City hopes to rid streets of clunkers

Although the season is almost over, the Malta City Council will be looking to do some Spring Cleaning around town, towing cars away from City Streets and out to the Town Shop following a comment made by a former Malta resident.

"There was a person who used to live here and she asked me "what happened to my clean little town'," Malta Mayor John Demarais said during last week's City Council meeting. "We have junk vehicles all over the place and it looks like Hell, excuse my language."

Mayor Demarais said that a few examples of junked cars around town included a few near the Cedar View Apartment complex, both of which have been sitting there for over a year, one of which is missing a front tire (which is sitting beneath the vehicle as a makeshift jack) and another sitting on flat tires. Mayor Demarais said that a few options for removal of storage of the jalopies around town could include storing them in the cold storage at the City Shop south of town or possible erecting a 50x20 building (with an estimated $2500 price tag) to store them in.

"If we get real aggressive, people are going to want to have their cars towed," Mayor Demarais said, "It will cost (the owners) $100 plus storage fees. If we get aggressive, we will probably get burned on a couple, but after that, I feel like we will have complete compliance, but I could be wrong."

Councilwoman Bonnie Wiederrick wondered why someone who neglected a vehicle for years would suddenly care about the vehicle once it was towed away, and Mayor Demarais agreed.

"We would only keep them for so long and then they would be taken away and destroyed," he said. Mayor Demarais said that some of the money made from scraping the vehicles would help cover the towing cost (which would be done on a rotational basis by the two wreckers in town.) Mayor Demarais said that he would meet with the Phillips County Sheriff's Office after the meeting to discuss the labeling of cars to be removed by the City if not moved in a timely manner.

The City of Malta already has a law on the books which states that vehicles that are not properly licensed cannot be parked on City streets and confirmed that several of the clunkers currently sitting in Malta are parked illegally due to a lack of licensing. The City Council was in general consensus that something needed to be done about the cars and did not pass a motion to start marking cars for removal, but did unanimously agree, 4-0, that if the problems continue, a building would be built at the City Shop to store the vehicles.

In other Malta City news, during the Public Works Report, it was reported that the mosquito truck would be deployed the next night (Wednesday, May 23.) It was reported that the Municipal Pool was recently patched and painted and will open the first week of June.

Mayor Demarais said that signage was recently posted at the City Landfill letting people know that their dump-loads need to be secured or they will be turned away and possibly ticketed.