Toby’s House is asking the city to partner by allowing a long-term lease of a city park for a new facility, opening a broader question of how the city handles requests for property it hasn’t identified as available and further into the overall operations of Park and Recreation.

Toby’s House is a nonprofit crisis nursery with a focus on children ages 0-6, but they can take children up to 12-years-old, and their families.

The nursery was established in late 2020 to prevent child abuse and neglect through providing crisis and respite care, as well as some transitional care for families awaiting availability at daycare, according to the organization, which was named nonprofit of the year in 2022 by Montana Children’s Trust Fund.

“The origin of Toby’s House Crisis Nursery is rooted in a tragic span of years in which Great Falls lost numerous lives to child abuse and neglect. The nursery is named for October Perez, who was killed by her mother’s boyfriend while her father was serving in Afghanistan in 2011 when she was only two-years old. It is dedicated to her and the other children in our community who should never have endured the harms they suffered,” Leesha Ford, Toby’s House director, wrote in a July letter to the City Commission.

In 2024, Toby’s House provided more than 4,000 hours of care and helped more than 100 new children and their families, as well as provided diapers, formula, clothing and more, Ford wrote.

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Ford presented their request during the Aug. 19 commission work session asking the city to provide a long-term lease of about 11,000-square-feet of Carter Park to build a roughly 5,000-square foot one-story new facility.

During the meeting, City Manager Greg Doyon said that staff has been in discussions with Toby’s House for awhile, but the challenge is that city code doesn’t provide a clear pathway when there’s an interest in acquiring city property when the commission hasn’t made a determination that it wants to dispose of that property or offered it for sale or lease.

The code is “cumbersome,” Doyon said, “I know it’s been frustrating.”

In October 2024, Doyon sent an email to commissioners stating that among other private development requests, “a group wanted to build a new crisis care nursery in Morony Park (home of the old Natatorium).  In that case, there is a deed restriction preventing anything other than recreational use on the property.”

He cited the pertinent city code that states, “the city may sell, trade or lease for any period of time any real property whether or not the same be held in trust for a specific purpose without a vote of the electors and when passed by a four-fifths vote of all the members of the City Commission.”

For parkland, “the park board shall review any proposal for sale, trade or lease of the property, and make a recommendation to the City Commission.”

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The code requires appraisals and a bidding process with some exceptions.

Doyon wrote in his October email that the city doesn’t “maintain an approved ‘disposable property list’ nor does it conduct tax deed sales; so in all fairness, groups/developers are looking for land and are simply trying to gauge staff support for a donation.  I understand the intent, but in practice, it’s the commission who must decide the disposition of city parcels through a public process.  I’d note that since I’ve been here, the city has historically not been in the land donation business either. However, if the commission wants to change that approach, please let me know.”

In that October email, Doyon wrote that unless he was otherwise directed by commissioners, he told departments to advise developers that the city doesn’t donate land for private development unless it fits within the parameters of the current code and that city departments should advise parties who approach the city with these ideas to refer to the existing code.

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For those who persist, Doyon wrote that he’d reinforce the existing code and if they push, he’d have them draft a letter to the commission as the code is silent on how someone should approach the to city to ask for consideration of a land sale/trade/lease.

“I’ve also directed departments to avoid spending a lot of time and energy engaging/facilitating conversations or researching potential sites for housing initiatives on city-owned properties. While the department should provide basic information to assist with any potential housing development (i.e., zoning, basic design criteria, etc.), the developer needs to ascertain the level of interest from the commission as to whether or not the property would even be considered for sale/sale/trade before expending significant staff resources,” Doyon wrote in October.

“I don’t want to get ahead of the commission on the process, so if you have any other preferences or recommendations, I’m all ears. Please let me know if you have any questions or if you would like to review the approach altogether,” Doyon wrote in October.

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By May, city staff was continuing to meet with the Toby’s House team about their interest in building a new facility in Morony Park.

City staff raised the issue of the deed restriction on that property, requiring that it be used for public park purposes or be reverted back to the original owners, according to the 1910 agreement with the Great Falls Water Power and Townsite Company.

In a mid-May email to the Toby’s House team, Brock Cherry, city planning director, wrote to follow up on the meeting in which they discussed poor soils and the deed restriction. Cherry wrote that Doyon had asked staff to identify other city owned land that may be suitable for their request.

Cherry wrote that Toby’s House should submit a letter of interest outlining their organization, size and concept of the proposed facility, the type of request they’re making such as a lease of city-owned land, and why the project serves the public and how it would operate long-term.

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In May, Cherry wrote that once the commission receives the letter, they’d decide whether to move forward and may invite the group to present at a work session, direct staff to identify a potential property and conduct a basic feasibility review, request an appraisal of the property, schedule a public hearing and/or include conditions such as a reversion clause if the use ceases or changes.

“If the commission chooses to move forward, we’ll need additional detail—particularly if parkland is involved. Responsibilities between Toby’s House, the city, and Park and Recreation would need to be clearly defined, and Park and Rec must retain authority over key aspects like location, layout, signage, etc. We also understand your timeline is tight, but want to be transparent that city processes—especially those involving public land—often move more slowly than private development,” Cherry wrote in May.

Doyon said he’d received little feedback or guidance from commissioners since his October email and on June 6, Doyon sent another email to commissioners regarding the Toby’s House proposal.

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Doyon wrote that the Toby’s House team was interested in constructing a new facility within Great Falls, “they are very motivated, apparently have the resources, and are passionately focused on Morony Park.  We totally support the project, understand its need and would like to see the project completed in GF.”

In the June email, Doyon wrote that staff had identified significant constraints with the Morony Park concept, to include poor soils, pending CDBG funded playground improvements at the park, deed restrictions and time sensitivity as the Walsh Group has offered to construct the facility immediately after completing work at Malmstrom Air Force Base.

Due to those factors, city staff provided other potential city-owned properties as options, including Carter Park and surface parking lots.

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In his June email, Doyon told commissioners that staff had recommended Toby’s House submit a letter of interest and proposal for commission review.

The Toby’s House letter is dated July 21.

“Use of existing parkland for non-recreational purposes would require a more extensive review process and could generate significant public interest or concern,” Doyon wrote in June, and city staff “are working collaboratively to ensure that any future proposal includes clear roles, responsibilities, and safeguards for the city. These elements will be thoroughly defined and communicated to the commission to support thoughtful and informed decision-making.”

During the Aug. 19 work session, Ford, Toby’s House director, said that they started with a small rental space with multiple floors, which is located at 421 5th St. N., and have grown.

Ford said she “knew we needed to start small” but now they need more space for the licensed childcare facility.

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The nonprofit started as a diaper and formula source, as those necessities are expensive, and Ford said a survey from a few years ago indicated parents wouldn’t use a full scoop of formula to stretch it further, hindering infant development, or push diaper changes to save money.

Toby’s House offers respite and crisis care at no cost to families, existing on grants and donations.

“We work very hard and with a very tiny budget,” Ford said.

Ford said she’d spent years looking at private properties around town and walked the properties suggested recently by the city as potential options, including parking lots and Carter Park.

“We’re not talking about cars, we’re talking about children,” Ford said.

Carter Park, she said, is now their preferred location. It’s an underused park, she said, and within walking distance of the Rescue Mission and YWCA, in a high poverty and high addiction area, which includes some of the community’s most at-risk children.

The new Toby’s House facility wouldn’t take away from the park, but would be “a shelter for the most vulnerable among us,” Ford said, revitalizing a neglected block.

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The facility could be a creative partnership between the nonprofit and the city, Ford said, with a chance “to lead something other than the deaths of children aged 0-5.”

A generous group of businesses and donors have supported Toby’s House since its inception and now a new group of buildings is offering to build a new facility.

The Walsh Group is offering to construct the facility, using contributions and donations through their vendor and contractor network, and Jimmy Filipowicz of Steel Etc. offered up to $500,000 toward the project.

Ford said their organization and this project supports the entire city by providing childcare to allow parents to work and supports public safety by helping prevent child abuse.

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Carter Park is about 4.2 acres and Ford said their proposed facility would take up a small portion of the park.

She said they’d have a secure playground for vulnerable children, so some of the facility would be fenced, but there would also be access to the park for their children that’s still considered onsite by the state rules.

Under a long-term lease, Ford said, Toby’s House would be responsible for maintenance and liability that would be covered through their insurance.

Expanded childcare would be a possibility, Ford said, to cover their costs and provide that service to the community, which has long been identified as a need.

City Commissioner Shannon Wilson said she lives in the Carter Park neighborhood and the facility would take up a lot of greenspace that children use to play regularly.

Wilson said the people in the neighborhood don’t have parents taking them on fancy vacations or sending them to summer camps and they rely on the park.

“That’s exactly who we serve,” Ford said.

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Commissioner Rick Tryon read some questions from a list of concerns sent by the Park and Recreation Advisory Board.

Ford presented to that board on Aug. 18 and said she’d responded to many of their questions.

Tryon said, “I don’t think it’s a game stopper,” but he was concerned about the precedent of moving forward with the Toby’s House proposal.

He asked if Ford was asking for a lease with a nominal fee or a donation of land.

Ford said she’d approached private property owners, but a half million for a burned out property wasn’t really suitable and that a long-term lease of city property for a nominal fee would be ideal.

She said it’s an opportunity for the city to consider and look what the community wants for community partnerships.

Tryon said the city has 57 parks and many are used, but “I think it’s worth considering other uses for these parks.”

In comparison to the city’s 57 parks, “this is miniscule,” Mayor Cory Reeves said.

Having served as a city cop, he said he’d responded to abuse calls and the facility is a community need.

Reeves is on record supporting development of at least some city parkland.

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Scott Dunbar of Walsh Group said “we need to move forward” and without a commitment, businesses will shift their funding to other projects.

He said they’ve been working on the project for two years and if they’d had this conversation a year ago, Toby’s House could already be in a new facility.

Filipowicz said that if the city was worried about precedence, he’d buy the property and donate it to Toby’s House, to which Tryon said that would be a longer process.

Doyon said the code on the sale, trade or lease of city property is “cumbersome” and is the same whether it’s a lease to Toby’s House or a sale to Filipowicz.

Doyon said if the commission wants to explore the proposal, he’d work with legal staff to outline next steps and try to put a timeline to the process.

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The code requires appraisals and a bidding process, so there’s not much flexibility unless there’s only one bidder, Doyon said, and that while he respects what Toby’s House does, “we want to make sure that we do it right.”

Commissioner Joe McKenney said that making an individual decision about Toby’s House “isn’t the right thing to do,” but should instead make a policy about what they’d entertain for parks, since once they entertain this proposal, they’ll have to entertain other things.

Doyon told The Electric on Aug. 20 that he had directed the city attorney to review the process for divesting property and the Toby’s House request raises the issue and the broader discussion of how the city manages Park and Recreation.

He said that the discussion regarding the Toby’s House request for city property had been ongoing for months, but there were delays for those discussions and the summer commission work sessions had been booked.

Those work session topics included the city budget, fireworks, an update on park maintenance district projects, opioid litigation, changes to the soil testing code and library board interviews.

The city closed a request for proposals in mid-August for a comprehensive fee study and “operational efficiency assessment” of Parks and Rec.

“The project will establish a clear cost allocation framework, evaluate current fees and cost recovery practices, and develop a pricing philosophy aligned with community values and long-term financial sustainability. In addition, the consultant will review the department’s organizational structure, staffing model, and service delivery to identify opportunities for improved efficiency, coordination, and future planning. This marks the city’s first comprehensive review of both its fee structure and operational framework,” according to the RFP.

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The review will look at Park and Rec overall and specifically at Aim High Big Sky in how to operate efficiently since baseline costs have “skyrocketed” and usage is different than anticipated. For example, the city’s consultant produced a pro forma that assumed locals would want annual memberships, but so far, it appears they prefer daily or monthly passes.

The city recently received an appraisal for the old Rec Center on 2nd Avenue North, Doyon said, and he’ll discuss that sale process at an upcoming commission meeting.

He asked Park and Rec for a preliminary list of “excess” parkland, but said he doesn’t agree with the department recommendation, so that requires more internal discussion and he’s not ready to make any recommendations to the commission yet.

The list is similar to that produced by Park and Rec about a decade ago of unused or underutilized parkland, which caused significant community pushback at the time.

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From the January 2013 Park and Rec board minutes, Doyon had requested a list of underutilized parkland and discussion of that land was continuing.

“None of it would be underutilized if there was funding available to add amenities in all parks such as playgrounds,” according to those meeting minutes. “The board is not in favor of selling parkland, but they are open to discuss each parcel as it comes up. There are parks that are partially developed and if they are split and one portion sold that would
allow more development for the other portion. Concern with selling parkland just because the park is listed as underutilized; concern that there is no potential of ever adding another park in certain areas, it would be lost forever.”

In February 2013, the former Park and Rec director presented underutilized and undeveloped parks to the City Commission and the minutes include that presentation.

Doyon told The Electric that as the city works through the discussion of developing or disposing of parkland and general city property, they have to be “thoughtful” as once it’s gone, they won’t be able to give it back.

Doyon said that given current and anticipated budget factors with rising expenses and recent legislative changes that are significantly impacting the city budget, coupled with tax protests, the city has to reframe how Park and Rec, as well as Civic Center Events, does business.

Those legislative changes are expected to impact police and fire in the next budget year.

In the current budget, the new police bargaining agreement alone accounted for $1.2 million in wage increases, Doyon said, as the city’s mill value decreased and its ability to generate tax revenue is reduced.

During the Aug. 19 work session, Reeves said there will be bumps in the road, but that commissioners should direct Doyon to work with legal staff on the Toby’s House proposal.

Commissioner Shannon Wilson said she wasn’t happy about losing a big part of Carter Park, but that staff should move forward and see what they come up with, though, “I’m sure Paris Gibson will be rolling in his grave.”