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| Big Brother may be lurking |
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| Wednesday, 20 June 2007 10:49 | |||||||
Members of the city council, on Monday, discussed further the possibility of getting a digital speed sign(s). The Interlocal, Conrad, Cut Bank and Shelby, are now interested in digital signs as well, however, Cut Bank and Shelby want to go for high-end modes that will take photos of speeding vehicles as well. Alderman Wally McHenry who originally brought the proposal to the city council says, “This is a safety issue with me.” Public works Director Rich Anderson will look into the digital signs and make a recommendation at the next council meeting. Chief Gary Dent commented, “Some of these are very sophisticated.” Mayor John Shelvin added, “OK, we’ll have some more investigation.” Along the lines of electronic monitoring, some property owners have installed electronic dog barriers right to the edge of their property line. The mayor felt there needed to be a buffer zone, however, there are no city ordinances to cover this. City Attorney MaryAnn Ries commented, “I don’t know that we want to get into telling people what to do with their property.” No action was taken on the matter. The council discussed a possible design for sewer lagoon improvements, but no action was taken. Wendy Judisch commented, “I would like to see some figures, the cost is more than we figured.” Finance Officer Agnes Fowler reminded council members, “We need to send a report to TSEP (Treasure State Endowment Project) to show we’re progressing so we don’t lose our $500,000 grant.” Alderman Gary Brown noted, “First it was a fairly simple system, all of a sudden this is becoming astronomical. We’ll need something more complex, but I’m not convinced yet.” No action on the sewer lagoon design was taken and won’t be until the council gets some solid figures from Morrison Maierle, Inc., the engineers for the project. The council accepted the resignation of city employee, Public Works Foreman Patrick Duffey. After the acceptance, Anderson then made a recommendation to promote John Callahan to Maintenance Worker 5 (MW), Dru Gunderson to MW-4, Jerry Stubbs to MW-2. Curtis Ries will stay at the same grade and the city will advertise for a MW-1 position. Resolution 947 was passed on a 4-0 vote. This deals with records destruction and the approval of destruction and transfer of documents. Harold Olson from the Pondera History Association (PHA) was on hand to discuss a recent funding donation. Readers will recall that at the last council meeting, Olson requested and was granted $2,500 from the Genevieve Riekin-Anderson Trust (GRAT) to help fund the PHA in becoming part of a foundation, namely the Montana Community Foundation. The PHA would match the $2,500 from GRAT and the MCA would grant a 50 percent match making $7,500 available for the start-up. The council granted that request. Olson told the council on Monday, the PHA would have to raise $100,000 to activate a foundation. “That wasn’t the playing field described to us,” he said. This resulted in the PHA asking for their money back. He went onto say the $2,500 would be paid back to the city. However, he added, the PHA would match those funds and requested an extension to Aug. 1 to attain their goal to begin foundation funds. “If we don’t have the funding by then, we’ll return the money,” he said. The council moved, on a 4-0 vote, to grant the PHA an extension to Aug. 1. The council received a report from Monica Huffman who oversees the Community Service project. She noted that 18 youths have been through the program with a combined 300 hours worked. There are 40 more hours to be served. Just some of the locations that have used community serve are the Conrad Library in cleaning and pulling up old carpet, tutoring in schools, cleaning the Community Center, and Norley Hall after the CofC annual banquet, cleaning up the park in Brady as well as city hall, Horizon Lodge, the dog pound, gardening in the Conrad Community Garden and a cleanup on I-15, to name a few. The next regular city council meeting will be on July 2, 7:30 p.m. in city hall at 411-1/2 S. Main St.
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