City Council might consider hiring compliance officer

One of a half dozen topics discussed at the Tuesday night Malta City Council meeting was the possibility of hiring a person to be a compliance officer for Malta.

Malta Mayor Shyla Jones and the City Council have been discussing the idea for the past severals month and Mayor Jones said she recently talked with Phillips County Justice of the Peace Gayle Stahl and reported that Judge Stahl thinks the idea worthy of pressuring.

“She says we need to get some accountability out there and right now we have none,” Mayor Jones added.

The Compliance Officer would, at the very least, make sure Malta residents are keeping their lots up to City standards and enforce parking violations. The position, if approved, would be a fulltime job for six months.

Mayor Jones said Judge Stahl, Phillips County Sheriff Scott Moran and Phillips County Attorney Dan O’Brien will be meeting in the near future to talk more about the idea of compliance officer for the City of Malta. Before such a position could be started in town, the City Council members would have to approve the idea. The compliance officer would only be allowed to enforce local ordinances and not state statutes or felonies.

During the Department Reports portion of the meeting, Public Works Director Jim Truelove said the City Crew has started cutting low hanging tree branches near roads and the process will continue as time allows. He said new manhole covers have been ordered to be placed on several streets around town. Truelove told the Council that last Sunday, a crew was in town to inspect the inside of the city’s water tanks, sending a diver inside to inspect them.

“They vacuumed-out about an eighth of an inch of sediment between the two tanks, which isn’t too bad,” said Truelove.

Truelove added that the roof-supports on the inside tanks would most likely need to be sandblasted within the next three to five years. When the sandblasting takes place, one tank would be emptied at a time, one drained and refilled before starting the next one.

The City of Malta is looking to replace the wooden picnic structure at Riverview Park near Malta High School. The current structure is in disrepair and the council unanimously voted to tear down the arrangement and to replace it with a 12x12 concrete foundation, at ground level, to allow enough space for a picnic table. The demolition of the current structure will commence as soon as possible.

Before getting down to business at Tuesday night’s meeting, Mayor Jones thanked Malta resident Rhoda Dalby for donating a picnic table to the city.

“We are sending her a ‘thank you’ note because that was very nice of her,” Mayor Jones said.

Mayor Jones said she and Director Truelove interviewed four people for the open Public Works position on the City Crew and decided to offer one of the people a job with the city. She said the applicants were all strong and the person who had been picked for the position would be offered the job after the meeting. If he accepts, the new hire would start in mid-October.

During the Public Comment section of Tuesday night’s meeting, Phillips County Motorsports President Greg Kirkwood told the council “we had a noisy weekend” at the Big Dollar Races. Kirkwood said there were 143 different cars registered – from all across Montana, and as far away as Orlando, Fla. – in town for the two-days worth of races.

“Every motel was booked solid and on Saturday night, fun was had by all,” Kirkwood said. “It was a good final race … our first race is always a big one, and our last one is always bigger.”

Kirkwood dispelled rumors that he was no longer the president of PCMS but said that he will not run for the position in the March elections, but rather will focus on other business ventures.

The October 13 Malta City Council meeting has been moved to Thursday, October 15 and will start at 5 p.m.