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City Council approves new shot at water works project

After a recent work meeting for the Malta City Council, it was decided to once again look into funding for water works projects in Malta. At last Tuesday night’s City Council meeting, the Council met with representatives of Bear Paw Development to discuss a possible water works project with a price tag of just over $5 million.

After nearly an hour of discussion and number crunching, the Council unanimously decided to move ahead with a SRF application for the loan to help pay for project. The decision came after a discussion of being able to pay off the 30-year loan as well as being able to continue to sock money away in the city’s reserves were realistic goals.

During the Public Works portion of Tuesday night’s meeting, Public Works Director James Brown told the Council that Jim Truelove completed training at pool school, the garbage truck that was in disrepair has been fixed and it’s back in service and that the Public Works crew had been doing plenty of sanding and plowing in Malta.

“We have jumped around a little bit with the plowing,” Brown said, “but we are trying to plow the routes that are going to melt the most water first so we get the water out of there.”

Brown said the lift station in Dodson is falling apart and asked the Council’s approval to get TD&H to start looking into rectifying the situation. The Council gave their okay to the request.

Malta’s new Fire Chief, Greg Boos, made his first appearance at a Malta City Council meeting following the retirement of former Chief Bill Rock (a retirement part for Rock and newly retired Assistant Fire Chief Matt Veit will be held this Thursday at City Hall from 3 p.m. until 4 p.m.)

“I just wanted to let you know I am excited,” Chief Boos said.

“Thank you for stepping-up and taking over,” Malta Mayor Shyla Jones added.

During the Public Comment portion of the meeting, Malta Ready Mix’s RJ Tollefson brought his concerns with a recent city tax bill to the Council’s attention. Tollefson showed the Council a map of the Malta Ready Mix’s property. His concern was that much of the property is being taxed as residential for the first time and hadn’t been in the past.

“My problems are, one we don’t actually get any of the services that are being taxed,” he said. Tollefson said his second concern was that the area is being taxed as residential, but he feels as if the residential lots on property are not very desirable for potentially having homes built on them.

Mayor Jones said she didn’t see much that could be done for the 2015 tax year. Tollefson left the meeting, but the Council continued to discuss the situation. In the end, Mayor Jones said she would look into the matter more.

At the end of Tuesday night’s meeting, the Council heard an update about the soil testing that has been ongoing at the airport in Malta, per the DEQ’s request. She said that DEQ wants more testing done to see if the areas soil contains hazardous waste. The testing is paid for through a DNRC grant.

“There is enough money still left in the initial grant to do the testing,” Mayor Jones said. “However, if it comes out that we have to haul this soil (with hazard waste) to Utah, there isn’t enough money and we would have to go after more funding. Worst case scenario is to stop the project, but I don’t think that is going to happen.”

The process is underway to try and get the property off of the State Super Fund Site list. The Malta Airport currently ranks as “medium priority” on the CERCA priority list according to the Montana.Gov website.

 

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