Cardboard woes, Improvement Plan discussed at City Council meeting

A lengthy discussion on what to do with the ever-growing cache of cardboard bales near the old airport in Malta was had on Tuesday night during the City Council Meeting.

During the Public Comment portion of the meeting, Ed Bibeau said that he wanted to again offer his services to the town and buy bales of cardboard from the city at $1 each and then haul them to a recycling center. He added that he would guarantee that bales would be hauled by the letter of the law and that he would take all the responsibility.

“It would go to a mill in Washington,” he said. He said he wasn’t worried about the low return on recycling cardboard.

Malta Mayor Shyla Jones told Bibeau that, unfortunately, the city cannot sell the bales to private citizens according to the law. She said that the law states that the city can only sell the bales to a licensed broker.

Bibeau said that in order to become a broker he would have to purchase a $75,000 bond, adding that he wasn’t interested in doing that. Mayor Jones said that she would look back into the law to see if there was something which could be done with Bibeau’s offer.

“If there is a way we can do it, I’m more than willing to get rid of cardboard,” she said.

“I just think I can get enough off the freight rates to get it done,” added Bibeau. “I think I can make it work.”

Following the public comments by Bibeau, Greg Kirkwood, President of Phillips County Motor Sports, said he had concerns with the cardboard at the old airport as each time he and his team go to cut grass at the drag strip they spend three or four hours picking up cardboard that has blown off the piles of the baled stacks.

“There is cardboard clear down almost to the highway in the trees,” he said. He said this weekend there will be about 130 racers at the drag strip and they will be welcomed with a bunch of cardboard on the asphalt.

“I had people parking in there from Havre, from Glendive and from Sydny and they all comment ‘what a mess’,” said Kirkwood. “That is our cities image to these racers coming in.”

Mayor Jones agreed that the area is a mess.

“And we are trying to get rid of it,” she said. “We can’t get trucks. We have an individual who wants to buy it, but we can’t sell it to an individual. We have laws that we have to follow.”

For the next 30 minutes the discussion of what to do with the accumulation of cardboard continued. With each new idea on how to rid the town of the substance came another reason that the idea wouldn’t work. It was asked if the cardboard could be moved to the city landfill, but to do that would cost the landfill one full year of life, eating up valuable landfill space. The idea of moving the cardboard to different property that the city owns was shot down because it would take at least a year to get a permit from the state to transfer it to another local. The idea of wrapping netting around the bales was briefly discussed, but the cost of the netting would be very expensive. The discussion of taking the cardboard to the Valley County Landfill ended it was discovered that they don’t want it either. Each possible answer to the problem was met by another roadblock, to the dismay of Kirkwood, Mayor Jones and the rest of the City Council.

Mayor Jones told Kirkwood that the area near the drag strip would be cleaned of lose debris before the Big Dollar Race in late September. She added that she and Schmoeckel will continue to investigate ways to alleviate the problem.

The City Council then heard from Michelle Turville of Bear Paw Development to discuss a draft of the city’s Capital Improvement Plan that was requested by Rural Development. She said that Rural Development has looked at the city’s reserve fund and feels that it is too high, adding that they would like to see $1 million dollars earmarked towards a future water project instead of $750,000 that was previously was discussed, according to the meeting minutes. Included in the Capital Improvement Plan is a project that would add a new, 800,000 gallon water storage tank to be installed northwest of the city at a cost of $375,000, replacement of valves and fire hydrants around town and chip and crack seal of approximately 20 blocks of city streets. Public Works Director James Brown and Clerk Schmoeckel were asked to compose a list of additional items to put into the CIP addendum.

At the beginning of the city council meeting, Public Works Director Brown told the city council that the new pump and motor have been installed at the lagoon and that he is still waiting on the weed screen to add to the area. He said in the absence of the screen that the Public Works Crew has been raking the weeds from the bottom of the lagoon and an old liner has been placed under the pump to hopefully smother the weeds.

Brown reported that the new shelter at the city pool has been stained, that an unsafe and illegal electrical service at Riverview Park has been disconnected and a water break on Hillcrest has been repaired and the people who broke the line acknowledged their error and will pay the cost of the fix.

Brown also said that the teeter-totters and Merry-go-round at Trafton Park are being repaired.

The next Malta City Council Meeting will be on Tuesday, July 22 at City Hall starting at 5 p.m.