SAFETY REPORT MISSES CHANCE FOR PUBLIC COMMENT AND INSPECTION

What ever happened with the “big” safety audit that took place a couple of weeks ago? Will that rat councilman Bob the squealer Kaul that turned the City into their insurance carrier now have to wear safety gear when he “saddles up”? We were told before our last report by a city employee that Kaul was big- shotting around with the three lady inspectors for three days inspecting the city’s safety issues. Every time one of our bloggers asked about this we are still told “we know nothing”. Last night the HDN reported that Mayor Tim discussed the findings at the City Council meeting. When the Corrector asked one of our sources at the City they emphatically said that nothing was said about the safety inspection at the council meeting by either Kaul or the Mayor. Apparently the quotes from Mayor Tim were made to the HDN reporter after the meeting and outside of public scrutiny. What’s up with that?


Our findings were that the council meeting was short and sweet with the biggest bone of contention was raised by newly elected council person Janet Tretheway that thought the Havre Tourism committee from the Chamber should hire a “professional” marketing firm to help them develop a plan to expend the approximately $20,000 that they will receive from the State bed tax collected by local motels. She apparently took exception to long time Chamber Director Debbie Vandeberg developing the expenditure plan herself in-house. Interestingly, Havre has not qualified for this money in the past because motels in the city limits have not had enough bed nights to comply with the State requirements until the recent annexation of the Super 8 and the AmericInn. Annexation has caused the nights counted in city limits to finally meet that threshold and give the folks that work toward developing tourism in Havre a much needed boost. The paper also stated that Mayor Tim campaigned on developing a bed tax to “promote Havre’s economy”. News flash for the paper – this is a STATE bed tax that has been in place for years, not something of Mayor Tim’s doing.

In addition, we wonder why there was nothing brought forth to the council about sending an endorsement for the 4 for 2 Associations proposal to wait for the 4-lane instead of proceeding with the “Super-2”. You may recall that Councilman Kaul made that motion at the last council meeting on behalf of the Highway 2 Association and it was tabled until the next council meeting which was Monday night. Is the council going to just ignore this motion and leave it on the table?

Questions, questions, questions!