City finds skateboard park funds in amount of $2,000

The proposed Libby skateboard park encountered a setback at last week’s city council meeting as Mayor Doug Roll read off a letter stating that the sale of the land of the old skateboard park – money to be set aside for the new park – was only $2,000, considerably less than park advocates’ recollection of $7,000.

Roll found the letter, written in 2006, at the Lincoln County Title Co. It was addressed to the city from the Lincoln County campus of Flathead County Community College. The school had been using part of the city’s property on Utah Avenue for its building arts program. The small strip that held the old skateboard park yielded less money than even Roll had recalled.

“I thought the number was closer to $3,000,” Roll said, “but I knew that it couldn’t have been $7,000 because the property just wasn’t worth that much.”

The money was placed in the general budget somewhere, Roll said. The money was forgotten until Trent Oelberg recently began an organized effort to build a state-of-the-art skateboard park in Libby.

The first plan for the proposed park was drawn to fit long and narrow along the east side of Lee Gehring Field. Councilmembers determined that it was too big of a footprint for the space, so Oelberg has suggested it be build on property outside city hall near the tennis courts. 

Roll announced at the meeting that U Serve wrote the city a letter asking that the new park not be built near the tennis courts.

In other news at Monday’s meeting:

• Roll announced that the Environmental Protection Agency agreed to extend the comment period for the proposed plans for Operable Unit 1 (the former export plant) and OU2 (the former screening plant) until Jan. 16.

• Deborah Sprankel of Beartooth Mechanical Inc. relayed her concern during the public comment period about unlicensed plumbers working in the city. She requested to be on the next meeting’s agenda to give her full presentation.

• The council voted to move forward in getting the city’s ordinances placed on the Municode website.

• The council agreed to wait to see where the city budgets are before deciding how much to contribute to new fencing at Lee Gehring Field.