Lease approved

The Whitehall Town Council voted 4 to 1 to approve a new lease with Community Beacon of Hope Inc. (CBOH) at a special meeting Monday night. Alderman Joe Adams was the lone vote against the updated lease agreement.

Prior to the vote, Adams said one of the main reasons he was voting no is “I consider it blackmailed to shut up, otherwise the town’s going to get sued or I am going to get sued for libel and I don’t like to be threatened. I don’t like people that do that kind of stuff. I don’t think we should consider doing business with them”.

Council President Mac Smith, who was acting Mayor at the meeting, said there are pro’s and con’s to signing the new lease with CBOH, but for him the town needs to pay for the ambulance barn, it is a business lease just like any other business lease.

“I think there are plenty of things in this lease to protect the town and we shouldn’t have any further problems,” Smith said.

Deputy Town Attorney Elizabeth Musick said under the new lease agreement with CBOH, the language reads different from the previous lease that includes things outlined such as; answering calls, inventory and monthly maintenance reports. Under the new lease CBOH will have seven days to rectify any breach of the lease or the lease will be terminated with the town, and an inventory report is scheduled to be done Friday, Musick explained.

Musick said a lump sum of $6,000 will be due August 1, 2017 including the mileage from the months of June and July.

“The town has a financial burden with the payment for the ambulance barn,” Musick said.

During questions from those in attendance, Whitehall resident Lynn Nemeth asked if the records for the inventory, new lease agreement and the maintenance check Mayor Dale Davis and CBOH Director Tyler Steinebach will be conducting monthly will be available to the public.

Musick responded that all records will be public, and residents must fill out a public records request form. Town Clerk/Treasurer Summer Fellows reminded those present at the meeting there is a fee for records requests. The fee is 50 cents per page and any request that takes longer than 15 minutes, an hourly fee will be applied to accommodate for the time of the employee completing the request.

Electrical work at the pavilion in Legion Park was approved at the meeting. Whitehall Chamber of Commerce had previously submitted the request and provided the necessary paperwork and diagrams needed for approval. The Chamber and Golden Sunlight Mine will be paying for the $4,800 in electrical work at the pavilion that is owned by the town.

Brandon Kidwell of K4 Electric will be completing the installment of electrical outlets in time for Frontier Days. This will be used for things like karaoke in the park, without having cords run all over causing tripping hazards for patrons.

Councilman Tom Jenkin said he would like to have Kidwell touch base with the Mayor this week to make sure everything is in place so the project can be approved at the meeting. Kidwell said he will be doing the project in accordance with the NEC (National Electrical Code) and anything the Mayor feels needs to be added both safeguard and protect the wires. Kidwell added he will be doing the project in a manner that will make it available for future expansion; such as lighting at the pavilion.

Council also approved the updated personnel manual verbiage that will allow town employees defend themselves with things such as pepper spray if the need arises.

The bid for the refurbishing of Main Street (Legion Avenue to First Street) to remove, resurface and fix the drainage problems was approved. The bid will go to Hardrives Construction, Inc. out of Billings, MT for $112,053.50. The bid was a little less than $2,000 higher than the lowest bid. The completion date on the lowest bid wasn’t until 2018.

“If we do this milling project right now as the town is planning to do, we need to go ahead and move forward with the chip-seal project by the fall, I don’t think it is advisable to wait until 2018,” Musick explained.

Several departments have submitted their budget requests for the upcoming fiscal year. Smith suggested going over one or two departments budget each meeting, and then going through the budget as a whole.

A meeting to go through some of the departments budgets was set forth on Monday, July 24th at 7 p.m.