Troy City Council update

At the Troy City Council meeting on Wednesday night the  agenda items were swiftly moved through with unanimous votes on nearly all items.

To start, the minutes from the council meeting on Dec. 17 and two special council meetings on Jan. 5 were approved by all members.

Department reports were submitted to the council. The only question about the reports came from Dallas Carr about a sand truck that had a lug-nut failure on Sunday when it was loaded with sand. The wheel was repaired on Tuesday.

The council unanimously approved a business license for Cody Sentell for his business called Sentell Property Maintenance LLC. Sentell collects rent for property owners, provides basic maintenance and snow removal and currently runs the business in Libby, which he bought in August 2014.

Resolution 689 was agreed upon by all council members and refers to a statewide adoption of international building codes pursuant Section 50-60-301 Montana Code Annotated which replaces the 2009 codes. “This is one of those things we have to do,” said Mayor Darren Coldwell. An ordinance will be brought forward at the next meeting that will outline the changes. The changes have to do with any construction or modifications of existing structures and specifically clarifying the different regulations regarding dwelling units with five or fewer residents.

Tree ordinance 688 was adopted by the council and outlines the rules and regulations for planting trees in the city. Wording in the ordinance is identical to ones passed in Eureka and Whitefish. The ordinance calls for the creation of a tree board to oversee the implementation of the ordinance.

The tree ordinance also allows for the city to be designated a Tree City U.S.A. and makes it eligible for additional grant funding from the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation to purchase trees. Tree City U.S.A. is a national program that provides a framework for community forestry management.

Coldwell said the city has already been approved for a small grant from the department, but if they can get the paperwork of the ordinance to them by Tuesday they may be able to bump them up to a larger grant that would be nearly $1,000.

Resolutions 690, 691 and 692 were all passed and dealt with the repeal of past resolutions. Resolution 690 repealed an alley maintenance resolution that was redundant because of a capital improvement and planning measure already in place and functioning.

A newsletter required from council members every 90 days was repealed by resolution 698. The newsletter would be too expensive and has not been a priority of the council since it was passed.

Resolution 692 repeals a resolution that gave powers to another member of the council if the mayor was out of town for more than 24 hours. That resolution, 635, was a violation of Montana law and was hence voided.

Two certificates of deposit, or CDs, worth about $107,000 each had been maturing and it was decided to see which bank in the area offered the best interest rates. Lincoln County Credit Union’s interest rate of 1 percent was the highest, which was noted by Mayor Coldwell as not being spectacular. “It’s still ridiculous to give them nearly a quarter-million dollars and get 1 percent a year.” One CD was already at the bank and one was moved from First Montana Bank to Lincoln County Credit Union on a five-year CD plan with the unanimous approval of the council.

The last order of business was to approve claims for the accounting period. Mayor Coldwell pointed out General Pacific Inc. claims for providing extending electrical utilities up Iron Creek. He said they could do it cheaper if they put the electrical line on poles, but said that would result in issues from weather-related damage later on. The extension is part of the city’s three-year improvement plan.

City Clerk, Tracy Rebo, said she has been talking with a business that could lower the city’s costs for organizing and updating city codes on a host website. All claims were approved with the exception of Sterling Codifiers so the council could look into whether they would like to change companies for that purpose.