City Council hears water complaints, water project update

Of the dozen or so items discussed at last Tuesday night’s Malta City Council meeting, water was a poplar subject.

Malta Mayor Shyla Jones said the water project continues to plod along and the City Crew has started the implementation of mock shutting-down of water valves prior the the water being turned off to residents when construction begins in their neighborhoods. She said the mock shut-downs follow a day in which the water to the Phillips County Hospital and Hi-Line Retirement Center was inadvertently shuttered when the water valve on 8th Street and 1st Avenue was taken offline.

“Hopefully things will go a little better,” she added.

Mayor Jones said she knows the water project has drawn the ire of many residents in Malta, but added she thinks it will all be worth it in the end. Mayor Jones also said she has heard reports of resident’s water coming through their pipes brown and murky and added that the discolored water should flush clean after a bit.

“There is stuff down there in those pipes and when (workers) twist and turn them, stuff breaks loose,” she said.

Mayor Jones said the water project crews are starting to pave on 8th Street, 9th Street and one block on 5th Street. This week, the construction crews will begin paving 2nd Avenue near Malta High School and then 7th Street, at least on the west side. She said that 1st Avenue (Millionaire Ave) will have to be re-dug because the compaction tests are all coming back as bad.

“(Construction crews) will go as long as they can and they are hoping to go to mid to late November,” Mayor Jones said. “If it starts freezing at night, and they can’t run their temporary water, they will still be working on going back and re-digging some of these areas that need re-tested.”

Malta resident Lydia Abrahamson had her name added the meeting’s agenda to discuss the increase in the City’s water rates. She said that if the rates continue to climb, the City of Malta will either see people leaving the City, a bunch of brown lawns or both.

Malta City Councilman David Rummel explained that the City of Malta had to raise the rates and place water meters on homes to become compliant with State Law (in order to obtain grants to lower the burden of the repayment to the people of Malta.)

“We spent the last eight years trying to come up with a way to not charge anybody and we could not figure it out,” he said. “It doesn’t even go by my house, and it doesn’t go by your house, but we’ve got to help pay for it.”

Abrahamson informed the council she intended to disconnect from City water and run her own well. Mayor Jones said Abrahamson was within her rights to do that, but added that the City would have to disconnect Abrahamson from the City sewer if she did so.

In the Department reports, Malta Parks and Rec’s Natalie Judd and Julia Tatafu gave a lengthy and informative account of what they have been up to since starting their positions with the City and what they have on tap. That story can be seen on page 1A of this week’s PCN.

Mayor Jones, in the last portion of the Department reports, said Phillips County Attorney Dan O’Brien informed her that he has applied for the District Judge position following the announcement of Judge John C. McKeon's retirement from that post, asking the City of Malta for a letter of recommendation.