This may be the last summer many deer roam freely through Helena, jumping fences for carefully planted meals, birthing fawns in backyards, or dying along roadways — alternately delighting and angering their human neighbors.

City commissioners in a 4-1 vote Monday night agreed to send an extensive deer-management policy to the state Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission, a plan which includes the hiring of sharpshooters among its top recommendations.

The city commission spent nearly two hours on the issue, hearing comments from 20 residents before a capacity crowd at the City-County Building. Public testimony took all forms, with folks encouraging the plan, decrying the city-sanctioned slaughter, promoting the use of fertility control, weighing in on funding, questioning the importance of the issue or offering to solve the problem with their own gun.

FWP has only just begun to develop a policy to vet municipal deer-management plans. City officials and residents likely won’t learn whether Helena’s plan is accepted until October at the earliest.

If state officials OK the proposal, the city could hire contractors, who would use small-caliber rifles at baited sites to kill more than 330 mule deer this winter. Helena is home to an estimated 500 deer now, a number which is expected to increase to more than 700 by year’s end. The culling would leave about 380 deer in the Queen City.

“It’s an issue that we need to start working on,” Commissioner Bob Throssell said.

“We have created this deer herd … we feed it,” he added. “People who plant in this community are going to have to deal with it and plant accordingly.”

Throssell, Mayor Jim Smith and commissioners Paul Cartwright and Alan Peura voted for the plan. Commissioner Sandy Oitzinger cast the lone dissenting vote.

Peura and other commissioners acknowledged comments made by some residents who said other, perhaps more important, issues deserve the city’s time and money.

“I share the frustration with folks about where we spend money,” he said. But the deer are a growing problem affecting human health and safety, Peura added. Concerns about disease and the attraction of bears and mountain lions into town also warrant consideration, he said.

The plan, submitted by the now-defunct Urban Wildlife Task Force, also includes recommendations to create a permanent wildlife advisory committee to oversee the program and study other options left on the table for future use. It asks the city to set aside $30,000 to $100,000 a year for deer management, and suggests expanding public education efforts.

Commissioners took several votes related to the issue, with Oitzinger submitting four motions, all of which failed.

Oitzinger, who was the commission’s representative on the task force, twice asked her fellow members to include a request for FWP funding in the plan. Cartwright supported both motions — one asking for a 50-50 cost share and another suggesting some sort of financial participation — but other commissioners said they didn’t want to hamstring the FWP Commission’s consideration of the plan or future financial negotiations.

The debate over how deer management is funded in Helena and other Montana cities — Missoula also is developing a plan — is in its infancy.

Oitzinger suggested amending the plan to altogether remove certified urban hunts — in which residents would be allowed to hunt in specific areas after taking proficiency courses. The hunts hadn’t been recommended for this year but are to be considered in the future. The motion failed 3-2, with Cartwright in support.

She also asked commissioners to require the ongoing wildlife advisory committee to further study the option of trapping deer and moving them to other areas. The so-called trap-and-transfer option was one of the few the task force rejected.

FWP will not allow deer to be moved because of concerns over the spread of disease into wild herds and the high rates of mortality seen in the practice.

Oitzinger’s motion died for lack of a second, with Cartwright saying he would support the recommendation after the committee is created.

Oitzinger expressed frustration with Monday’s results.

“In light of (the other votes), I’m really quite glad I voted against the master motion of sending it forward,” she said.

Contact Larry Kline at 447-4075 or larry.kline@helenair.com.