Gleanings from the July 25th Council Meeting

Editor’s note: taken from Malta City Clerk Lorie Bond's minutes.

During the communications from the Mayor portion of the meeting, Malta Mayor Shyla Jones informed the council that City Crew member Tim Hasler will retire from his position and his last official day will be September 29. She said that one more City Crew member will be retiring soon and the City will start advertising the openings soon to hire replacements.

During the Department Reports, Public Works Director Jim Truelove informed the council that the new Dolphin pool vacuum has arrived. He reported that the City Works team has been kept busy recently turning valves for the water projects and City Pool Lifeguards continue to paint street curbs around town yellow.

Director Truelove said the crew will start blading alleys when time allows and Mayor Jones asked Director Truelove to continue feeding gum-balls to gophers in City parks and ball fields to hopefully rid the town of the rodents.

Mayor Jones said she recently received a complaint from a Malta resident, upset that the City hadn’t mowed a particular patch of land and he would be sending the City a bill for mowing the area near his house for the past 21 years. Mayor Jones informed the council that if such a bill was submitted, it would not be paid as the City doesn’t have a contract with the resident to mow the area.

Mayor Jones also reported that Director Truelove will be installing a fire hydrant at Hillcrest so the City can continue to water the sod near the skatepark. She also said council should consider budgeting for a bathroom to be built in the park in the future. She said she will be having a meeting with NorthWestern Energy to see how much it would cost to run electricity to the area as well.

Mayor Jones presented Council with the letter sent to the City of Malta by PhillCo. After much discussion about the letter and the PhillCo Lease Mayor Jones asked Council If they wanted to hire legal counsel to represent the City in the PhillCo Lease dispute. After much discussion, the Council agreed that it would be in the City’s best interest to retain legal about the PhillCo Lease Termination.

Lastly, in the other comments portion of the meeting, Mayor Jones said the City will need to start thinking about where a new pool would be built as the City has a couple of different locations that are available.