Council Talks Water, Fuel Purchases for the City

Following opening rituals, Mayor John Demarais called the Dec. 12th meeting of the Malta City Council to order. The minutes from the previous meeting, agenda, and claims were approved, as was the payroll for November.

In the Mayor's comment time, Mayor John Demarais stated that he, PWD Truelove, Clerk Lorie Bond, and Laura Pankratz had begun work with Emily at Bear Paw Development to prepare a grant for the grant for a lawn mower and funds for maintaining the walking trails in the City.

PWD Jim Truelove said City worker, Nick Cilz, is building a sign for the City Park for the sign-in boxes. The crew has been starting to haul dirt at the landfill. The flushing of sewer lines will begin soon. He said the orange truck is down at this time; they managed to find another one for spare parts. He was asked to see about getting some gravel to 4th Avenue West near Riverside Park.

Clerk Lorie Bond said the Oath of Office for Councilperson Bill Hicks and Councilperson Laura Pankratz will be Dec. 26th; Councilperson Jim Sintler (retiring as of the end of December) offered to take care of the initiation of new members.

There were no reports from the other departments, including landfill, safety, fire chief, law enforcement, planning, parks and recreation, event center, compliance officer or lift station.

Matt Mudd, of Great West Engineering, was in attendance at the meeting and provided a report on the water situation. He also addressed the grant that the City will be applying for, the inefficiencies that the City recently received and how each was addressed. Mudd spoke of the grant time frame and matching funds.

The town of Fort Benton has installed a new water tank, one million gallon capacity in size, and went with concrete, above ground and Mudd encouraged the Council members to check it out.

Leo Malinak, a water circuit rider, of the Montana Rural Water Systems, addressed the Council. With over 31 years of experience with rural water systems, Mayor Demarais said, "...he is there to help us, we can't go wrong with the program," and added that "with the Montana Rural Water System, he is someone to talk to and makes a big difference. He is worth his weight in gold!"

Kourtney Simonson was next on the agenda, with a request to use the City Hall for her wedding reception versus the Event Center. After discussion, the Council took no action on the request, thereby not allowing the request.

The second item on the agenda was the request from Mark and Tana Oyler to forgive $1,681.00 in utility charges that were turned over to the Assessor's Office for delinquency on the house they had purchased at 606 South 5th Avenue. It was the general consensus of the Council that the charges would stand and not be forgiven. The matter should have been disclosed between the buyer's agent, seller's agent, the title company and the assessor's office. A motion was made and seconded by Council members to forgive the charges; roll call was a unanimous nay and the motion failed to pass.

On the agenda was the 2024 fuel purchase for the City; the City rotates between the three fuel providers in town and this year it will be purchased from Westside. A motion and a second to approve the action passed unanimously.

The final item on the agenda was HB 355, bill to appropriate funds for local infrastructure. With the funding available with this grant the council members discussed some possible ideas for ways which to utilize the funds. Ideas were improvement on some streets, new garbage containers playground equipment, sound system and curtains for the Event Center and additions to the Veterans Park.

There being no further business, the meeting adjourned; the final meeting of 2023 will be Tuesday, December 26th, at 5 P.M.