Malta Council approves Suicide Prevention walk Route

The Malta City Council approved the route for the second annual Phillips County Suicide Prevention Walk which will start on Sunday, September 30, at 2 p.m. at Veterans Memorial Park in Malta during last Tuesday night's meeting. Phillips County Health Nurse Jenny Tollefson was at the meeting seeking approval for the walk's route and said that last year's event was held on a Saturday but was changed to Sunday this year in hopes of drawing a larger crowd. "September is Suicide Prevention month and last year we held our walk in October," she said. "We had over 50 people last year and we were very pleased with that, but we are hoping for even more people this year." Tollefson said the walk route will go in reverse order this year - Phillips County Sheriff's Office will again provide a chaperone in a cruiser -and will travel toward the Phillips County Hospital and only cut across Central Ave. once, before ending at the VFW Club where a light lunch will be held. Registration for the event is 1:30 p.m. and Malta Mayor John Demarais said that he would issue a proclamation at the next City Council meeting in honor of the day. "I hope that this year's event is even bigger and better than last year's," Mayor Demarais said. During the new business portion of the meeting, Malta City Clerk Lorie Bond said that a DNRC grant for a total of $28,424 to help with the final costs of cleaning up the old airport in Malta was granted to the City. The old airport is currently listed as a Superfund Cleanup site by the Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). Mayor Demarais said the project will (hopefully) be completed after many years of clean up. "This is less (money) than they thought originally," Mayor Demarais said of cost estimates for the final clean up. "That might be the first time I have seen cost estimates on a government project go down." Mayor Demarais said the original estimates hovered around $38,000-to-$42,000. During department reports, Public Works Director Jim Truelove told the council that he received a call about a downed tree in Trafton Park two Fridays ago and the Public Works team cleaned that mess and trimmed some more trees in the park ahead of winter. Director Truelove said a dig to repair water pipes near Central Avenue Pit Crew building was recently completed adding that a full line replacement was needed for the old pipes. "That's why it seemed like half the town was dug up," he said. Director Truelove also mentioned that mosquito spraying would conclude on Friday, September 14, and said that work on the facia of the Malta City Hall building - priming and painting - was complete. In his last bit of information on the night, Director Truelove said that another 55 bales of cardboard were shipped out of the baling building (located at the Old Airport) leaving only about 14 bales still in the facility. The next Malta City Council meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, September 25, starting at 5 p.m. at the Malta City Hall.