Growing Pains: How the County Tackles Zoning, Climate Concerns and Recreation Management

Charged with overseeing growth and community development in a county with more than 117,000 residents spread across 1.6 million acres, the Office of Lands and Communities is responsible for a lot of moving parts.

In this episode, the commissioners sit down with Chet Crowser, head of the Office of Lands and Communities. This newly reorganized office helps our community address environmental issues, implement zoning policies, manage trails and parks, oversee grants that fund important programs and initiatives, and a lot more. Chet and the commissioners discuss pressing issues like affordable housing, climate change and resource protection as the county grows.

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Climate Ready Missoula Project
• Electrify Missoula
• Climate Smart Missoula Nonprofit

Thank you to Missoula's Community Media Resource for your podcast recording support.  

 
Thank you to Missoula's Community Media Resource for podcast recording support!

Transcript

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Commissioner Strohmaier: 0:10

[Intro music plays] Welcome back to Tip of commissioners. I'm Dave Strohmaier. I am joined today by my colleagues, Josh Slotnick and Juanita Vero. And we are also graced with the presence of Chet Crowser. He's the director of a department that all of you might have known in the past as Community and Planning Services. But it has recently been rebranded as the Office of Lands and Communities. Welcome, Chet.

Chet Crowser: 0:37

Yeah, it's great to be here. I appreciate the time with you all.

Commissioner Vero: 0:39

Yeah. So can we get started with overview of will provide to Missoula County residents?

Chet Crowser: 0:48

Yeah, sure. So I think first and foremost, a caps will continue on. It's just going to be a slight restructure. And that largely is geared to to helping us, I think, do a better job at what we have been doing and hopefully some additional things. But what what the new office will include is a department that mostly was what you'll think of in caps as the planning function of the department, and that department is called Planning, Development and Sustainability. Karen Hughes is the new director of that department and will be continuing to oversee all of our staff that we have had in caps in that new role. We also have a new department that will be called Lands, Culture and Recreation that will hopefully pull all of the various things the county has been doing and we'll be doing in sort of that broader recreation space under one roof to improve the function there. And we also have the Department of Ecology, which is newly rebranded or will be rebranding, and most folks would know that as the Weed District and Extension. So they'll also be coming under this new office. And then we have one final piece of that that we're working on currently Grants and Community Programs, which is a division of CAPS, and they're undergoing a program assessment currently to evaluate their program moving forward. And they're part of this reorganization as well.

Commissioner Slotnick: 2:03

So, Chet listening to the breakdown of what's I propose right here on the fly, we change the name of the department from Office of Lands and Communities to the Office of very Timely Issues. Listening to that and they think listening to what you were saying, thinking about housing, the intense pressure on housing right now as our population has grown, the impacts of recreation to the places we we love, the effects of tourism and on the rental market, how is this new office——and this is about a really big conversation——but what are some of the things your office is doing to address some of these issues?

Chet Crowser: 2:43

Yeah, a lot of a lot of things. And they're they're ever-evolving, I would say, and constantly dynamic. And part of that is because we have a pretty diverse county. And so as we think of those community needs, we're thinking not only about what what are the folks here right around the city of Missoula needing, but also what about these communities and outlying areas and certainly the needs that exist in the Swan or in Lolo or out west of town, the Frenchtown, Huson area are going to be different than maybe folks right here around the the urban portion of the city of Missoula. So a big part of that is looking to those communities, trying to understand those needs and addressing those. We're doing a couple of things in terms of kind of broader categories, I guess, within our our office. One is just the constant thought around growth and sustainable growth and managing growth in communities again to reflect those community needs because each community is a little bit different. So we've had a couple of efforts underway here in the last few years to update our growth policy. The land use element was the first kind of step in that way, paving the way to our recently adopted zoning code update. Those are all intended to help us better adapt, better plan and think ahead to the future in terms of growth. And what do we value in Missoula County and what kinds of things do we want to build all the way into regulations so that we can have a vision that we see then in that growth into the future. And then we also have a lot of efforts underway to support programs and service providers in those communities, and that really gets at some of those needs. Just to give you a couple of ideas of some of those projects, and these are largely things that are grants and community programs division is involved with. But, you know, working with the Poverello on the veterans housing project, there's about 100 point, or 1.4 million in county funding that will go to that and supporting housing for veterans in the county. But we can even look beyond the city again, thinking more county-wide: food bank distribution out in rural areas of the community is another example there. We also have looked at working with partner groups like Trust Montana in terms of first-time homebuyer assistance. So all those programs, all of those community growth sorts of categories or things that our staff are working on in those various departments and divisions.

Commissioner Slotnick: 4:55

That's great. Thanks.

Commissioner Strohmaier: 4:57

Chet, just just going back a minute, and vital to our constituents here in Missoula County. But I guess the pull the veil back a little in terms of the rebranding, the reorganization process, what really precipitated this? And some might say what's in a name? And I would argue there's a lot in the name. It really helps frame what it is that we do and reminds folks and hopefully is evocative of of the core values of an organization. But could you talk just a little bit about how it was to go through this process of re-envisioning what this department is?

Chet Crowser: 5:41

Yeah, you bet. A lot of it's not super Some of it is geared more toward internally just having a function that allows us to do the work that then the public is appreciative of later. I mean, a lot of times it's just making sure we have a solid foundation and internal function so that we can deliver those needs or those services to the public and meet their needs. But I think in terms of what we've observed over time, the work of CAPS has really evolved and there's been a number of organizational restructures over time to address basically the community's changing needs and new issues that arise and an ability to tackle those issues. And as a result, we've grown both in terms of the program size, but also in terms of the breadth of issues that we're dealing with. And so this restructure was really geared toward a couple of things: One, increasing the capacity that we have and thinking more about the roles and responsibilities we have as staff. So in my case, I was able to delegate some of the role and authority that I had in the planning arena to a director under this new structure that will allow them to utilize their specialized expertise and leading and directing the new Department of Planning, Development and Sustainability to better meet the needs of the public, better oversee that work and and then free up some of the workload better divide that amongst the staff we currently have. In addition to that, Missoula has always seen a huge demand in the natural resource and recreation opportunities that we have in our community. And that's not only for the folks who live here and maybe even moved here or stay here for those kinds of opportunities. But the business community and our local economy, that really benefits from having that resource, but it's not going to stay here and be that way forever. Not unlike we talked about planning for our community growth. We also need to plan and think about how we manage and sustain those resources and provide for those those needs in the community. And so pulling together all of the recreation work we're doing as a county, I think will better allow us to effectively move forward and collaborate together. And collaboration really is another key part of the additional departments that we've added to the office. And the idea here being that, yes, we're all under one roof in terms of an office and we're working together, hopefully collaboratively, more so because we can function and have reoccurring leadership discussions amongst each of those department heads. And we just haven't had that opportunity for synergy in the past. So this is just a growth at adaptation to increase efficiency and effectiveness and hopefully enhance the collaboration that we're already seeing and just shuffling some of those responsibilities again to hopefully better serve the public.

Commissioner Strohmaier: 8:11

Thanks.

Commissioner Vero: 8:11

Yeah. So some of these responsibilities that affordability and and like rezoning policies might not sound the most exciting. But me personally, I think planners are like the high priests of culture and community and civilization.

Commissioner Strohmaier: 8:30

Wow. The high priests!

Commissioner Vero: 8:33

Yeah, but it's true. It's true, if you think about it. There' a lot of power there and huge responsibility. But so let's talk more about kind of policies and related to affordable, attainable housing and the scope and, you know, the variety of housing options that we're trying to achieve.

Chet Crowser: 8:52

Yeah, no, that's a great question and one hear a lot about I'm just waiting to hear from our planners that want to put that on their business card.

Commissioner Slotnick: 9:03

It's the high priests of modernity.

Chet Crowser: 9:05

I'll be thinking after this about how I'm

Commissioner Slotnick: 9:09

What kind of outfit is Karen going to wear?

Chet Crowser: 9:11

Yeah, yeah, it's going to be amazing. But no housing really is, it's one of those things that, depending on how you look at it, it might have a different meaning to you, right? If you're thinking about you have a home and you've had it for a while and maybe it's, you know, keeping up with the things you need to maintain around the house or maybe you don't have a house at all, or maybe you're thinking about your kids and how they're going to stay here and afford a home. Certainly we've seen just wild increases in housing prices and we have not seen increases in the wages to keep up with that affordability side. And so we're stuck with some real challenges there. On the zoning side, there's a couple of pieces. One, we recently had a zoning update that was like the first time in 50 years. So you can imagine in any sort of regulation, that kind of overhaul is really significant. And so it's modernizing our approach to land use on a very broad scale to have that update. But specifically, that was an opportunity to then look at how we can address the range of opportunities. Is that we see the zoning code provide to housing options and some folks will. We'll talk about the missing middle in terms of housing where, you know, early earlier on we were focused, you know, post World War Two-era where you have largely your urban core. Maybe you think of high rise apartments and then you on the other end have kind of suburban single family households. And in a lot of cases, there were regulations that really didn't allow for all of the things that can come in the middle. And so you're talking about condos and duplexes or fourplexes and all those range of options that allow people housing, but they're not necessarily in those end-of-the-spectrum categories. So that's really important. And what the new zoning code has allowed now is a better range of those options built into our zoning codes. So it allows for those things in more places and a wider range of those things to occur. But outside of that, really what what's probably the best way to think about housing and how we're trying to address that in the work we have going on in our office is to think about the range of housing options that are available. And it's not just what you might pick up on the market, it's also thinking about the price point that's there and thinking about the folks that are looking for a particular product in the market and how do we address whether or not they're able to afford those and then, in essence, stay in our community. And that's particularly important in the case of workforce housing, right? If you think about people who are maybe struggling to just make enough money to then look at how they might obtain a home, we need to start thinking about what are some creative ways in which we might help assist in doing that. And if you think about what oftentimes is available in terms of federal funding to support those things, you're thinking of relatively smaller percentage of average median income, or area median median income. And we really need to look at a higher percentage to capture kind of that workforce housing category, at least in a place like Missoula, where we're just seeing that, you know, average folks or young families probably aren't making enough to afford the cost of the kind of homes that they might like to see. So in addition to that, we're looking at ways in which we might find revenues that can go to support or offset. In some cases, it might be a first time homebuyer assistance working with partners on alternative options, ways in which we might have revolving loan funds that could come into play. And so we're looking at all those options right now, ultimately trying to figure out ways to fund and support some of those.

Commissioner Slotnick: 12:27

So a couple of questions for you, Chet. The first one following up on housing. Everybody you talk to in our county says we need more housing. And just about everybody you talk to also almost simultaneously says and there are some resources we absolutely have to protect. How does this new zoning incentivize some resource protection?

Chet Crowser: 12:46

Yeah, there's a there's there's quite a few You know, there's a couple one really significant one is the streamsides that we have. So our thinking about our river and stream corridors and making sure that we get the right kind of development in association with the the streams, riparian areas. And it's not just necessarily resource protection, but it's also thinking about climate change and how are we going to adapt moving into the future around changing flood flood events and making sure that we're we're building in the places where we aren't going to have those conflicts. But in addition to that, just having some regulations in place that address some of those questions about how close should we build, be building to the streams to protect to protect the resource and also allowing for certain kinds of use like agriculture and things like that. So that's kind of a blend, an example of a blending of those two. In addition to that, we have a lot of cases and affordable housing is in this mix as well, where we try to incentivize the right kinds of development in the right kinds of places. And so as one example, we might say, if there's a development interest in an area that, say, has really prime agricultural soils or opportunities, if we have a developer who wants to cluster, we might provide a bonus to them in terms of the development opportunity that they'll see, because part of that design is geared toward resource protection or preserving ag uses or other uses that we value and potentially are seeing reduced opportunity for us. We've got a super innovative crew on our hands when it comes to to to all of our planning work, truly. I mean, it's amazing the ideas they come up with, how well connected they are in the planning community and really bringing forward some pretty creative ideas. And you can imagine, again, going back to a 50-year-old zoning code, in some ways, I guess that's kind of nice because you have to have a blank slate. But we've got some of the best folks in the state that are doing this work.

Commissioner Slotnick: 14:42

Sure.

Commissioner Vero: 14:43

The high priests.

Commissioner Slotnick: 14:43

Yeah. I just want to I want to pat these high not only we didn't just unleash them and say, go be innovative. Instead, they spent years doing public engagement and created this land use element. So we have a map that's built on public engagement and then took what the public said they wanted and turned that into zoning, which is regulation. And it went so well, I think, because they spent the time it took to really engage with the public that by the end we had people who are on opposite ends of the not just the political spectrum, but the spectrum of how you deal with resource protection and housing come together and both say, "yeah, we really like this zoning". And that's what we came up with.

Commissioner Strohmaier: 15:23

Which is something I hope that the Governor's because this really is talk about tip of the spear stuff. This is about as modern and innovative and creative a zoning code as you could get. And the last thing we would want would be to have it jettisoned as part of some of the wranglings in Helena.

Commissioner Slotnick: 15:47

Yeah, I mean, this this zoning came out of professionals.

Commissioner Vero: 15:52

And I wonder how much of it is also coming recession and like crazy housing bubble to now COVID and the pandemic and incredible pressure that we face here in Montana or the Intermountain West. The stars align. The constellations are such that we were able to get this pretty amazing zoning plan in place and and it happened. Now, like, this is this is the perfect time for it to happen. And it couldn't have happened any other time. It took seven years and then the community was ready for it.

Commissioner Slotnick: 16:27

I think you're totally right, Juan. We had a zoning that kind of fit for our culture and economy and place for quite a while. And then all that changed and pretty and you just listed off all these major factors have changed and all of a sudden the zoning we had been working with didn't work at all. Your folks rose to the occasion.

Chet Crowser: 16:46

Yeah. It's really important to recognize the Because these things, I think sometimes people have this sense that regulation is like someone has this great idea and then they put this rule in place. And that's not the case at all. When we're talking about this zoning code. These conversations, like you mentioned, Josh, have been ongoing for years. And this is also so it's not only that engagement, which people always wonder how how much their comments are taken into account when you have public comments for any sort of government proposal. But I can absolutely, you know, back our staff up on that's like the most important thing that they focus on in these efforts and they take that amount of time you might even think as is taking forever to get there but that investment is what makes sure that we are all on the same page as a community and we've worked out those kinks. And keeping in mind that this isn't Missoula County-wide, right? This is this is focused on the primary area around the city of Missoula. So if we wanted to have these conversations about community vision for the rest of the county, that's a whole 'nother conversation. Again, going back to the investing in those local communities and what they would like to see. And we absolutely cannot afford to lose the progress we've made with this zoning code. Sure, there might be additional regulations that are a part of that, but that's the tool that then helps us realize the benefits that come from that zoning code being in place.

Commissioner Strohmaier: 18:08

Well, yeah, at some and in some contexts, the their well-honed pitchforks to get ready to do battle with us. In other cases, it may elicit folks drifting into a coma at the thought of zoning. What could be less sexy than that? But but it really is important. And it is the grammar and syntax by which we form our communities and our lives together. And the work that you and your staff did was borne out in the fact that by the time we got around to adopting it, I think most folks concerns and issues were dealt with and it was not controversial.

Chet Crowser: 18:46

Yeah, I think in the community of East right? The number of times that we had folks from East Missoula come up and we used to think of it as the Z word, but, you know, they listened to us and now we have this thing that we feel is going to help retain what's really important in our community. And I think that's a testament to all of those points, Dave.

Commissioner Slotnick: 19:03

So I want to go back to the new department should we call them Intractable Problems? I'm pointing towards climate. I mean, you have two folks on your staff working on climate issues. Can you talk a bit about what they're doing?

Chet Crowser: 19:17

Yeah, we've got just absolutely amazing team. I could say that for every one of the staff we have and it's not it's not at all just trying to pander. I mean, they are absolutely amazing, folks. I would not be able to be here talking to you as intelligently without their input for sure. But so we've got a lot of a lot of really important work happening in the climate world. So really, if you think about two sides of a coin, you know, we're reducing our contribution to climate change, which is the mitigation piece of that, and then preparing for the impacts, which is the adaptation piece. And like our staff, they coin a phrase, of course. And so do you think about this as avoid the unmanageable and manage the unavoidable? Here we go. That's a really good way to Yeah. To think about it. And so you can imagine, though, when it comes to climate change, you can fill in almost anything there. Couple of the things that we're really focused on is is looking at our energy situation and and renewable options that exist out there and trying to decrease our impact on on the the climate and and carbon sources that are that are creating that electric electricity for our communities. So we've had a lot of engagement with Northwestern Energy, with local folks in our community trying to continue to explore ways in which we can reduce the carbon footprint associated with our our electricity and our community, and also moving toward electrification of buildings and in our community and then reducing the operational impacts of at least county government. So we've had a number of different levels in which we're looking at clean electricity and reducing our impact on climate change. Also looking at then the mitigation side of that, how do we add, how do we adapt and how do we get prepared in all of our communities so that as we see the impacts of climate change, we're ready to to have communities that can be resilient in the face of those changes. And so we have a lot of work that goes on with partners in our community, like Climate Smart, and doing things like wildfire smoke awareness and helping folks understand ways in which they can prepare. As we see hotter, drier summers and we see wildfire events and air quality issues and health issues, what can we do to help people become more resilient? We have a lot of work and folks might have heard of our Climate Ready Missoula plan, which is really that adaptation effort. There are all sorts of categories in there and information that people can track in terms of the multiple different ways in which we want to mitigate and become more resilient as communities. Everything from agriculture, talking about things like wildfire, smoke, how do we how we deal with the changing tourism economy as we have changes in river flows and temperatures, et cetera, snow in the wintertime. How does that affect things and how do we adapt and build more resiliency in a couple of those cases? If folks want to get online and do a little more digging, I would certainly encourage them to do that. There's a great website called Climate Ready Missoula dot org, so just type that into your computer and then jump on and have a look at all the various things that are ongoing that's constantly evolving as we have conversations within our community and and groups working on the various aspects of that. So there's lots of ways to be engaged. And then we also have I mentioned that electrification effort, Electrify Missoula is actually a really great resource. So you can go to Electrify Missoula dot org and get more information on if you're interested in moving toward electrifying your home. How about you do that and what sorts of resources are out there for you to look at some of those things. So that's all work that's going on. We also have a lot of collaboration with our climate action folks, so they're working on things like the jail solar array, helping the new library look at some solar options. They're working right now with the fairgrounds, with some solar opportunities. They're collaborating with the Office of Emergency Management when we're dealing with wildfire issues. So they really do interact with all sorts of different departments across the county. And it's amazing what they get accomplished for a team of two.

Commissioner Strohmaier: 23:18

And I'm just really impressed by the the engaged in, Chet and talking about the climate is a good segway into some of the natural resource and lands issues and also recreation issues that your department has oversight over. Just this morning in one of our meetings, we were talking about utilizing open space bond monies for a proposed conservation easement up around Avro and talking about trail maintenance. So any, any particular highlights in these other aspects of, of lands and natural resources and recreation that are within your bailiwick.

Chet Crowser: 23:57

Yeah. The new department that will have: really awesome opportunity to start thinking more about that in terms of what is the county's role and some of these conversations, I think we've always had really awesome partnerships and relationships with our agency partners and nonprofits, et cetera, that are involved in any number of different natural resource or recreation-related work in our community. But I think we have a whole new opportunity directed by the commissioners to start taking a look at some of these challenges that we're facing in our community. And again, going back to my earlier comment about how valuable that is to have the natural resource amenities we have here around Missoula, to have the outdoor recreation opportunities that we have right here downtown on the Clark Fork River, for example. And we need to be proactive in how we actually approach those things. We need to think about how we pay for those things. We need to think about how we sustain them, how we provide the right educational opportunities for folks. So so all of that is work that will be is being conducted now. But under this new department, I think, structured in a way, we're going to be much more effective in doing that. On the natural resource front, the same thing really applies. I think we've got a lot of we have had quite a bit of involvement recently with our natural resource agencies around wildfire and and helping folks prepare and be resilient in the face of wildfire, particularly around their homes and the home ignition zone. Continuing to stay engaged in those issues. But we also have challenges with people's garbage and trash when it relates to bears and seeing increased numbers of grizzly bears in our community. And so continuing to build with those partners, but having the capacity within this new organizational structure to tackle some of these issues and be engaged is really going to be important. And then we've had a number of ongoing discussions around recreation, both related to river use and trail use, and even more broadly kind of area recreation. And there's kind of a neat opportunity here to pull together some of those partners and have a conversation about what our vision for recreation and our community should look like and what are the needs that some of those providers have and continuing to provide that for the public. So a lot a lot there going on. We have within our CAPS-side, the Parks, Trails and Open Lands program, which have been functioning for a long time, providing really cool support to our communities, things that probably people would wouldn't notice. Right now we've got a playground going up in Seeley Lake. I think it's going to be constructed this this week or next, and that's a partnership with local folks. And in our park staff, finding some creative funding resources just resurfaced basketball court up in Condon behind the library that was a part of using some matching grant funds that were available and one of our staff saying, "Hey, we've got this need out there, let's reach out to the community and find a point of contact and see what we can get done." So a lot of that kind of work happens and again, it just flies under the radar most of the time. But it's critically important in terms of providing that support to the public.

Commissioner Slotnick: 26:56

I just want to follow up on the recreation Obviously, people choose to live in this place because we have easy access to public land and public water. And those folks who choose to live here, start livelihoods, work for existing businesses, work in nonprofits, create culture, et cetera. The economic driver for so much of that is the place itself. And yet we have the tendency, if there's too many of us to kind of love it to death. And I just wanted to toot your own horn. You're not just because you didn't do it yourself. Under your leadership, we were able to get the River Ambassador program started. The impacts of recreation on neighborhoods close to these river access points is quite extreme. The impacts to the river from all these people is pretty extreme. As our law enforcement folks pointed out, we don't need people to be arrested or fined. We just need to give people information. Most folks visiting the river want to do the right thing, want to be in the right place. They're just not quite sure where. And under your leadership, we were able to work with Clark Park Coalition and Fish, Wildlife and Parks and other partners and actually get folks out into these parking areas and on the river passing on information to recreationalists so they do right by neighbors and by the river. And it's a fantastic program. And without you, it wouldn't have happened.

Chet Crowser: 28:08

Yeah, well, thanks, Josh. I mean, there are a happy. I think one thing is one of the things I'd have to really commend the commission for is and we've talked about this, Josh, where there's a there's a political will here to say, "Yeah, this really is important stuff, this is important to our community." It's not value added, it's not stuff that we just get as a benefit of living here. It's critically important. And being willing to support ceding some funding for things like the River Ambassador Program is is really huge and not something, frankly, that you see often in recreation. From my past professional experience, it oftentimes is seen as more of that value added piece when funds are tight and we have to make cuts, which I totally understand. But this line of thinking that it's an important part of what we need to provide to our public for all of the benefits, not just fun, but the health benefits, the economic benefits, et cetera. Taking a different look at how we see that and how we support that work is something that I have to take a hats off to the commission for recognizing and getting behind.

Commissioner Vero: 29:10

Well, so before we close, this is our What's a good book podcast nugget of wisdom you can share with us in our listeners?

Chet Crowser: 29:17

Yeah. Well, so the recent book that I read a Grizzly Bear, which had been on my list for a long time, and I was able to borrow it from Kaylee Becker, our Open Lands Project Manager. She recommended it to me, but it was also great. So I loved the book, by the way. I mean, it was.

Commissioner Strohmaier: 29:38

I'm reading it to.

Chet Crowser: 29:39

You're reading it?

Commissioner Slotnick: 29:39

Oh yeah. We should get Bryce on here.

Commissioner Strohmaier: 29:41

We should do that.

Commissioner Slotnick: 29:43

Talk to Bryce about [bear] conflicts.

Chet Crowser: 29:45

Yeah. So, I mean.

Commissioner Vero: 29:46

Bryce Andrews folks. Yeah.

Chet Crowser: 29:47

Yeah. Bryce Andrews is the author. He also it's cool because he's a member of our community. He was he was on the open lands committee, lives up outside of town here, our average hourly area quite a bit. But it was awesome to listen or to read this story because the way he weaves it all together, you get a flavor of that How do we live? And grow in a place with something so iconic as a grizzly bear and recognize that immediately we come into conflict with being able to sustain the two. And I think the way the story is told, it really just emphasizes all of the true rolling up your sleeves and get into your hands dirty sort of effort that goes into this sometimes, not for the outcomes that we wish, but it's progress nonetheless. And I think it also just honors the spirit of the place we get to live in. And for all of those reasons, I just thought it was an awesome book. It was just fun to read and I flew through it. I mean, it was yeah, it was a great read.

Commissioner Slotnick: 30:40

Great. Thanks. Thanks.

Commissioner Vero: 30:41

Thanks so much.

Commissioner Slotnick: 30:42

But yeah, thanks for joining us on the part of Missoula County. You exemplify the type of leadership I know we all want to do.

Chet Crowser: 30:52

Well, absolutely. I'm super happy to be here So this is really great. I appreciate this connection to the community and thank you to your to all three of you for your leadership. It's awesome place to work.

Commissioner Slotnick: 31:05

Thanks for listening to the Tip of the Spear If you enjoy these conversations, it would mean a lot if you would rate and review the show on whichever podcast app you like and if you know a friend who would like to keep up with what's happening in local government, be sure to recommend this podcast to them. The Tip of the Spear podcast is made possible with support from Matt, better known as Missoula Community Access Television and our staff in the Missoula County Communications Division. If you have a question or topic you'd like us to address on a future episode, email it to communications at Missoula County US and to find other ways to stay up to date with what's happening at Missoula County, go to Missoula.co/countyupdates and thanks for listening.[Outro music plays]