I think the answer to your question is that that's going to be figured out in this RFQI at the end of the day. 

Aubrey Kincaid - Thank you.

Mike Mayott on 123 Lewis Avenue. I will state that, from my comments, I am a member of the MetraPark Advisory Council, and I'm speaking as an individual and not on behalf of that council. I have absolutely no problem with looking into how MetraPark should be managed. My issue is that we're in the middle of working on a master plan and it would be my thought that this decision, as far as it'd be privately managed or publicly managed, should be done within the master plan and not in a way that's being done at this point, as we bring the master plan together, we can present to the public, to the commissioners, the entire 360, look at it saying, okay, this is our recommendation and how we should go forward and then leave it to the commissioners in this body to make that decision on how to go forward.  Thank you very much for your time. I appreciate it. 

Commissioner Pitman - I guess with that, how does that different than what we're doing?  Because in all the surveys we've been discussing this for two years with, with the vision, the plan and part of every survey has always come up making sure the management and the division of upkeep are all part of the plan, it's been an integral part of it.  I guess, you know, it's the chicken and egg, but at the same time, we've got to be moving forward.  I don't know how else to do it, then, the way we're doing it. 

Mike Mayott - I think it should have been done in cooperation with the MetraPark Advisory Board and not with the Commissioners going out on their own and saying, coming back, saying, oh, I just went and did this.  It should have been a concerted effort. It should have been within our programming. It should have been a step-by-step, so everybody was involved in the process, and I feel that part is out. I like this part, what we're talking about today. I don't think we are ready for this to be in front of the public at this point.  Again, my personal feeling. I'm not speaking for the board. 

Commissioner Jones - We were moving down this track pretty quick, we kept hearing the management at Metra was a big issue on all the surveys and everything else. It said management of Metra is an issue.  We're going to add on a 12,000 seat, I mean, you know, amphitheater, we're going to do all this stuff.  It was something that we need to look at. I can tell you that every time this could become an issue anywhere, it becomes this, hostile. I mean, it's crazy.  I realized that going into it. So, the reason I went, and I took a tour down to Casper, and I didn't tell either one of the commissioners, I did it on my own, and that was the reason I did it. Because if it didn't make sense, I wasn't even going to step. I wasn't going to go down this road at all. After hearing Commissioner Ostlund's comments that it didn't work anywhere. I thought I need to look into this a little bit more. And that's, that's where I met, you know, the general manager down there for a while.  Then I took Rick Reid a Metrapark Advisory Board. I don't know if he’s here, it's been in the newspaper. You know, he went down there with me to take a look at it.  As we were driving down there, it was really interesting because we had to tell, I mean, we both said, okay, if the general manager wants to be in these meetings, I'm going to meet the employees and everybody else we would ask him to leave.  He actually didn't stick around at all. So, I did that and then everything came out and I said, you know, this is a viable option. And then, so I went down to Boise by myself and actually did the tour down there. The reason I didn't do that is because I would've found something really negative there, I probably would've said I'm not even going to go down this avenue. So once that happened, that's when I went ahead and moved forward and said that, you know, this is something we need to look at and what I expected and what happens in every community happened here. 

Mr. Mayott commented that he hoped you don't feel like he was being hostile this morning. 

Commissioner Jones responded not you are not being hostile, and I have the utmost respect for you Mike.

Jim Soumas, 6855 Trailake Drive, stated I have some, some questions, especially with some of the dialogue that's occurred this morning.  If the buildings and the maintenance of those buildings are going to remain as public or publically controlled and not as part of the private management, if we go that direction, then would the maintenance crew that currently takes care of those still remain as, Yellowstone County employees, full-time employees? That's one question I'm not sure that we've asked. I think that's something that needs to be considered in the RFQI as well as.  We have currently 18 full-time employees down there known as the maintenance crew, you guys are under a contract for a labor agreement until 2024, with those members.  Can there be a separation?  If that maintenance is going to continue and be publicly funded, and shouldn't those employees that do the maintenance remain, Yellowstone County employees and not be disturbed. My next question then would be, can I get a commitment from you, three commissioners that as this progresses, no matter which direction it goes, will you come to the table and sit down and discuss the future of those 18 full-time positions that are down there?  You are under a contract labor agreement now, but when you just, you know, depending on which way this goes, will you come sit down to the table with the Teamsters and discuss and negotiate, what their future is going to be. 

Commissioner Jones stated, I'm looking to legal too, because my, my answer is yes, but I want to make sure that I can say yes. 

Jeana Lervick, Chief Deputy Attorney for Yellowstone County stated, yes. 

Mr. Soumas, stated I just want to make sure we have that commitment.  Commissioner Jones stated absolutely.

Kevin Richeson, 4550 Clapper Flat Road, Laurel Montana. I am a taxpayer and employee with MetraPark Yellowstone County for nine years, and I own my own small business. A lot of the things I wanted to hit on have already been hit.  My first question is, are you giving the public back tax dollars since the private company won't need as much, or will you send it someplace else?  

Commissioner Jones - That's something that we haven't discussed, and we'll have to look at. 

Kevin Richeson - We all know you're not going to give it back. It's pretty, sorry.

Commissioner Jones - You know, when we're looking at that, there's a lot of capital needs sitting down there for sure.  So, you know how that all plays out in the revenue that comes back. If they start paying us revenue back then we probably in, in Boise, they actually wrote a check to the, to the city, after they took it over, you know, we'll have to take a look at that.  It would definitely be something that we would have to. 

Kevin Richeson - Second question.  You talked about the management of MetraPark, has there been any reprimands towards the management that was there now or existing or in the past to change this?   You have been a commissioner for how many years now? Don?

 Commissioner Jones - Three years. 

Kevin Richeson - Three years you've decided management's been bad.  Have we been reprimanding the management down there? You are ultimately their boss. 

Commissioner Pitman – Asked if this is a personnel issue? 

Jeana Lervick Chief Deputy County Attorney - You can answer the question “in general”.

 Commissioner Pitman - Yes.

Kevin Richeson - Have any changes been made to the management at MetraPark, if management hasn’t been good, why haven’t any changes been made? 

Commissioner Jones - There's been ongoing discussions for at least two years. 

Kevin Richeson - Well, that's a lot of years with nothing being done. I mean, I know my little company that I have, if something's wrong with it, I don't wait two, three years down the road to change it. I get it changed right away.  If you saw MetraPark wasn't doing good you would think you'd jump on it. As far as the money bags being missing was there any reprimand on that to the MetraPark? 

Jeana Lervick - That is specifically a personnel issue. 

Kevin Richeson - In other words, probably not, but I'll just keep my opinion on that.  That's way above my pay grade.  Third, fourth or fifth, we had a chance to get Brad Murphy here. Did we not?  

Commissioner Jones - Yes. 

Kevin Richeson - He was our number one pick for the assistant general manager.

 Commissioner Jones - Yes. 

Kevin Richeson - We could not come to terms apparently above my pay grade, but this is all what I've heard. So don't call me a hundred percent.  Why are we so after him now, if we didn't try to get them before, then you said at the last meeting and you thought he was great, he was the guy you wanted pretty much.

Commissioner Jones - I didn’t know we were after him.  My understanding is he probably wouldn't come here and he actually, he turned it down before we even made an offer to him. He actually said, I, I want to stay in the private.  I've done both.  I think the private is a better way to go and better way to manage a facility, he turned it down because of that reason.  We never got into negotiations on salary or anything else.  That was his opinion.

Kevin Richeson - We just had Fluffy here for people that don't know the comedian Fluffy came out of Boise.  Fluffy was six hours late. Private management could not staff to get them out of Boise quick enough to get them here on time. That's what private management does. They hire part-time people and cannot staff and that's why Fluffy was late, which caused us a lot of grief, a lot of pain. Mr. Pitman had to go help out. Private can't do it in my opinion.  Lastly, I would like to make a note that we had the carnival lot project going on. This has nothing to do with it, but I want to put it out there. It was in progress. We've had the money being the engineer there. I know a lot about the construction, Commissioner Pitman and Commissioner Jones, put a halt on that.  Everybody at that meeting came in and said it was a bargain deal of the century to restart that project and finish it, cost the taxpayers over $250,000 more than what it would have been in the beginning. That's a lot of my tax money going to waste in my mind by that decision. I just want to make sure that same bad decision isn’t made now for my fellow employees, but the taxpayer is Billings, Montana.  Thank you.

Commissioner Jones - Let's go back to that decision that we made, and that was right in COVID and there was a whole bunch of stuff going on. Nobody really knew what was going to happen. And the other thing that I did do was actually reach out in the meantime and talk to the architect that was doing the master plan and said, is there any way that the new, the new master plan and everything could encroach on that parking lot?  He said, no.  Well, just recently and I should have, I actually should have stayed with my vote and not moving forward because just recently the architects stated it would be nice if that wasn't sacred land and we could actually do something that's so there's a lot of decisions going on there that could have happened.

George Maragos, 990 Senators Boulevard.  I stand before you I'm wearing three hats today, I'm currently Chairman of the Board for the TBID in Billings and, also the General Manager of the Northern Hotel, and finally, a private citizen.  My three hats are all in favor of privatization of Metra.  My experience and my industry have given me the opportunity to do, to help design and build convention centers and arenas for private and public use.  That experience has shown me that privatization works. Thank you.

Rick Hamilton.  I'm actually from Park City, but I'm here representing the Nile as its president elect and the general manager.  As you know, we've been renting the facilities for three years.  Our events, various events occupy the facilities for over two weeks a year and so we're very concerned about the management of, of MetraPark.  You know, this is an RFP, there shouldn't be a conflict of this.   This is just a request for information. Look at the people you have. That tells me that there's a transparency issue and a trust issue, right? From our standpoint, I believe we've had more conversations with OVG than we have with any of your staff, or any of the commissioners about how the Metra's ran, how are affects our facilities and our events?  I think that if I was you guys, I would be very concerned about the responses you're getting, because there's obviously a trust issue and a transparency issue. That's an issue. It's going to be an issue going forward as you try to move forward with the expansion.  There's going to be some bond issues going to be involved in that.  If there is a transparency and lack of trust issue, you're going to have an uphill battle to try and get that done. So, I would encourage you to take note what's going on here today. Realize that there's a real transparency and a trust issue between the public and you.  Personally, I'm not all against privatization.  I don't have really an opinion, there's plus and minuses of both of them.  I am anxious to see the results of your study, but just because of the background going into it, I think you're going to have a difficult problem, no matter which way you go.  I would encourage you to try to be more transparent and try to build that trust back to the public, because there's a serious issue out there.

Commissioner Jones - I totally agree with you Mr. Hamilton. You're right. Um, there's a lot of it. There's been a lot of lies out that have been thrown at us. And I don't know how you, I mean, so, you know, the transparency, we're trying to be transparent. We're having this meeting here, to hear more comments. And when we really are going down two tracks, we want to look at both sides.  The venue management came in and they did it. It was really, I think they're going to do a great job.

Rick Hamilton - I interviewed with them as well.

Commissioner Jones - You did awesome. And I think they're a very competent group.

Rick Hamilton - I think the transparency, the trust has start with you three folks, right?

Commissioner Jones - Well, it does, but if, you know, people saying lies in the newspaper and everything else about it, it's hard to.

Rick Hamilton - Because of that, it wasn't presented well at the beginning, you know, it came across as a foregone conclusion that possibly this is already a done deal.  I don't think it was the case, particularly. I think there was some negotiation done there, but I don't know. I say we been left out of that whole conversation.  I know this is just about the management deal, but even to go back and you've kind of muddied the waters by combining the master plan with the privatization.  I think they are two separate issues actually, but now, because they're together, it's muddy.   Because you don't know where it's at.  We have been left out of any conversation with the master plan.  We were just recently invited to visit with Perkins and Will your current designer by the OVG Group, not from any of your staff, not from Metra staff, but an outside company that really doesn't have a position yet.  That's interesting to me that that's the direction it would have come from that. Not from you. It came from an outside source. You need to tell these folks what you need, what you need to make major events work. You know, we've had to ship part of our event offsite because we no longer can have MetraPark.  If facilities no longer will allow us to do it, we can't grow.  Those are issues. So, the privatization, I'm not against it. I mean, I've visited with the OVG.  Their great people. I see some things, obviously their salespeople, they can promise you the moon. I mean, they have nothing to stand by.  Then their current management, they have their standby.  It's difficult.  Do you understand what I'm saying there?

Commissioner Jones - I do.  I've been on the commission three years as somebody just pointed out and I know two times the NILE has come to us and said, we're struggling with the contract and wanting to get the commissioners involved.  So, I know you guys have had struggles.

Rick Hamilton - Absolutely.

Commissioner Jones - I did just so you know, I did reach out to the previous president before he left and I did have a conversation with him.

Rick Hamilton - We appreciate the relationship. I mean, we've been there 53 years. I'm over your longest continuous renter and our rents over a quarter of a million dollars a year.  I think that we have some place at the table that we're not really getting and then to get information from a third party is concerning to us.

Commissioner Jones - Right.  As I told your president, your previous president, NILE is critically important to this community. I mean, we talked about the Boot Hill Inn, when I drive through the parking lot, Nile is going on there's license plates from everywhere.  I like looking at license plates and know where everybody coming from. I mean, we're bringing in outside dollars and I love bringing in outside dollars to Metra, to the community. And that's what it's all about.  As far as I'm concerned personally, and just me, NILE will always have a place in that Metra, we'll make sure of that.

Rick Hamilton - That's not really the message that we're getting be honest with you.  The master plan is not conducive to us, but we're getting off topic. This isn't really about the master plan, right? This is about privatization, but right now they're the same issue you put them together, unfortunately, because in my mind, would have been better to have that privatization issue and have it work a couple of years and say okay, this is working. Now it’s time for us to expand to a bigger facility, but now we put it all lumped in together in one and it has made it very cloudy when I was saying about that.  We're not against, we don't have a position one way or the other.  It's interesting that I don't think anybody from your staff has asked us about the previous management of Metra.  I don't have any record of us ever testifying or anything about what our thoughts were about your previous management, which I find interesting until the interview I had following Denis after that Wednesday or Thursday.  If I can say anything at all, I think if we can get some transparency and some trust, that would be huge going forward.

Commissioner Jones - Absolutely.

Commissioner Pitman – So, congratulations, are you now the current president?

Rick Hamilton - I will be at the end of the month.

Commissioner Pitman - So you're the person to talk to you now?

Rick Hamilton - I'm also the general manager right now.  I'm actually filling two shoes.  We're in a unique position where the general manager and the board are actually running the events that we have right now, where you got four events on the works. We’ve got the MATE at Metra coming up. We have the Nile coming up. We have lots of events coming up, PBR, coming up that we're involved with. So, we have a lot of events going on at the MetraPark all year round.  So, we are very concerned about the management. And when you get this report, I would hope that it will be put down at face value so that we can see it at face value and get some input from us.  Because I'll be totally candid here, I think, and this is my personal opinion, you guys are trying to weigh down to public so then we lose interest, and you can just vote it through. I don't know, but that's, that's the perception that we're getting on the outside that there's a preconceived, a decision already made to go private and you're just waiting for the time to come when you get the least amount of pushback.  Right or wrong, I'm just telling you that's the perception that we are seeing.  It is as an illustration that, that lack of trust, lack of transparency.

Commissioner Jones - Absolutely.  I do want to say just on a personal level, you just sold your business and now you're jumping right back into something else.

Rick Hamilton - I wasn't quite ready to retire yet.  I think I'm not very good at retirement, I guess.  I've been a member of NILE for my entire life, and I have very deep roots there. I want it to succeed, and I have a lot of memories at MetraPark. I drove my first car at MetraPark. I did a lot of my firsts at MetraPark over the years.  I don't want you to discuss them all here, but so I have deep feelings for both MetraPark and the Nile.  I want them here another 50 years, but like now we don't feel like there's a place at that table for us.

Commissioner Pitman - I just want to follow up. I think just even being here, being part of the interview process, being part of, I mean, I think Nile has been part of the conversation, how much they have been at the table or how much you've been engaged I don't know that. If there's issues that come up and you don't feel you're at the table, I think just reach out to us and ask more than just one commissioner that you reach out to you. And if that means sending something and putting it on an agenda, bringing it as a topic to us, we have it here.

Rick Hamilton - Thank you.

Lesli Glen, 3060 Farley Lane in Lockwood.  As you all know, and some of the, in the audience know I've been involved with Metra since I was a kid and business-wise for well over 25 years, I am a part of the NILE. I help run the horse events. I am a volunteer there, so I'm like Rick.  I don't know how to quit. And we also put on a couple of events with our horse clubs, with horse shows.  Also, my husband is the chair of the friends of NRA.   We put a banquet on there not to mention the things that my businesses do there.  Rocky Mountain Compost, we provide all the livestock bedding.  I'm not going to bring up a lot of things that I have written down, I've got a nice page here, if I actually read it, it's pretty amazing.   The fact is that there are a lot of points that people brought up today. I understand the businesses that stood up here and said, they believe in privatization. I get it. I own three companies. I can see a benefit to privatization.  My worry is the process. Again, the transparency, some of the attitudes of the commissioners towards other commissioners I feel is very unprofessional.  I'm actually glad that there are some people here that are saying privatization because we've been accused of packing the area because of John, because we believe in the facility.  We believe in what we use it for. We want to be accounted for. There's been a lot of years that we were never listened to. I cannot tell you how many years that as a horse show, we went down there a week before and brought boards and nails and hammers and fixed everything just so we did not have horses injured.  That's a huge thing.  Some of the comments between commissioners, I'm disappointed to hear. I'm disappointed to hear that because yes, you're going to have two against one, no matter what, there's three of you, but respect goes a long way and when the public hears the disrespect, our trust is gone in that.  I understand we all have feelings, but I would like you as commissioners because unfortunately you're not allowed to have a lot of feelings in public. It's not your job. Your job is to make sure that you are doing the right thing, and, in the transparency, we would like, and I'm sure we're all saying this.  Yes, you're going to make the final decision, but there needs to be a comparison and we want to see it. What we want to see is are the Metra guys going to be part-timers because I'm concerned about that because they set up my arena for the safety of the animals that I bring down there for cattle. You're now putting a building where my cattle go for my horse show.  We now have to figure out how that's going to work. So those are things that we talk about and were ignored. I need you as commissioners to do the right thing, make sure that all these points that we've all talked about, because if I still, as a taxpayer, have to pay for all these repairs, and I'm not seeing a profit going back into the facility because it's privatized, there's going to be an issue because as a business owner, I'm going to say, wait a second, where did all the money go?  I also have one thing I'm going to say, I'm a little disappointed that you asked Bill, how come you didn't check to see where the money was, at that point in time, it goes above him.  It goes to the commissioners to find out because you guys all have your hand in the pot, don't just blame one man for not finding out where the money is because he's got a boss above him.  I can tell you if I was missing money, it's me, not my employees.  I think that was disingenuous to say that to Bill.  I also just want to make sure, I have a lot of points here, but a lot of everybody else has said what I'm saying. Those are my main concerns. I can't always say I'm definitely against something because I can have my mind changed but it's how you present it. And it makes a huge difference to the public because we're kind of dealing with a lot in our country of being lied to and put under the rug.  Let's not do that here in Yellowstone County, where we have the ability to talk. You guys know who I am. I haven't heard one word from you guys.  John always answers and talks to me.  I'm open to your suggestions, but you have to, you know, I understand you're not going to call everybody but there are certain people in this room that are always down there and always doing things and you can get a feeling for what we're talking about.  There's a lot of other points I can do, but I'm sure there's other people in here that have those too.  Thank you for your time.

Commissioner Jones - Thank you.

Morning folks. Jim Reno used to work around here.  There's a lot of smart people here and I got here late.  Now, I'll tell you why.  I don't want to repeat anything that’s been said. See that, that's the test kit.  Got it at MetraPark.  It was beautiful. The upper lot had strings of cars and worked so smoothly.  The facility was great and when they started moving the cars, boom, it worked great.  I don't think MetraPark made any money this morning.  Gee, the facility was nice.  That's why the owners of the facility, I think, expected to be used that way once in a while without a profit.  I can't say enough good things about my experience this morning. Of course, I don't know how the test is going to come out.  There's a lot of smart people around here and most of them I suspect are from the private sector where you see I'm a stockholder down there too.  Everybody in this room is a stockholder.  They own the facility.  Now every two years we elect part of the board of directors, like you folks to manage it.  We hired a manager 40 years ago and did all right with that one.  His personality isn’t that great be he’s a good manager.  Give it a look but I think part of the concern is you started looking before you asked the owners what they want. Then, finally if you're knocking down any more buildings at Metra make sure you have the money to pay for them before you knock them down anymore. That's it for me?  I'm going to go on and take a test.

Commissioner Jones - Mr. Reno, we didn't knock any buildings down that weren't unsafe.  It was kind of scary how bad of shape they were in.  Leaving them there would not have been safe.

Jim Reno – You should go out and talk to the stock owners, tell them what you're doing so they don't drive over the overpass and look at a big piece of equipment trying to knock down that grandstand.  I am curious on what the final cost was on that grandstand demo versus the bid.  I mean, they spent some time in that sucker.

Commissioner Jones – They did, and it was not cheap, but we did have quite a few meetings as we were looking at that.  We had different user groups that were coming in saying don't tear it down.  It was a tough decision.  Thank you very much.

Scott Chesarek 5301 Travertine Boulevard.  I would say there's pros and cons for all sides of the argument.  I'm not going to say which one's best.   I just want you guys to be careful from a business standpoint, I'm a businessman and that's what I worry about.  A big question I have is like the legal documents that you'll have to sign if it's privatized.  I know you're dealing with mainly one company, there's only a couple in the country that are going to bid on it anyway.  I was also in a meeting with them, it was a decent meeting.  I felt kind of odd that one of the companies that can bid on it is in town already soliciting meetings with people that have events, and I'm involved in an event that’s been there for 27 years.  It seemed odd, that they were approaching us, to visit early when nobody's been awarded anything.  I think that also comes with what the gentlemen from the NILE said is, you know, the carts getting ahead of the horse in certain areas here and I think the public is really worried about that.  I would also agree with the lady that just spoke is that I I'm kind of bummed out that the three of you who are all bright individuals, can't put your head together and get along and figure out a path to solve this when you guys, well, that doesn't look good for our county are the three guys running it.  I have nothing against any of the three of you.  It's an incredibly tough job that you have, but you need to get your act together and start working together.  I really think you owe that to the taxpayers.  The only main question I had is on the paperwork and that's what I want you to take your time before you get into this.  The company that came and talked to us said, I believe the number may not be exactly accurate, but they control 178 buildings in the country already 176 or 178, or at least that's what we were told in the meeting.  That's a lot of buildings, so I would definitely make sure your lawyer has some serious time to prepare and maybe even solicit some outside legal help that's really qualified in this area before you sign a contract and nothing against your legal help, but this is a pretty major thing.  Do they have a bond in place to where if they do go south were covered for the current years, rent or maintenance or whatever you know is in the contract?  I don't know what kind of bond they have to put up, but something like this, I would imagine there's one to protect the county.  I've heard some situations where when a private companies left there they didn't leave properly, and it cost the facility some money. That's a concern.  The other concern I have is that the guy in the meeting, we were with agreed and said there will become competition. One of their big selling points is that when they control 170 some of these buildings, that they can cut huge national advertising deals and that they bring those advertisers into the building to help make their side of it profitable.  The event we put on, we probably have 80 different major sponsors from our community.  We don't have national sponsors and I brought up the idea of advertising to them, and I said, what's going to happen when, you know, they talked about electronic billboards, there'll be put up that they'll do a lot advertising.  Casper has one, they made a point to say that thing has been hugely successful.  It's brought in another half a million dollars was the number he stated because of the advertising.  I said, but what about when that competes against my local sponsor and he said, we're going to end up colliding on that, aren't we?  He said, you're right, we will.  Be careful about the advertising stuff in your contract, because the event we put on takes a ton of sponsors and without some of those, then we have to look at, is it profitable enough to do?  If we have a competing sponsor locally and we lose them, because someone on the billboard or something competes, that'll be major.  Please look at that is what I'm asking you, it's a big deal.  That was all I wanted to bring up.

Commissioner Jones - Absolutely. Great input. Thank you very much.

Commissioner Pitman - Your mean question was making sure we go through legal. It wasn't, a mean, question, that's a valid, legitimate question.  I don't think our legal staff takes offense to that we want as many people looking at this.

Scott Chesarek - Well, if they control 178 buildings, you got to know they got a whole staff of attorneys that are, that are well-versed in this.  You just got to be careful and take your time. That's the big thing. I think everybody wants to see you guys slow-down that company's not going anywhere.  They will be here to bid on it next year, just go through the right process. Make sure all your ducks in a row.  If it's best for the community to try it, then that's fine.  I don't think any private company in America right now. I'm not worried for the people in here who could work there. Now, if they're a decent employee, they're going to be there with this company, period.  There are not enough good employees around Yellowstone County for all of the businesses that are here.  I believe their jobs will be fine if they are productive now and are when the new company comes in, I think they'll be safe.  So, I mean, those are the pros and cons.  Some people are for and against it, and I'm going to stay out of that.  I'm just telling you, you know, being up front, being slow, being honest and doing some good research, surely won't hurt the community. Take your time.

Dave Kelsey at, 1902 Molt Rapelje Road, Montana. I am a board member on both the NILE and Yellowstone Valley Electric Cooperative.  We pride ourselves on having a good relationship with our elected officials, which includes our county commissioners.  But in those relationships, there comes a time and sometimes you have to remind people the way things are being done and you have to confront any issue that may affect the communities we live in and the people that are here.  I think you guys, the way you've handled this thing so far, have a credibility issue. You've damaged your credibility. That's been brought up already. I think we have to work on that. It seems that there's been a rush. This process to most of our knowledge started early November, late October. Don, you said something about it started in August actually, but the reality is there seems like there's been an immediate push toward getting this thing done and going toward private management. I don't think there's any of us in here opposed to looking at both options, private and public management. But I think you have to also look at the pros and cons of going to each direction. And I don't think there's any one of us in this room, including you guys, that are totally qualified to give that analysis, you don't have the expertise dealing with facilities that big. I guess what my concern is, it doesn't hurt to bring a third party. In fact, I think it's part of your due diligence to bring a third party in, independent people that have an expertise in analyzing both the pros and cons of managing a facility like Metra on both the public and the private method. I just think you need to get as much background as you can on that. We looked at some of the proposed mapping that's out there for facilities. OVG presented some of the maps and so on. It looks to us like there's less and less room for agricultural facilities. It appears like there's more concern for music, entertainment type advances, then some of the Ag. It looks like Ag is kind of getting squeezed out now. Maybe that's not the case. Maybe that's just a preliminary drawing. But the mapping that was presented to us, it looks like we're getting kind of squeezed out. I think there's an opportunity here yet to gain back some credibility with the community, with the taxpayers, by taking the time to bring in an independent third party and doing an analysis that gives you guys the most information you can have, so you can make a more educated decision on which way to go with this. And I think that process has to be open. We try our best to make sure we have places where you guys can hear input from community on things, for example, our Ag Committee meetings. We want you guys always to feel welcomed to come to that, and while you're not having a meeting there, you can get a sense of what the feeling of the Ag community is at that time, and I think that really helps. I guess I'm kind of like several people that have talked already. Listen to the comments that have been brought up here. I think you've got to pay attention and try to spend some time addressing the concerns of the stakeholders of the Metra. I think that would really be for all of us to have a little more analysis, a little more background on this before we jump into a decision. That brings me back to the agenda item. Correct me, I'm trying to grasp at this a little bit. It says we're doing a request for qualifications. That's a little bit of a request for proposal. Is it not? I'm asking, are you guys ready to make that final decision after you get the request for qualifications? If that's the case, have we not jumped ahead of getting requests for proposal from these people? I'm asking that of you guys, anybody can answer.

Commissioner Pitman - I think it actually extends the process.  When we first started talking, so the difference between an RFQI are pretty significant. The requests for proposals would have led us down, let's make this decision. This is the request for qualifications and information. It’s just giving us more opportunity to see what's out there, what can be brought to the table so that we can have further discussion, it doesn't lead directly to a contract.

Commissioner Ostlund - It actually allows the board to negotiate. This is a public process, if we have qualified people apply it allows this board to negotiate a contract going forward.

Dave Kelsey – Okay.  That's a concern I have, and I guess Don you went to both of these places, the one in Boise and the one in Casper, are they not managed by the same company?

Commissioner Jones - They both are yes.

Dave Kelsey - We basically got input from one company and we're trying to base a decision on that. I'm not faulting that because we got to meet with those folks a little bit, but there, again, like someone else stated, it seems like they're coming and asking for information where we never got asked for any information prior to that. It just seems like we've already kind of somewhat committed that this is a direction we're going, and that doesn't look right. That doesn't pass the smell test. It just seems like they're getting, basically have inside information here on this thing. And it just seems a little bit, we've got the cart ahead of the horse here.

Commissioner Jones - The original company that I went down and looked at was actually Spectra. It was not OVG, it was actually a separate company in the meantime. I don't think, I don't know if it was on the table or not. I don't think I realized that they were going to be bought, Spectra was a separate company and then OVG in the meantime has actually bought Spectra.  They are the same, but at the time they were two totally different businesses. When I went down and looked at them, part of the reason we're doing an RFQ&I is so that we can actually get proposals from different companies and take a look and see what they bring to the table and how they manage things, because I'm not sure if they all manage it or not. That's part of the process. But like I said before, we're actually doing a parallel track and we're going down where we have this venture management company come in and do the interviews and talk to everybody and look at how Metra is currently being managed. We wanted to have that dual track going on simultaneously because there's no value in dragging this thing out for a year or whatever else, we will have the employees and everybody else upset. I think we do need to take the time to make sure that we get it right, because this is a huge decision. There's no doubt about it. So we're doing that parallel track and that was my original motion back when I made the motion November 1st or whatever it was, was that we were going to do two different tracks. We're going to do one where we actually go out and look at companies, and then we're going to do this other one where we look internally. You know what our management looks like. That's been the plan from the day that we pass this and, you know, this was part of the going out and asking for information from users to ask what kind of questions we should put in this RFQI. We took questions, I think for, I don't know how, I mean, it was a period of time from all the users, and we got data input back from users and we tried to incorporate that into the RFQI. That's been all of the process, it's been that way from the very beginning. There's been distractors saying that we've already got our minds made up. I honestly do not know how this will actually work. You know, Metra has a lot of different things going on. They have the fair and everything else that's going on along with just the arena. I don't know what that's going to look like. It'll be interesting to see what Venue management actually brings to us.

Dave Kelsey - What concerns us still is that the space available for livestock. That is an issue we have to address.

Commissioner Jones - That's a totally different subject. You mentioned OVG on that, that's actually Perkins and Will is the architect, OVG doesn't have anything to do with the architect on that as far as I know, Perkins and Will is separate. They don't do any private management. They're just architects. I shouldn't say just architect. They're architects. We do need to go back and take a look at that. From what I'm hearing today, we need to absolutely circle back around and see what we need to do there, but two totally different processes.

Dave Kelsey - It's all logistics. In order for us to pull this off, we have to be able to do it efficiently, safely, protect the animals and make a good environment for the people that come and participate. We have, like you stated, you've seen license plates from all over at the Nile, at these events we do, but if we do a poor job of running it, if it's run in poor accommodations, those negative comments spread like wildfire. We've got to be very careful with that. I think my personal opinion is I think we got the wrecking ball ahead of the pace of making this change. We could have done that in a timed faction and not messed up the space requirements quite as bad. That's my personal opinion. What sort of percentage is normal that you found for private enterprise to manage something?

Commissioner Jones - You know what, I don't have any idea. That's what, that's what we're going to be looking at. The one agreement that I saw, they actually do a base. So, they say, okay, you're going to pay us $160,000, whatever it is, and you have a base amount and they don't make any money unless they increase sales. Now everybody says, oh, that means we're going to increase the Nile rent. We only rent the expo, 88 days a year. The lady from the Boot Hill actually talked about there's something going on down at those places every day. That would be the goal of these companies, actually increase how many days we use the expo we use it 88 days a year, that's not very many. You start looking into the pavilion. There are all kinds of ways that we can grow that. There are different ways that in our management meeting with the Metra managers, that we've been talking about how to do it, and one is to make it turnkey. Right now, you go to the Northern Hotel, you rented a place in the Northern Hotel, they're going to get the sound system for you, they're going to get everything for you. You go to Metra, and you rent the pavilion, you got to go get your own sound system, you gotta get the lighting, if you want 16-foot drapes, you gotta get your own drapes. It's not a turnkey operation. This is something I think we can do better at and that's probably whether it's Metra that does it, or whether a private company does it. That's something that we've been talking about for over a year and a half thats never happened

Dave Kelsey - I think those are good comments Don. I think just like you said that those changes could be done publicly as well. I guess my concern is with the private business, they're going to take their percentage no matter what the taxpayers are still going to be liable for the operation of the facility one way or the other. We just have to be careful. I'm just asking you to be more open and do the due diligence. I would encourage you wholeheartedly to bring in a third party to do an independent analysis on both the pros and the cons of both directions because there's pluses and minuses for each method of management. And that's all I'm asking. Thank you.

Commissioner Pitman - Just because you reminded me of it, the timeframe of what you've been talking about, you know, August, November dates or things like that, and that it seems like it's being rushed. We actually were out at Yellowstone Valley Electric on April 29th and had a public meeting, we actually reached out to the smaller communities and have been going out there for almost a year now getting input. It's not as tight of a crunch. That was obviously masterplan stuff.

Dave Kelsey - I was at that meeting and that particular one, we were under the impression, it was basically how public management could occur on that. That's the impression I had.

Commissioner Ostlund - I don't want to confuse the two issues because we have been talking about the master plan for about two years and private management came into the picture on November 1st. There was a meeting back in August. The meeting in August was a result of a comment made about privatization. Didn't have anything to do with public awareness or a public meeting.

Dave Kelsey - Yes. Thank you, John. This is a serious decision to make, but I'm just asking you to take the time to get an educated analysis and prepare yourself for making that decision, because either way you go, you’ll be living with the consequences and the rest of us will as well. Thank you.

Trina White, 1145 Delphinium Billings, MT. Good Morning Commissioners. I would just like to say briefly that I think what you're seeing behind here in this room is as the gentlemen from the Nile said, is the trust and the transparency that is missing from this board.  There's been, way too many issues that are out there beginning with the demolishing of the grand grandstand going on. I've attended a few of the master plan meetings. I did sit in on those as well and I just would say that you can look at this privatization, but really, as he doesn't want to just say that for me, you really need to evaluate this and listen to the voters because just as the pavilion was voted on in a bond, the grand plan thing that you're going to put out is going to need to be voted on. When that went to the voters, the realtor association got behind that effort and said, this is going to bring so many, you know, people to the community. It's going to help our community. We need to build these buildings, we need to vote for this and pay for it on our taxes. And we did, we got behind it. It's brought a lot of money into this community and the community has a lot of risk. There's a lot of risk as far as, even using it as a site for this morning to distribute the test kits. There's a lot out there, there's a lot to consider. I know that there's the ag community. I grew up in this town. I have ranchers in my family. I have farmers in my family and, the ag is a huge part of our entire community. The other thing that has not been mentioned at all is the school district and the games that are played and the wrestling that's done and the track meet that they no longer have. That also is part of our community. Even though there's not anybody here at the table, that is a big part. It brings a lot of families to our town to shop and eat at our restaurants and visit our Billings. So that's all I would have to say. Thank you.

Commissioner Pitman - I just wanted to apologize. I went on your Facebook page. I was just clarifying the date was wrong and it kind of blew up into a whole other thing. It was just to make sure people were in the right place and time. Thank you.

Bryce Glenn, 3060 Farley Lane. Doesn't look like you're getting beat up too bad. Just a minute ago, somebody had spoken that one of the commissioners said that we were going to do the RFIQ prior to the evaluation of the management. Is that correct?

Commissioner Jones - They’re on parallel tracks.

Bryce Glenn - I guess I understood it as we're going to do the RFQ and then we're going to evaluate the management.

Commissioner Jones - Actually we'll probably get the management report before we get the RFQ&I, but I'm not positive.

Bryce Glenn - Fantastic, that's what I was wanting to know. I guess one of the thoughts is that you guys have been here. You've been here for three years, John's been here for 20, Dennis 18 months. I'm not the investigator just joking. So anyway, we got, we got the numbers out there and I'm sure that the management has been evaluated and had their own evaluations done through the commissioners or through some county process. One person has spoken about, has there been any disciplinary actions filed in their files? Maybe I don't understand how government works. If you get so many disciplinary actions filed into your file, you get ixnayed or fired or whatever, but really what are the beneficial parts of their jobs instead of looking at the negative parts, do they get evaluated on their performance? Is there goals met?

Commissioner Jones - We don't have a formal evaluation. We do actually meet with them. We started this within the last year, year and a half. We meet with the managers every other Thursday or somewhere in there, depending on scheduling. We really don't.  One of the things, and this is one of my deals is we actually started a process to look at goals and setting goals. Right now, we don't have goals. We don't have goals as far as like the expo.  It's 88 days a year and how many to try to grow that and then one point I was asking for five years, let's take a look at five years averages and you know, line that out. And let's start doing goals on how we can actually increase that and with the other buildings too, and that actually fell apart. One of the dysfunctions of having three people managing one person is you've got three different personalities here. A lot of other counties have as county administrator exactly for that reason because you have to get together and that's a public meeting concept, personnel you can actually have as a private meeting, but a lot of counties actually do that for that purpose, that reason, because it's somewhat dysfunctional when you have three people that are managing one person.

Bryce Glenn - And that I guess brings up another issue is do we actually trust the management of MetraPark to do their jobs? I mean, this can't be the only thing that you guys have to deal with. I mean, there's county roads and there's bridges, and there's all kinds of other things that, I mean, there's a county road and bridge department that has a huge facility down there and they take care of a lot of roads in Yellowstone County. My question to you would be, why are we not letting the management of the MetraPark do their job? Why is it that I see Commissioner Pitman with his jacket saying county Commissioner Denis Pitman, Yellowstone County badge on his shoulder running around in front of the doors. Yes, I was the first one at Fluffy. But yeah, he was right there saying don't go passed the tables. Don't go passed the tables. I mean, we've got CMS or whatever that company is that does that. Why are we not letting the managers manage? I mean, I'm a manager. I manage 20 people, right. Three different businesses. And if my guys don't do their jobs or if I see them needing to do their jobs, I ask them to do that. Right? Are you not asking them, are you down there doing their jobs for them? I mean, I see a lot of them sitting here today. Where is the trust? Do you guys’ trust? Does the board or the commissioners trust the management to do their jobs?

Commissioner Jones - That's an interesting question. We're using it around here just to see how things are going on and not necessarily management position, but if we're asked to help out or we see a hole, it's not being helped out and I'm not sure, Commissioner Pitman can tell you why he ended up getting involved but I will tell you that I was actually driving around during the Luke Combs concert and I was just helping take people in a golf cart from one place to the next. And all of the sudden we had people going, where is the parking? The VIP paid parking and it was roped off, but there was nobody there manning it, I ended up jumping out of the cart and saying, I'll handle it and I told him who I was with one of the board members to go find somebody and get the staff down here. It was something that was not being done and I ended up parking the whole parking spot. I was not happy about that.

Bryce Glenn - Is that CMS or is that the management?

Commissioner Jones – Correct, management hires CMS.

Bryce Glenn - They're the parking lot attendants?

Commissioner Jones - That's what I would assume, but it went to management and management…

Bryce Glenn - It was management and CMS. We're kind of getting a little bit off topic there, but I'm not being argumentative. No, go ahead.

Commissioner Jones - You asked the question. It wasn't because I was micromanaging. In fact, I would have loved not to have been out there in the middle of the heat parking cars and a whole lot. And the response back from somebody was, they said that it doesn't matter we'll refund them their money. Well, the expectation, and I'm a real big customer service guy. The expectation is when you buy a VIP parking spot, you can come late, you can go eat dinner, come late and you have a parking spot. That was not an acceptable answer, so I stayed out there the whole time.

Bryce Glenn - I love helping people.

Commissioner Jones - You asked the question and that's how we step in.

Bryce Glenn - I think that's employee and not management at that point in time. That's the actual guy that's supposed to go dig the ditch or park the cars or clean the garbage. I guess when I asked you these questions, it comes back to the RFQI, the evaluation, setting goals. And I know we've had a couple of three years, of really bad years with COVID. I'm on the ag committee. Metra ag committee meets occasionally, Monday or monthly and having Ray Massey, when he came on board, I saw the number of events, just explode. He's full of energy and you guys know this and I guess that's why I asked about the goals. I mean, if we don't have goals to go by, we don't have a place to get. I guess it, and you guys can make your decisions on public or privatization of this, but I think that goals really need to be set. For each one of the managers to instruct their employees, their subordinates so that it is quality. I mean, I love driving past the Metra, seeing it’s, you know, bright, shiny, new parking lot, nice flat dirt spot over there on the barns, because those looked like hell to tell you the truth. We had people not come to horse facility or shows just because the way that things looked and I take a lot of pride in that and I take a lot of that because we're there a lot and we are active in Friends of the NRA Banquet, we put on down there, the Nile, we support the Nile and are a huge donator for the county fairgrounds, the fair itself. And making sure that the ag folks are well bedded. I guess that's why I wanted to ask and just bring that up. Could we get some goals? Could we look at what our history has done, what the management has done and had that presented to us as well, side by side with the privatization. I appreciate it. Do you guys have any other questions for me?

Commissioner Pitman - I just respond because Mr. Solberg right in the front row there is one of our dedicated advisory board members that's at every event and we've been working on this for as long as I've been on the commission. There is just certain things, we're there to fill in the little blanks and as CMS has struggled with staffing, we’re there to help get people to point out there's an easier place when you get into the building or help where we can. I had that question asked a couple of times while I was there. It's to help get the place loaded.

Bryce Glenn - Can we imagine, what would it be like if it wasn't set up to begin with? I mean, those, the maroon shirts, I see a lot of them out there right now, they do a lot of work to get that stuff set up. The day of the show I know there's always the little old lady with the scanner at the front gate.  Whether or not she showed up or if she's afraid of COVID but thank you for doing that. I enjoy seeing you guys out and about at these organized events, but I don't think that it's at, well, I'm just going to stop right there. Any other questions? Hope to see those goals.

Richard Todd, 135 Monarch Street. For me, we had our first event at Metra November. I had been at an event at Metra this weekend, it took a lot for just a normal average citizen to come up with these, not only the idea, but it's a big nut to crack to take on the Metra. We had a good event. I'm a business owner. I have three businesses, my wife and I are the founder of the gratitude and action foundation. Since then, we've chose to also do our fundraiser in the pavilion in March. My concerns are, is if we went private, would the average citizen be able to step up and maybe chase their dream? We knew when we came into our first event, that we would be lucky to break even, but we have a vision and you grow something that not only provides entertainment for the community, but just coming from this weekend, we have participants coming from four different states and to have the ability for them to not only compete, but to participate in such a great venue like the Metra. I just don't know that if we had something that was that private, that if somebody like me could even afford part of something like that. I think that of course we all want entertainment and we, you know, I'm a business guy, if it doesn't make sense, but I just want to know what the longterm thing is. Will it kind of cut the little guy out. You know, we've heard, I've heard all the rumors, there won't be none of these events or none of that. I don't have enough knowledge on either side private or public, but I just want to make sure that the, just the normal Yellowstone citizen or citizens of Montana will be able to come with an idea, bring it to the table and to be able to try to execute it. I just think that if we have a big company come in, I just want to make sure that somebody like me would still be able to have and event.

Commissioner Jones - Richard, my understanding, and that's a good question, but my understanding is, and just like Metra their objective is actually to grow events in the buildings. Not only have ADA but have 200 days a year of events that they can possibly get. Their goal is to actually grow that. And you'll probably get a response the next time that, you know, when you call, you'll probably get a response back the next day or the day after I would expect. Otherwise, we'll be having words as you had a real struggle, trying to get pricing. I think we had five conversations before you actually got a response from Metra and they've been, from what I understand, they've been helpful in growing your show, which is great. I think the private, I think they both probably would do the same thing and the pricing would actually, my understanding is, and that's one of the things in this RFQI is the pricing would still have to go through the commissioners. So, they wouldn't be able to just go in and jack everything up. And that’ll be something that I'll make sure is in the contract that we actually still have control over that, that is not something because if you have, it sounded like you had a great first event and now you've got another one coming. So, congratulations.

Kevin Richeson, 5505 Clapper Flats Rd. again. On this management group, will the public get to look at the results of it? The venture?

Commissioner Jones - It's all public information. Absolutely.

Kevin Richeson - Will you guys put it out? Because I know working at Metra finding information is awfully hard sometimes and will you guys look at it before you make a decision on private management?

Commissioner Jones - Yes. Yeah, absolutely. It’s all public information.

Kevin Richeson - Okay. That's all I wanted. And that kind of thing I just wanted to straighten out real quick and then I'm done. You said the expo has 88 events in a year 88 days of events. That's 85% of the weekends, if they are weekend events. Most shows take a week to set up, including that you've got 16 guys trying to do three other buildings if not more, we already know there isn’t many people out there. I often see we have trouble setting up concerts, but you make it sound like that building isn’t being used very much, there isn’t a whole lot more room when it takes a whole week to set up the events there and I just wanted the public to understand. Just because it's 88 days and there's 365 days in a year. You take those 88 days times seven and then see where you sit, because that's what it takes us to set it up. So, 88 is a lot to do. Thank you. I just wanted to readdress that.

Commissioner Jones - Just for clarification. When you look down at Casper, I think they're like 200 and their arena has stuff going in and out, turning it over.

Kevin Richeson – They have one building.

Commissioner Jones – Absolutely.  It just means when we, if we start doing that it means we need more manpower and I mean, you guys do a great job. You guys do an awesome job.

Kevin Richeson - Don't get me wrong, we all want better. We all love our jobs or else we wouldn't be there.

Commissioner Jones - If we have that opportunity to fill those other days, and if it didn't take that whole week and a lot of them don't take a whole week there's other days there's days involved.

Kevin Richeson - What I'm saying is where do we get the people at this point in time?

Commissioner Jones - Well, that's a struggle for everybody.

Kevin Richeson - Exactly. And that's what I'm getting at. All right. Thank you.

Commissioner Ostlund - Those are good comments, Kevin. And I guess for the public that's listing out there, 88 days of shows and the setup and tear down is a huge deal, but there's hope there's so many other things that go into the factors about what buildings are available. A lot of the parking is taken by the events in the arena or the events and the expo center. You can't overrun all the events, one over the top of another.  It's a big complex issue you set up and you're not going to fill every day.

Tanya Weinreis, 304 10th street West Billings. I own Mountain Mudd, it was founded in 1994 here in billings, it has been a local small business. My husband and I have owned it for eight years. This weekend, we operated, selling coffee out of the Great Rocky Sports Show, as well as Fluffy.  We've been able to interact with promoters as well as the staff and facility, and we're very grateful. Thank you for the opportunity to allow small business. My first question is what will happen to my small business and my opportunity to sell coffee out of MetraPark?

Commissioner Jones - The only thing I can tell you is what I saw at the different places. And they all contract out just like we do with small businesses, you know, private enterprises. I don't think anything would change, but that's what we will find out. That's the reason we're doing this RFQI is we will ask that. Everywhere else, they didn't run everything they had concessionaires inside.

Tanya Weinreis - Right. So, a large corporation came in and operated the food part of it.

Commissioner Jones - No, they actually had concessionaires, local companies that were down at Casper that had their, just like we do here where Fuddruckers and different places, they have those there too.

Tanya Weinreis - That's kind of my big thing, too. I don't see a lot of my fellow food vendors here, but I'm sure you guys know that. We're pretty much all owner operated.  Dave with Fudds has been there 20 years, Baskin Robbins and we're all kind of like a family there. We operate and we support each other. We'll make change for each other. One thing I'd like to actually advocate on behalf of is how great the management actually is. I have the wonderful opportunity to work with people all over town, from Rimrock mall to, we just took over a Starbucks and a space in Rapid City.  We get to work with different organizations and people, and I've actually found it to be a really well-run organization. It's certainly not perfect, but, you know, our maintenance crew, our board, Kevin, I've asked to hook up electric and do things, it literally is like a family, and we've gone through some really hard times lately. We lost money during COVID. I choose to operate when other key vendors don’t. Just because I want to support my community and I want to be there and provide hot coffee on a rainy day to the 4H folks that really look forward to it at 7:00 AM. I mean, I've made a lot of decisions to support Metra, including even moving closer to town from out of the Shepherd area, just because I can get there closer myself. I have a maintenance guy that lives on bench that can come in and fix my equipment. I just kind of want to know what your thought is in supporting a small business like myself in this, because my understanding is that you know we would maybe be asked to go.

Commissioner Jones - Whoever's telling you that doesn't know what they're talking about, because we don't even know what, you know, how that's going to exist. But what I will tell you is that when I went down and looked at the other places, they had local vendors in there that were serving stuff. So that would be my expectation and that's something that we can actually build in. I think we will actually, I mean, that's something that we can put in the agreement is that we actually have the say on the vendors that can go in there. I don't think that would be an issue.

Tanya Weinreis - I don't understand the financial aspect of this going private versus public, but I guess as a businessperson, it would be really nice to see how, the financial benefit to the community. My understanding is that about 70% of event centers like this and in the country are publicly run.  Then my question would be maybe why is that and also, do you feel like you might lose some public support when it's privatized?  We don't want to lose that. I mean, I listen to the Breakfast Flakes and Paul says, sure they can do whatever they want, I don't care one way or the other, but if they're going to privatize it don't send the bill to the taxpayers then for funding the facility.  There's kind of some thoughts on that. Can you speak to that?

Commissioner Jones - That's part of what we're going to be looking at. There's no doubt about it. I mean that's part of the reason we're doing this process to take a look at it and figure that out. That's the reason we're going down this dual path to see what that looks like.

Tanya Weinreis - Another thing I'd like to just advocate for too is, I've gotten to work with CMS and our maintenance crew. I appreciate that. I know you don't want me to address anybody, but Brandon back here is actually an employee of mine because I became a friend of his, literally through working kiosks around and stuff. He's been too busy working at Metra to be able to work for me. He was short staffed there, so he decided to continue to work more hours there. MY concern is if there wasn't any change in this, it would be hard on my heart to see him not continue through with his retirement, right? Like I think he's 10 years in and even if he got hired as a good employee, you know, might have to start all over again. I care about the people there. They've become like family. I really appreciate, again, the opportunity to be at Metra. Bill has been wonderful. He started working at Metra when I was born, so I have a lot of respect for that. Thank you very much.

Teddi Vogel, 2090 South 13th road in Ballentine. I'm asking for a point of clarification I'm a little bit confused. Mr. Jones, you said earlier that OVG doesn't have anything to do with the architects. Did I understand that?

Commissioner Jones - There are two different companies.

Teddi Vogel - Okay. My question, I'm just looking for clarification because there's been a lot of discussions and a lot of meetings, I've been able to participate in the last two weeks. And last week I was contacted by Matt Lashoff from OVG. He facilitated the meeting that I sat in on with the architects, so I could look at the master plan. I'm just looking to see who is actually driving the boat and who's leading the charge and all of these different things that are going on and why he was the one that facilitated that one. I guess my understanding would be that there would be something that maybe you gentlemen would have facilitated that meeting with architects and me, as opposed to, as a renter, as opposed to somebody who's not involved with the architects. Can you clarify that?

Commissioner Jones - I can't. I'm not sure. When did that meeting happened?

Teddi Vogel - Wednesday afternoon at 4pm.

Commissioner Jones - Was it virtual?

Teddi Vogel - Yes.

Commissioner Jones - Okay. I'm not sure. I can't tell you. I had no idea that there was, I appreciate it, but they are two separate companies. That's, they're not, there's no ownership. As far as I know.

Teddi Vogel - Alright thank you.

Salma Carmi, 430 11th Street. I just want to iterate, been on the Nile board for a number of years, reiterate what Dave Kelsey has to say, what our interim GM has to say.  It's important that we have ag showing up here and in the previous meetings back in April, I went out to Yellowstone Valley Electric. They asked us for input, and we gave them input and looking at the schematics of it at the end of the meeting, it was very clear that ag was very important and we had an ag community. But I think we just got to be cognizant. You've got the master plan. You've got the privatization. There's a lot of moving parts here. It's not going to be an easy decision, but if we can just be careful with the amount of money, we're spending to do this, I appreciate you slowing down, trying to look at it, make sure it gets done properly. Thank you.

Rebecca Riedl, 2127 Custer Avenue. I'm here just myself. I actually didn't come to the meeting to speak on this but after listening to all this I just felt I had to speak. First off, my being concerned is that we as citizens keep wanting less and less taxes, which puts more of the burden back on, you know, us as the county to raise money, to do things like give a decent wage to our workers, you know, and be able to recruit. That is a big concern of mine that privatizing this, it doesn't sound like anything else is going to change other than the management and what I’m hearing, I'm thinking is that it's not really the management, it's, we need somebody to come in and run the Metra that has big vision to push forward the master plan and that just has a wide vision to get after things, to try new things, to bring in different people. And you know, hiring a management company is, quite frankly, they probably have their set this is how we do things. I don't think it brings a vision that we couldn't find by hiring. If we really did a search to find a visionary, somebody that's in charge, they have vision, go getters. To get more people into the Metra get it more widely known, have new ideas rather than a management company. And I just truly believe that there are people out there that can do that without privatizing the management. And if we continue to work towards improving, I don't know how you do it because you know, you all know taxes is a very polarizing thing, but we got to raise some money so that we can pay for repairing these buildings. I mean, they talk about the disarray of these buildings, but for years we just, the taxpayers just weren't paying for it. Same thing with wages. It's seems like so many times our wages for our public employees are not keeping up. And then it just makes it that much harder to recruit enough help. You know, that is what the crux of the problem is I see, is that we need to have the money to do it, but we, I think we need a visionary. You know, as managing the Metra rather than a management company. Thank you.

Senator Chris Friedel, 3304 2nd Ave North Billings, MT. I'm going to ask you one of the most controversial questions of the day. Who is a Packers fan? I know it's controversial because nobody wants to say, I will want to ask you the reason why I say this because it's pretty levity, but I'm going to address you but I’m hoping I can look back and see who is a Packers fan. Fantastic, because I'm not going to argue anybody because I'm a Bucks fan. Any who. The reason why I bring up the Packers is not because of football. What I want to talk about is when I was in the city council, one of the things I did is I went to the commissioning of the USS billings, which was in Wisconsin. I also, when I landed, I landed in Green Bay. One of the places that we went to was the Packers field. Now, if anybody who is a Packers fan will tell you. I believe it's the only team in the NFL that is owned by the people of Green Bay. Reason why I asked if there's any Packers fans, I wanted to say, has anybody been to a Packers game five plus years ago? The reason I asked that is because things have changed in the last five years. I was actually privy to this because I wanted to go see the project because one of the reasons was when we were dealing with the Big Sky Project, one of the places that are quoted was the Packer stadium. They were trying to figure out a way to be more successful, bringing more money in and utilize the project 365 days a year. Because the only time the Packer's stadium was used was during the football season, after that it was closed up shop, never used it again until the next season came around. So, they wanted to use it 365. So, they brought in a private management group to figure out a way to utilize all days of the year. When I went there, that place was packed. That place is being utilized. It had restaurants, it had gift shops. And I didn't go during the season. I went in the middle right before the season, actually. So, the reason why I say this is because one of the reasons why I want to talk about it is I'm appreciative that you guys are actually looking at all avenues to go down. Maybe I'm not, I don't think the commissioners are actually talking about replacing management, but they want to do is say, hey, while we're looking at building a new structure, going to the vision 2020 let's look at both aspects of both privatization and public, it does work. And the reason I say that is because look at how we handled Cobb field, excuse me, let me not call it Cobb field. Because if you remember Cobb field, the city council was actually in dire strait to try to figure out how to fund and replace Cobb field because it was deferred maintenance for so long that it was, nobody wanted to touch it. We happened to have somebody in the community Dehler. I was fortunate enough that Dehler stepped forward with 2 million bucks to help us do that. One of the things that we did learn was the fact that we were able to take that money that we brought in for the team and use it toward maintenance. I agree with them, the reason why we're having problems with the Metra with deferred maintenance, because we weren't setting aside money that we brought in. If money was put aside every year, since this conception of 1975, these properties wouldn't have been dilapidated. Maybe they would, maybe they wouldn’t, but they at least would have been in a better condition that we would had a conversation about whether we should keep the property or not. The reason I bring this up is because one thing that I don't think you guys are aware of, and, if you actually look at the budget year after year of the MetraPark and we are privy to it because we have a part of it in the city council, bear in mind I’m on the Senate, is in that book, in our budget, the taxpayers still fund this almost $3 million. So, you guys are paying for it already. My attitude is that we've been running this since 1975. In fact, I remember there was a conversation that within 10 years of this project being built, the Metra, that it'd be self-sustaining. It is not self-sustaining. It is being held up by the taxpayers for the last 50 years. Excuse me. Yes, 50 years. So, my question is, are we going to continue to do the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result or are we going to try something different? Like I appreciate the fact that you were going through this because I want to make sure that without a doubt, that, is it proper to have private management or is it proper to keep it on where we're going? So, I ask you like, they all said, I think the biggest thing is, is keeping it above our board, transparency so they know what's going on so that they're involved. And I appreciate that. I thank you for your time. Any questions for me, commissioners. Thank you.

Commissioner Jones - Any further public comments, seeing none we'll close the public hearing, and we will move on to item two. Okay.  I will reopen the public hearing. Come on forward.

Don Lohrenz, 1705 60th Street West. We see a big elephant here in this room. And this is going back to I want to trust you, but my trust is annihilated almost. This goes back not to this issue here, but it all plays into privatization.  I'm a member of the breakfast exchange. We’ve served beer for 40 years at the Metra and on the grounds. Giving all of our money back to the community, to non-profits, that's our game veterans, child abuse, prevention of child abuse, I should say, and so forth.  This last year or so, beyond negotiations, I was not involved in that, that's beyond my pay scale I’m just a volunteer.  We had negotiations on the serving of the beer and so forth.  Another private individual took part of it. It was negotiated where we got four booths and they got four booths.  After the Toby Keith concert. All of a sudden, we get two booths they get six booths. I want to know what happened. Why was that? And another thing, when we shut down, we're told by Metra staff shut down our booths at a certain time. We do.   I've got pictures on my phone of brand X, still serving beer. A friend of mine, I turned him down, he got upset.  He was in line about 10, 20 minutes later at Brand X’s stand. Are we not playing by the same game? We get the money. Commissioner Jones, one time we were at your restaurant, my wife and I, and we brought this issue up and you said that we've got people out that will do it for tip jars. I kind of blew that off because I knew that it wasn't going to happen. These people are in here for profit we're in here for the benefit of the community, which benefits everybody in Yellowstone County and other parts of the state.  I would just like to know why that transpired and even the reason why I don't have a whole lot of trust in the situation. Therefore, back to what we're here for today is I believe that there should be a third party to analyze this because there are biased opinions already pushing for it.  To get a third party, to analyze it and then make a decision, not just push it on through. Thank you.

Commissioner Jones, Don - I do have just a comment, you know, the negotiations, and you weren't on the negotiate, but at one point we were actually offering to keep you whole, exactly where you were and to actually take the additional funds when we increased the price and that was turned down. And then we asked you to come back to the negotiating table and the response was we're going to come with seven, you're going to have three and we're not going to come until you let everybody show up. And we left. We said, this is the deal. And the exchange club actually let the contract expire. They didn't get back to us in a timely. I think they called the day that it was going to expire on a Saturday, which it takes the board to actually meet, to be able to do that. So the contract expired and that's what, that's how we got to there. So that's a real short synopsis. But at one point, the offer on the table was to actually keep you whole increase the prices. And then we were going to, you know, take that price and the comment back from the exchange club was you're doing this on our shoulders. And so, we ended up letting the contracts expire, but that's totally different subject than today.

Don Lohrenz - That still doesn’t answer my question.

Commissioner Jones - That is a management question for management. I am not sure how that does it. Three. We were talking about not micromanaging, that is their deal and it's supposed to be set up in quadrants so that you guys have the one in the front and Anderson has one in the front. You have one in the back, Anderson has one in the back and those are pretty stationary.  I know Luke Combs, you got the extra one right there where they usually do merge.  You were able to sell in that one there. I have no idea what happened with on the two. And you said two and six, right? I have no idea, we can check with management.

Don Lohrenz - I need special permission to have our rolling cart and so forth.

Commissioner Jones - I'm not sure what happened there. Oh, we'll check with management and find out because it's supposed to be.

Don Lohrenz - You see it's supposed to be a competition, but the competition has to be fair. And have them shut down when they're supposed to shut down, let us have as many booths as they have.

Commissioner Jones - That's the intent of the commissioners. I don't think you'll find anybody that says that's not the intention of the commissioners for it to be competitive. And I think everybody's doing a great job. So yeah, we can check with our concession people and the manager, the general manager, and find.

Don Lohrenz - I would just like to have it fair.

Commissioner Ostlund - We want it to be fair.

Commissioner Jones - That's our intent is for it to be all fair.

Bruce Glennie - I am the president of breakfast exchange club and I wanted to dovetail on a Mountain Mudd, we give our all our money away and so privatization might be fine. I run a business myself and I am the president as well. So that might be fine, just study it well. And when we look at the money, you know, the money's going to come from somewhere from the privatization. We give every dime away and we appreciate being able to serve here at Metra to be able to do that and facilitate the causes that we support.  Thank you.

Commissioner Jones - We appreciate you being there. Thank you. All right. Any further public comment? All right. So let me close the hearing and we will go to the next item, which is actually the, 2A. Which got moved to the top and its request for qualifications and information for MetraPark’s campus management services. 

2A.)  Request for Qualifications and Information for MetraPark Campus Management Services. Commissioner Ostlund stated he has a substitute MOTION to hire a 3^rd party consultant, because we want to stay on parallel tracks.  We have a management study being completed at MetraPark and anytime we can make it better we should make it better.  What we haven’t done is what everyone has asked us to do a complete unbiased study from third party on both public management and private management with a recommendation back to the board.  The board is the ultimate decision maker and I think that should come long before an RFQI for private management.  That’s what everyone is asking for and I think they are right.  Commissioner Jones seconded for discussion purposes.  Commissioner Jones stated he will go ahead and start off.  There were some people that want us to hire a third-party consultant.  When I am in the public that’s not what I hear.  As we go down this road, we may make the decision to hire a third-party consultant.  I think at this time it is premature to engage a third-party consultant, so I am not going to support this.  Commissioner Pitman stated he thought getting this information is important.  Commissioner Ostlund’s motion did not pass 2-1.  Commissioner Pitman made a MOTION to send out an RFQI for MetraPark Campus Management Services, Commissioner Jones seconded.  Commissioner Ostlund stated he thinks this process has been so contaminated, that it is going to be difficult to look at a private management company, especially OVG.  This is on page 6 for the RFQI, any discussion with Yellowstone County personnel, other than those listed as authorized contacts regarding this RFQI from the time the respondent received the RFQI until the final selection of the firm is strictly prohibited except during the scheduled tour of the facility, such contact and discussion may result in disqualification of the respondent’s request.  I have a number of concerns about the private management issue moving forward.  This process started in the dark with no public involvement.  I had to schedule the public hearing today just to discuss both public and private management options.  That was changed by my colleagues to an RFQI for private management.  We continue to push this privatization agenda, trying everything possible to avoid analyzing the options, to ensure that we provide the public the best option possible.  Two weeks ago, OVG came to town with their manager from Casper and met with our promoters, user groups and sponsors to talk about private management of the facility.  Why did the group trying to secure a contract with the Commissioners before an RFQI is released meet with those groups?  OVG had no business here before an RFQI is released.  However, if they were invited then all interested parties should have been invited.  Metra was fourth in the nation last year in ticket sales for arenas under Bill Dutcher and Tim Goodridge.  Metra is booked solid with maybe one weekend open over the next several months.  The good management resulted in increased revenue over the past several years.  OVG’s in further conflict and has already outmaneuvered the Commissioners on their booking contract.  They have produced no shows yet.  However, because Metra is on track with a great agenda this year to break the $1.4 million dollar benchmark threshold for revenue in the arena and with the contract with OVG they may in fact be entitled them to a payment of $50,000 of taxpayer dollars for producing nothing.  We can’t negotiate another contract like this and send the revenue out of state.  This contract with OVG is for five years with no escape clause, except a material breach.  Looks to me like they’ve already got the best of us.  This has been a very contaminated process, I’ve never seen anything like it in my 20 years.  I am going to stick to hiring an outside third-party that will come in and evaluate both forms of management.  Not the management structure, we are already doing that and if we can make the management better, that’s great.  This booking agreement alone provides an unfair advantage to OVG.  They should be conflicted out of the process because over this $1.4 million dollar threshold, even another company will have to pay them to be there.  We’ve had the cart before the horse this entire process and we need to step back and evaluate it properly.  Commissioner Jones stated there were a lot of comments made there and he doesn’t know where to start.  Commissioner Jones stated when OVG came in, they did that on their own.  Commissioner Jones also stated he didn’t think any Commissioners were involved in that.  Mr. Jones noted that he was definitely not involved in OVG coming in and he didn’t know what their intent was.  Somebody stood up today and said you guys need to get along and start working on the process.  I have been trying to move this process along and be open, but we keep getting comments that somebody is coming and playing with information and that degrades on the commissioners.  I think it’s proper.  We are going down this parallel path and we’re looking at both sides.  Commissioner Jones stated he has not made up his mind and I know it is going to be an interesting process to take a look at it and figure out what is best.  Commissioner Jones stated he is set to keep this wheel moving.  Commissioner Jones stated one lady said if it is 70 and 30, and I don’t know where that number comes from, that 70% is public and 30% is private.  When I got into this I knew it was going to be controversial and that is probably the reason that 70% is public because nobody else wants to go down this route and get called all kinds of names and be accused of taking advantage of Metra based on my position in my business.  I actually had someone send a recall ballot to my business that said get rid of the bully and that was sent to my employees.  That’s pretty brutal stuff that is just off the charts.  I am set and I was elected to move forward and do what I think is right.  I think that it’s right that we look at both ways of management and how that looks to the public.  That’s my fiduciary responsibility to make sure that the taxpayers get the best management that they can.  We are adding on another 12,000-seat facility potentially and some other buildings.  If we do these additions and the proposed masterplan we better have our act together on how we’re going to pay for this, if we continue the way we’re doing it now that $2 million is going to look really cheap.  We are going to have to pay $4 million or $5 million and that will come from the taxpayers.  We can’t get into that situation where we sell a bill of good and then we come back and go, oh, by the way you have to pay for it.  We need to figure that out either internally or externally, what ever way that makes sense.  Commissioner Jones stated he thinks this is the right way to go.  Commissioner Ostlund stated he thought Commissioner Jone’s statement was exactly what he has asked the board do in his substitute motion, and that is to hire a private consultant, like we did 16 years ago who came in an interviewed 85 businesses that operate with the Metra, asked them what was wrong with the management, asked them what could be better and looked at both private and public operations and said, this may be the best fit for you.  That’s what I heard in the first meeting, and that’s what I heard here today.  Commissioner Ostlund stated quite honestly, what you just said is what I’m asking that the board hasn’t done is to bring in a consultant.  The consultant can then sit down and visit with the NILE and all these other user groups and look at all the businesses that have transitioned from public to private or private to public and answer the questions, why did they do that, and which form is most beneficial for the county.  That is what my motion was intended to do.  Commissioner Pitman stated he just has to call Commissioner Ostlund on it because when we got to the last hurdle you threw out in front of us you asked that we evaluate the management at MetraPark at your request.  We went through the process, got the quote, its cost us $20,000, and then you voted against it.  Commissioner Pitman stated that Commissioner Ostlund didn’t want to hire the company, you didn’t want to hear what they had to say.  It’s disingenuous for you to sit there and say, you want another company to come in and tell us more information and who knows, maybe you’ll vote no on that group too, if they’re not going to give you what you want to hear.  Commissioner Pitman stated I think it’s really important that we get the information and to say that we can’t be getting this information now is not genuine.  Commissioner Ostlund stated he is going to make the record right, because that’s not accurate.  You didn’t do what I asked which was to study private management and public management and ensure that we’re headed the right direction because this RFQ&I was for private management.  What you did instead was substitute venue coalition to come in here and study our management, studying our management is wonderful.  I’m all for that.  Commissioner Ostlund stated he didn’t vote for it because you changed what my motion was to what you wanted it to be.  And we once again side stepped the process, and we continue to do it intentionally.  Then you want to throw the blame across here.  Is either one of you afraid to study private and public management to see which one amounts to be the best option for Metra.  Commissioner Jones stated that is exactly what we’re doing and the track we are taking right now is we’re looking at both and investigating both.  What you just said is exactly what we’re doing and the course we are on right now.  Commissioner Jones made a MOTION to amend the current motion to change on page 3 where it says arena, change it to say public assembly, Commissioner Pitman seconded.  Passed 2-1.  Commissioner Ostlund voted against this motion.  Commissioner Jones made a MOTION to the RFQI to change all verbiage to make a mandatory meeting instead of a virtual meeting, Commissioner Pitman seconded.  Commissioner Pitman asked so they will have to come here in person as opposed to doing it virtually.  Commissioner Jones responded, yes, I think they will have to actually come and look at the facility in order to know what they’re looking at.  Commissioner Jones asked if there was any further discussion.  Motion passed 2-1.  Commissioner Ostlund voted against the motion.  Commissioner Jones made a MOTION to provide respondents with five years of financial statements, along with past events activity and positions with salaries when they come and visit the facility, Commissioner Pitman seconded.  Commissioner Ostlund stated he thinks that is an important detail, but thinks we’ve left out the financial pro formas.  We don’t have one for the Casper facility or the Nampa facility.  Mr. Dustin Bretz was here at the last meeting and talked about how important that was so that we know what’s out there, and that should have been part or should be part of the analysis that exists.  Commissioner Jones stated, lets vote on my motion and then why don’t you do that as a motion or an addition to actually request pro formas.  Passed Unanimous.  Commissioner Ostlund made a MOTION to included anyone applying for private management has to show pro formas at all of the like event centers that are around here.  Casper Center isn’t a like center, that’s just an event center.  There are very few places that do what MetraPark does, that are open 365 days a year, run 189 acres, put on a fair and do all the things that we do.  So, my MOTION is that the comparable’s are for like facilities only and a pro forma on private and public both, Commissioner Jones seconded.  Passed 2-1.  Commissioner Pitman voted against the motion.  Commissioner Jones asked if bonds and contracts needed to be addressed or if that is more of a contractual issue.  Ms. Jeana Lervick, Chief Deputy County Attorney stated that is contractual.  Commissioner Jones asked if major sponsors needed to be added to the RFQI such as how major sponsors and local sponsors are handled.  Hearing no motion going that way I believe we that can all be handled when we get to that point.  Motion passed 2-1.  Commissioner Ostlund voted against the motion.                                      

PUBLIC COMMENTS ON REGULAR AND CONSENT AGENDA ITEMS – Hearing no comment Commissioner Jones continued the Board Meeting.

COMMISSIONERS – A.)  Request for Proposals for Mental Health Services for Public Safety.  Commissioner Ostlund made a MOTION to approve the Request for Proposals for Mental Health Services for Public Safety, Commissioner Pitman seconded.  Passed Unanimous.  B.)  Notice of Public Hearing Regarding Floodplain Permit – Setting the Public Hearing for Tuesday February 1, 2022 @ 9:30 a.m. in Room 3108.  Commissioner Pitman made a MOTION to approve the Notice of Public Hearing Regarding Floodplain Permit, Commissioner Ostlund seconded.  Passed Unanimous. 

FINANCE – A.)  Request for Qualifications and Information for MetraPark Campus Management Services.  B.)  Notice of Public Hearing for Mid-Year Budget Review – Setting the Public Hearing for Tuesday January 25, 2022, at 1:30 p.m. in Room 3108.  Commissioner Pitman made a MOTION to approve the Notice of Public Hearing for Mid-Year Budget Review, Commissioner Ostlund seconded.  Passed Unanimous. 

CLAIMS – Batches 22-101, 22-102.  Commissioner Pitman made a MOTION to approve the Claims, Commissioner Ostlund seconded.  Passed Unanimous. 

CONSENT AGENDA – 1.  CLERK AND RECORDER – Plat The Grove Subdivision, SIA and Access Easement.  2.  COMMISSIONERS – A.)  Board Openings – Update List.  B.)  BBWA Canal Lining ARPA Grant.  3.  COUNTY ATTORNEY – Thomson Reuters Contract for Legal Research.  4.  FINANCE – A.)  Finance Request to Expend for a Replacement Pitney Bowes Letter Folder and Inserter/Stacker.  B.)  Bond for Lost Warrant.  C.)  Facilities Contract with Northern Industrial Hygiene, Inc. – Miller Building Inspection, Testing and Project Management.  D.)  iSolved HCM Time & Attendance Subscription.  E.)  Resolution 22-05 to Create RSID 873M to Maintain the Park in Gove Subdivision.  F.)  Resolution 22-06 to Create 874M to Maintain the Dry Hydrant in Grove Subdivision.  5.  PUBLIC WORKS – A.)  Yellowstone County Salt Cedar Maintenance Project 2022.  B.)  Memorandum for Parking Area Adjacent to DNRC Property.  C.)  Recommendation of Award to Riverside Contracting for Public Works Asphalt Overlay Project II.  6.  HUMAN RESOURCES – PERSONNEL ACTION REPORTS – Sheriff’s Office – 1 Appointment, 3 Salary & Other; County Attorney – 1 Termination; Detention Facility – 3 Terminations.

FILE ITEMS – 1.  AUDITOR – Payroll Audit December 16 to December 31, 2021.  2.  COMMISSIONERS – Public Comments Regarding MetraPark Management.  3.  FINANCE – ARPA SLFRF Compliance Report.  4.  HUMAN RESOURCES – Response to December 16^th through December 31^st Payroll Audit Findings.  Commissioner Ostlund made a MOTION to approve the Consent Agenda and place the File Items to file, Commissioner Pitman seconded.  Passed Unanimous. 

PUBLIC COMMENTS ON COUNTY BUSINESS – One citizen talked about COVID and the monoclonal antibodies.  Hearing no other comments Commissioner Jones adjourned the meeting at 11:56 a.m.

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