Cascade County Commissioners unanimously approved a lease agreement and loan application for a new solid waste site in Belt during March 11 meetings.
The existing solid waste site in Belt had been closed since Dec. 16 and is on private property owned by Rimrock Valley Preserve.
The county had been publicly discussing the possibility of relocating the Belt solid waste site since July 2024.
The new lease is for property owned by James and Shirley Warehime adjacent to the existing dump site.
The lease encompasses less than three acres with a 20-year term that began March 11 and runs through March 10, 2045.
The lease payments are:
- $2,000 annually from July 1 through June 30, 2025
- $2,500 annually from July 1, 2030 through June 30, 2035
- $3,000 annually from July 1, 2035 through June 30, 2040
- $3,500 annually from July 1, 2040 through June 30, 2045
The county was paying $1,500 annually but the landowner, John Bumgarner had notified the county last year that he wanted to negotiate new terms and a higher lease payment of $4,500 annually.
Bumgarner closed the Belt dump site in December as lease negotiations apparently broke down.
Commissioners said in December that Rimrock Valley Preserve demanded to triple the county’s lease payment, and the “county, understandably, did not immediately accept this proposal. Since that point, the county has been reviewing all potential options regarding the Belt/Armington site, in order to keep waste management costs reasonable for county residents.”
During the March 11 meeting, Bumgarner said he wanted to extend his previous offers to the county to continue using the existing site.
He said that in December he’d emailed and in January texted an offer to county officials and asked to discuss.
Rae Grulkowski, former county commissioner who lost her bid for reelection to Eric Hinebauch, said that Bumgarner had offered to maintain the $1,500 rent through June 2025 to keep the site open while the county considered other options.
Several county residents spoke during the meeting that they didn’t understand why the county was choosing a new site that would need improvements to be functional rather than keeping the existing site.
Commissioner Joe Briggs told The Electric that the offers Bumgarner mentioned during the March 11 meeting had been made “after he unilaterally locked the gates and shut the public out of the dump site.”
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Briggs said that Bumgarner had also contacted Republic Services, the county’s contractor, asking the company to remove their equipment from the site before he locked the gates. That contact is how county officials learned Bumgarner intended to lock out the public, Briggs said.
Briggs said at the time Bumgarner locked the site, he had been proposing a short-term lease with penalties and interest charges and had told the county’s negotiating team that he had no interest in selling the land or entering a long-term lease, which mirrors what Phoebe Marcinek, a deputy county attorney, said during a November meeting when solid waste was discussed.
Since Bumgarner had told the county he wasn’t interest in selling or a long-term lease, county officials were already looking for an alternate site, which was mentioned in July 2024 during a county discussion that was open to the public and attended by The Electric.
Briggs said that the county cannot simply make an offer to buy land and under state law, cannot pay more than the appraised value. Briggs said that Bumgarner had declined last year to agree that would be acceptable.
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County officials discussed the solid waste program during multiple public meetings and officials had said they were not inclined to make improvements on any of the current sites without long-term leases or owning the land to amortize the cost of those improvements.
Briggs said the existing Belt site didn’t need immediate improvements but they’d been discussing adding more bins or compactors to multiple sites, including Belt.
County Commissioners are scheduled to conduct a public hearing on March 17 on operating a solid waste dump site, including signage, on the newly leased land contrary to its current Mixed Use-20 zoning assignment to the land.
During the March 11 meeting, commissioners also unanimously agreed to apply for an intercap loan through the Montana Board of Investments for $300,000 to fund improvements to the newly leased site.
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Trista Besich, county finance director, reviewed budgets for the solid waste program during the March 11 meeting, including an estimate of $190,000 in improvements that commissioners and county staff had previously discussed.
Besich said that with the site the county has now leased, Les Payne, county public works director, thinks the costs could be lower.
Besich said the MBOI told her intercap loans had been used for solid waste program improvements in the past and could have a up to a 15 year term.
The county has two MBOI intercap loans currently, for the courthouse roof and Expo Park grandstands replacement. Each are for $2 million with a 10-year term. The courthouse loan will be paid off in 2027 and the grandstands in 2029.
The MBOI sets the interest rate on the loans every February and it’s 5 percent this year.
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There’s no penalty for using less than the full amount requested or paying the loan off earlier, Besich told commissioners.
Besich said the solid waste program was running $66,000 in the black as of late February, but some of that was attributed to savings due to the closure of the Belt site and the solid waste increase implemented last fall.
Republic Services picks up trash at the county dump sites under their contract with the county, but the site attendant fee is paid by the county, which was some of the savings since the Belt site had been closed for several months.
Payne told commissioners should get the new Belt site up and running, then work with Republic to reduce costs to the county rather than raising solid waste fees to county residents to cover expenses.
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“That would be a much better solution,” Larson said.
Marcinek said that not reopening a Belt site would be a cost savings, but that’s not what’s best for residents and commissioners wanted to continue operating all existing sites.
Briggs said that options for combining the Hardy Creek and Cascade sites were worth pursuing, but otherwise wanted to maintain the geographic spread of the sites throughout the county for resident convenience.
Payne said the MBOI funds can also be used toward improvements at other county solid waste sites, such as more compactors or running electricity, which staff and commissioners discussed last summer.
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Grulkowski said that there are still inefficiencies at the dump sites such as attendants not punching punch cards and dumpsters not being emptied.
She said it’s a management issue and thought the county should get a loan for something more substantial rather than a new Belt dumpsite rather than a lease with Bumgarner.
Commissioners mentioned last year in several meetings that there were issues with the contract with Republic.
Briggs and Payne said county officials are continuing to work on those issues with Republic, primarily the consistent punching of dump tickets, emptying containers at the sites in a timely manner and keeping dump sites open during stated operating hours.
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The City of Great Falls issued a reminder in late February that city residents are free to switch to or from city sanitation services to Republic at any time and changes in property ownership aren’t required for such a change.
Asked the reason for the release, Chris Gaub, city public works director, told The Electric that Republic’s customer service call center had been telling customers they could only change to or from sanitation services when there was a change in ownership.
Gaub said that Republic told him they’d corrected that issue on March 3.
City officials mentioned in their January goal setting meeting that they’d been approached by Republic to essentially privatize city sanitation services.
City Manager Greg Doyon said it was a preliminary discussion and no further details have been publicly discussed.
Both city and county officials said they hear complaints from residents about their trash pickup through Republic.
In early March, the Montana Public Service Commission voted unanimously to issue a letter to Republic regarding complaints from residents in Big Timber and Sweet Grass County.
Brad Molnar, PSC president, told The Electric that the “epicenter” of complaints regarding Republic is currently in Sweet Grass County, but they’ve received statewide on a wide array of issues.
He said the PSC received one complaint about Republic from a Great Falls resident on Feb. 7 about a lack of trash pickup due to snow, for the last six months, so Molnar said he wasn’t sure what that particular issue was.
As of March 15, Republic did not respond to The Electric’s questions regarding county dump sites and their contract with the county, and general complaints from city and county residents.
