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Covering the Bitterroot Valley – “Where Montana Begins!”
’ ! l a c o est at L
‘The B Volume XXXIV, Number 31
Historic legacy
Established 1985 - Locally owned & independent
Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Commissioners, Health Board address conflicts through MOU By Michael Howell
Colleen Meyer, Kent Smartt and Myla Yahraus accept a plaque acknowledging Major John Owen’s induction into the Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center.
The Ravalli County Board of Commissioners have adopted a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Ravalli County Board of Health in an effort to delineate their respective responsibilities and duties. Both parties characterize the effort as an attempt to be proactive in addressing areas of conflict with respect to each other’s legal authorities according to statute. Both parties agree that the law states very clearly that “The Board of Health shall appoint and set the salary for the Public Health Officer.” The problem, according to Deputy County Attorney Dan Browder, is that the law gives them that authority, but it does not give them a budget. He said state law has clearly put the county budget in the hands of the County Board of Commissioners. Browder, who represents both the Board of Commissioners and the Board of Health, said that the proposed MOU outlines how the two bodies will proceed in implementing the law in a way that respects both authorities. In a nutshell, the agreement outlines a process of “collaboration” between the two Boards that includes a dispute resolution process if there should be some disagreement between the boards concerning the appointment or the salary for the Public Health Officer. Commissioner Greg Chilcott called it “an age-old question,” saying, “The law gives them the authority to spend, but it doesn’t
give them a budget.” He said he was concerned that, in the future, some board might set an outrageous salary. Board of Health member Roger DeHaan said that the MOU provided a dispute resolution process in which those problems could be worked out. “My idea is that you start out with a low salary and if you don’t get any good applications, then you try again,” said DeHaan. “Right now, we have people with great qualifications working for peanuts. I don’t know how much longer that can last.” Commission Chair Jeff Burrows said that if things really came to logger heads, the law also states clearly that the Board of Health serves at the pleasure of the Board of Commissioners. He said that’s where the conflict would be ultimately reconciled. “But fortunately, right now we have a great working relationship,” he said. “Serving at the pleasure of the Board is sort of a blunt instrument,” said DeHaan. “Yes, you could fire somebody and have somebody else come sit on the board, but that can take a lot of time. If there is a vacancy in the Public Health Officer position, it needs to be filled quickly. We can’t wait for you to reconfigure your board before somebody is hired.” Burrows noted that the Board of Health bylaws allow for the establishment of a Board of Health consisting of the County Commission and two other people. Attorney Dan Browder said, “Here we are at a fork in the road
in terms of delegating some of that authority out.” Chilcott called the idea of establishing a Board of Health structure with the County Commissioners in charge “the nuclear option.” “Part of the reason for this MOU is so that we won’t ever have to get there,” said DeHaan, “if we can establish these ground rules and keep everyone on speaking terms.” Aside from the question of setting the salary, the question of who is really hiring the Public Health Officer was also discussed as well as other “staff” including the Public Health Nurse, the County Sanitarian, and the Tobacco Prevention Program Director. Browder said that a lot of things are not clear related to the questions of supervisory capacities. He said the Board of Health obviously has some supervisory capacities over those other programs. They are the body that creates and enforces the sanitary regulations, for instance. But obviously as well, all these people are employees of the County. He said that these issues can be dealt with through the MOU and the use of the dispute resolution process outlined in there and potentially avoid litigation when dealing with these issues. He said it also may require a change in the Board of Health bylaws. “Do you want to go to court and say that, even though the law says the Board of Health gets to See MOU, page 2
John Owen inducted into Stevensville town council Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame tables bulk of agenda items On February 9, in Great Falls, Major John Owen was inducted into the Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center. On hand to receive the award on his behalf were Jay and Colleen Meyer, Myla Yahraus, owner of Fort Owen Ranch, and her ranch manager Kent Smartt. Major Owen played a huge role in Montana’s history, and gave our state many firsts.
First established water rights, first recorded land purchase, established Stevensville as the state’s first town, and he was one of the first white men to legally marry a native woman. He kept some of the best, and first journals describing the life, times, and very important—the weather conditions of the 1850’s and 60’s. He and his wife, Nancy, traveled 23,000 miles during their stay at Fort Owen,
fostering trade both in and out of the Bitterroot Valley. He was accorded recognition that was very well earned. The Fort Owen Ranch, and Fort Owen State Park, just outside the Stevensville town limits, both give lasting recognition to Major John Owen’s accomplishments, and his importance, still, to the town of Stevensville— Montana’s oldest community.
Studying tick spit
By Michael Howell
With Mayor Brandon Dewey out of town on business, Council President Bob Michalson got a chance to wield the gavel at last week’s Stevensville Town Council meeting. But the ambitious agenda, which included potentially rescinding or amending several resolutions already on the books, completely evaporated
Council President Michalson said, “I agree to disagree, Mr. Phillips. We’ve been through this a few times in my tenure on the council. If you look at the records and the minutes of meetings, there are no resolutions to rescind resolutions. I was told by MMIA that that has to do more with county commissions and not municipaliSee STEVI, page 2
Scientists explore tick salivary glands as tool to study virus transmission and infection
By Michael Howell
This photo shows an adult female black-legged tick (Ixodes scapularis) and an immature tick nymph next to a dime. Ixodes scapularis is much smaller than the Rocky Mountain tick common in these parts. The tiny black-legged tick that carries the Flavivirus has never been identified in Montana and this type of tick-borne infection has never been identified in the state either. Photo by Austin Athman, RML/NIAID.
once Councilor Jerry Phillips questioned the legality of the process. Phillips pointed out that the Montana Municipal Officers Handbook clearly states that amending or rescinding an existing ordinance or a resolution required a new resolution and the meeting notice and the topics to be considered needed to be advertised in advance.
Research into ticks in the Bitterroot valley began in earnest around 1900 when Dr. Howard Ricketts began looking into the causes of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. The Bitterroot is now home to one of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ (NIAID) most advanced Bio-Level 4 research facilities and continues to make advances in the study of tick-borne infectious diseases. Scientists at Rocky Mountain Laboratories have recently published research results indicating that the salivary glands of some tick species could become important research tools for studying how viruses are transmitted from ticks to mammals, and for developing preventive medical
countermeasures. Tick salivary glands usually block transmission, but the new study, published in the journal mBio, focuses on the role of salivary glands in spreading flaviviruses from black-legged ticks (Ixodes scapularis) to mammals. Lead author in the study, Dr. Jeff Grabowski, advances his research work published in 2017 that established cultured tick organs as a model for flavivirus infection. According to Dr. Marshall Bloom M.D., chief of NIAID’s Biology of Vector-Borne Viruses Section at the lab, Dr. Grabowski and his team developed a method of dissecting these very small ticks, about the size of a mustard seed, and separating out the midgut and salivary glands. This enabled them to grow them in an incubator as cultures which could
be used for experimental purposes. “This latest study is an important extension of that early work,” said Bloom. By inoculating the cultures with an infection, the scientists could study the process of transmission. In this case the transmission of a highly infectious flavivirus. Flaviviruses include Dengue virus, Zika virus, West Nile virus, Yellow Fever virus, Powassan virus and several other viruses. Powassan is the only endemic flavivirus spread by ticks in North America, where it is considered a re-emerging virus. According to Bloom, Centers for Disease Control statistics show that the numbers of infected people are increasing, and the tick’s range is also increasing. See TICKS, page 16