Havre City Council Discusses Street Maintenance After Meeting

HAVRE, Mont. (NMB) – On Monday night, Havre’s City Council met at City Hall for their regular meeting.

The Council confirmed Mayor Tim Solomon’s Arbor Day Proclamation, which is Monday, April 29th. They will meet at Pepin Park that morning and plant trees with some local elementary school students.

Fire Chief Mel Paulson updated the Council on what’s happening in his department. He says their numbers of calls and fires are similar to what they were last year and he says they are fully staffed, though one person is serving overseas in the Army Reserves at the moment. They also received a new truck last year and Paulson says that its larger 1,000 gallon tank has already come in handy.

After the meeting, Councilmember Terry Lilletvedt asked the Council if they could look at raising the assessment rate for street maintenance in the city. Lilletvedt has been a strong supporter of fixing Havre’s streets, but prior attempts to raise taxes have failed.

This assessment can only be used for maintaining our current streets and Mayor Solomon believes they are doing an excellent job already. He says the problem is the streets need to be re-done and no amount of maintenance work with correct the problems. They said the proper way to raise money for new streets is through Special Improvement Districts, or SID’s, where people who live in the area would fund the repair of those streets. Lilletvedt still urged the Mayor and other councilmembers to look at alternatives.