BOCC moves forward with Pottsville restoration plan

WALLACE — The Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) met with members of the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) earlier this week to continue plans regarding the restoration of East Shoshone Park.

Currently, East Shoshone Park is under the ownership of the USFS, however, the involved parties had previously considered the idea of initiating a transfer of ownership or the possibility of formulating a Challenge Cost Share agreement. The idea to get the county involved in rebuilding the park originated when a group of men from Mullan, who call themselves the Pottsville Seven, appeared before the BOCC and voiced concerns regarding the park’s lack of maintenance.

“Pottsville park has been a huge gathering area and historic area, and folks spent a lot of time there. Over time the park has just fallen into ill repair and these gentlemen here (The Pottsville Seven) are interested in reviving that park, so they came to us as a county and thought maybe we could get in the middle.” BOCC Chairman Mike Fitzgerald explained. “Then the Forest Service guys are the actual caretakers of the park, so what you do is you get the owners and the people interested in it together and then ourselves as a county who are also interested in seeing something like this revisited.”

Early in the discussion Dan Scaife, District Ranger for the Coeur d’Alene River District, stated that after discussing ideas from the previous meeting with his superiors, they felt like the Challenge Cost Share Agreement was the route that would best benefit all parties.

Scaife explained the Challenge Cost Share Agreement by saying, “it’s a little more than a volunteer agreement basically it’s just laying out who’s doing what. We’d be agreeing — Forest Service shall do this, Pottsville Seven and/or the county depending on how this goes will do other things. So there’s the agreement itself, and then there’s the annual operating plan, which is what gets updated with a pre-season meeting and a post-season meeting.”

Fitzgerald said that one of the first steps in the process after finalizing the Cost Share Agreement will be for all parties to collaborate on making a list of updates and maintenance needed throughout the park- then prioritizing each task.

In regards to funds for those tasks, U.S. Forest Service Recreation staff member Jason Smith said, “as far as the funding goes, in a typical Challenge Cost Share, there’s not a lot of money exchanging hands, it’s mostly done to enable you guys (BOCC) to seek money, showing partnership with the U.S. Forest Service.”

Members of the Pottsville Seven have also taken on the responsibility of looking into grants for future projects, as well as talked about the hope of involving community volunteers to drive operations forward.

Looking forward to the long-term future of East Shoshone Park, Scaife said that ownership could be on the table down the road, but the framework needs to be set up first. All parties plan to reconvene on Jan. 11 to finalize details of the Challenge Cost Share and further discuss an annual operating plan and budget.