The Flathead County commissioners on Wednesday unanimously approved a resolution creating a special fee district for the new green-box garbage collection site in Bigfork.

Bigfork residents will pay $47.84 per residential unit annually starting with the 2016 tax year. The assessment is in addition to the $80.73 each residence is taxed yearly for the county landfill.

Initially the county intended to begin collecting the fees in 2017, but the commissioners decided to expedite the collections since the site has been open for nearly a year.

The county spent $888,800 to build the bigger, fenced site at the insistence of the Bigfork community, which lobbied to retain a collection site when the Solid Waste District proposed closing it and consolidating the collection site with Creston and Somers. Annual operational costs for the Bigfork site will be an estimated $136,830.

The assessment will be reviewed and adjusted every year to align with operational costs. The fee area is set up for 20 years, but the annual assessment will be charged as long as the green-box site exists.

A public hearing on Wednesday drew comments from only one resident. Jack Barry, who moved to Bigfork a month ago but has owned property there for five years, told the commissioners he feels it was an arbitrary decision to spend almost $900,000 on a new site.

“I didn’t see anything wrong with the old one,” Barry said. “I’m quite upset with this expenditure.”

He also said the green-box hours of 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. don’t accommodate residents in the workforce.

Commissioner Phil Mitchell pointed out the creation of a new green-box site in Bigfork was a three-year process, and said the old site on leased state land wasn’t working well and “was being extremely abused.

“People were dumping anything they felt like,” Mitchell said. “We’ve been through a long process. This has been vetted very well.”

Commissioner Gary Krueger said the process was a collaboration between the county and Bigfork residents. County staff found a new site the county could purchase and Bigfork residents “stepped up almost unanimously” in support of the project, even with the additional fee.

“The old site had no redeeming features,” Krueger said. “It was ugly, it was trashy ... now you come to a Class A site. They’ve got a quality thing they can be proud of.”

Commissioner Pam Holmquist reiterated the county’s commitment to a new site in Bigfork.

“We’ve done a lot of work with the community,” she said. “I think it’s a good project, and I feel it’s in a good location.”

The Bigfork green-box site opened in September 2015 north of the Montana 35/Montana 83 junction and east of Crossroads Church.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.