County health department staffer to take on planning tasks

Jake Mertes, environmental health specialist with Lincoln County Public Health Department, is taking on planning tasks so that his office can “become one-stop shopping for surveyors.”

The additional responsibilities, including flood plains administration and lakeshore permitting, make sense, he said, because it will allow all planning-related questions to be answered in just one office.

“There won’t be any issues with communication,” Mertes said, noting that in years past planning used to be part of the office. “It really will help people out and help speed up the (planning and development) process.”

As environmental health specialist, Mertes said his role has been “protecting human health and the environment and sensible development in Lincoln County.” Among other tasks he issues septic permits and deals with air quality issues.

The tasks previously had been handled by Lisa Oedewaldt, who left her job in early June. The county has contracted with the planning consulting firm Land Solutions in the meantime.

Mertes background is in science. He holds a bachelors degree in biology from Valley City State University in North Dakota. He then attended graduate school at the University of North Dakota, but left before graduating to care for his ailing father in Minnesota.

When his father died, Mertes’ life was disrupted. Grieving, he hit the road with his late father’s dog Major — a German shepherd-mastiff mix — and started driving west, looking for a place “to live alone in the woods.” Four years ago on July 4, when he drove north into town over the Kootenai River bridge and saw the Cabinet Mountains on his horizon, Mertes said he knew he’d found home.

Mertes and Major lived in the woods for two weeks, camping out until they found a place to rent, but soon became part of the community. For two years Mertes was a substitute teacher in both Libby and Troy school districts and he worked EMS for Libby Volunteer Ambulance. He’s worked in his current position for about two years.

“It’s always a puzzle,” Mertes said of his job. “(There is) always lots to find out, even something as simple as finding a septic permit.”

His work lets him use his science knowhow, and he agrees there’s an aspect of being a historian involved as well.

“You definitely start to recognize how areas were developed and who developed them,” he said.

Mertes has developed a reputation as a quick study, an accolade he humbly shrugs aside.

“They keep giving me things to learn and I learn them really quickly,” he said.

“With an eye for detail, he is eager, enthusiastic and interested in serving the county to his fullest potential,” Kristin Smith, a Libby City Council member and a planning expert who contracts with the county, wrote in an email. “Taking on these new duties marks a great synthesis with the state-contracted Department of Environmental Quality reviews he is already doing for subdivisions.”

County Commissioner Mike Cole likes that Mertes is “very frank and to the point.”

“He is also objective to the issues, and knows what the law or rules say,” Cole said. Mertes is looking forward to performing his new duties.

“It’s a challenging job and there are times when it’s stressful but it’s good stress,” he said. “My favorite part is when I help someone get a permit.”