City Hall gym gets facelift

The COVID-19 virus has forced Montana Governor Steve Bullock to issue a stay at home order in March and forcing Malta's City Hall, Gym, and all events associated with the Department of Parks and Recreation, to be canceled.

The closure may have slowed things down as far as activities go, but Parks and Recreation Director Sally Wright and City of Malta Custodian Lesa Williamson have been busy giving the inside of the City Hall building a facelift. This includes the interior of the downstairs gymnasium as well as the fitness area upstairs.

"Our hours have not been cut at all," Williamson said. "They have been doubled."

Wright said that she knew that the shutdown would be the perfect time to redo things. The weight room now has new floors, the machines have been cleaned and maintained. The walls have been painted and the room has been reorganized.

"The weight room has needed a facelift for a while," Wright said. "It's older. The carpets were old and full of tears. The walls were needing to be redone."

The department also added more electrical outlets and mats to the weight room.

"Having the outlets makes things more efficient for our equipment, so the room flows a little better," Wright said.

Wright said that a future goal is to get air conditioning in the weight room so that clients can be more comfortable during the summer months. Wright and Williamson have been working long days on the project and even fielded a complaint that the gym was still open amid the order to keep gyms throughout the state closed.

"We were up there at 5 a.m., working hard, trying to make the room beautiful, and we got a phone call saying that we were letting people work out," Wright said. "We have just been remodeling the gym and trying to enhance it during those early hours in the morning."

She said that it was a workout for her and Williamson but not a recreational workout. Malta City Clerk and Recorder Lori Bond confirmed that their key fob system was disabled as soon as the order to close was given.

One of the first projects started before the shutdown; Williamson had cleaned the floor and eventually waxed it with the City's new floor buffer. Not having much prior experience with waxing a wood floor, Williamson enlisted the help of her husband Shey Williamson.

"We wouldn't sand it because this floor has been sanded so many times," Williamson said.

As far as the upstairs floor leading to the weight room and spectator areas, Williamson said that the City does eventually plan to redo the surface. She said that the addition of the floor buffer has made it possible to help keep a shine on the floor.

The facelift also includes a fresh coat of paint on the spectator section seats and blue paint along the trim, to give it more Mustang pride. The steps leading to the spectator section were also repainted. At the least, the back section wall will be repainted white, but there is optimism by the duo that they can paint a mural on the wall.

The floors were installed by Art's Furniture & Carpet and the electrical was done by Malta Electrical Contractors.

According to Wright, the Department of Parks and Recreation will have a grand reopening to the public when possible.

"We will be doing some drawings and other fun activities for that," Wright said.