Malta City Council Meeting Recap

The first Malta City Council meeting of August included talk of the future of the rodeo arena at Trafton Park and whether or not to allow people to hunt for scrap metal in the City Landfill.

Malta Mayor John Demarais said he was contacted by a Malta citizen about scavenging from the City of Malta Landfill and had Malta Public Works Director Jim Truelove look into the legality of the idea. Director Truelove said that while he couldn’t find any rules one way or another on the books for the City of Malta, he added that he asked other public works directors around Montana about scavenging in the landfill and was told that in the last year, two people had died during such undertakings.

“If any particular city wants to allow scavenging in their landfill, they have to submit a plan for it to (Montana Department of Environmental Quality,)” Director Truelove said. “There is a lot of liability for cities for this and in the last two years, there have been two fatalities…one of them happened in the winter and someone got locked in a porta-potty and froze to death and the other one had a metal pile fall on him. Chances are good that (DEQ) would deny the request.”

Mayor Demarais added that he was not in favor of allowing scavenging in the City of Malta Landfill.

Mayor Demarais then talked about the manpower and money spent trying to keep the rodeo arena at Trafton Park up to snuff. He said that this year, the City has spent close to $11,000 on spray and labor and he would like to hear from the public on how to keep the grounds useable.

“I am thinking about going to social media and asking people for their ideas on how to maintain the area,” Mayor Demarais said. “We need to do something down there…it is in terrible shape and hasn’t been used very much in many years.”

Mayor Demarais added that the grandstand at the arena is in poor shape and might need to be blocked off from use in the near future.

“I don’t know what is going to come of the arena so maybe we just need to put it out to the public and see if anyone has any ideas,” Mayor Demarais said.