Amtrak ticket agent-issue arises again at City Council

The topic of Amtrak again arose at a Havre City Council meeting, with council member Terry Lilletvedt asking Monday about the status of the National Rail Passenger Corp. eliminating ticket agents at the Havre station.

Amtrak eliminated agents in Havre and Shelby this month, two of 18 Amtrak stations nationwide scheduled to lose their ticket agents.

Mayor Tim Solomon said that he has received a second group of complaints from the community about the ticket offices closing, with many issues with the Empire Builder’s Havre stop in just the few weeks since the ticket agents’ termination, Solomon said. He said in one instance, a train arrived and the station was closed and locked.

He said he has not yet gotten word back from an Amtrak representative, but added that he will be getting in contact with Amtrak and notifying them that this change is not working out.

Also Monday, the council approved a street closure for Third Avenue from Third Street to the alley south of the 305 Building for the Discover Downtown Festival June 30.

Erica Farmer, a local optometrist who owns the 305 Building and the Havre Historic Post Office with her husband, Marc Whitacre, said the Discover Downtown Festival has already secured four food trucks and is still actively looking for additional established trucks. The family-friendly event will highlight downtown and the community is welcome to attend, she said.

This will be the second time that the festival will be held, after skipping a year last year with a fun run held in its place.

This year’s festival is set to run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. that Saturday. In addition to the food trucks a number of booths from vendors in the community are scheduled to be at the festival and local live band Shovels and Shotguns will play at the event.

The 2016 festival had more than 200 people in attendance, Farmer said.

She said that this year, Tera Verploegen is organizing and sponsoring the event, which has spaces available for additional booths, vendors and food trucks. For more information people can call Verploegen at 945-4266.

A request by Murphy’s Pub to host a beer and wine festival in the Boot Hill Plaza parking lot on July 28 was also approved during the council meeting.

The city also opened bids on providing city attorney civil legal services as well as to provide city prosecutor services, and moved them for consideration of the council Finance Committee. Two bids were made for the city attorney legal services, Hi-Line Law with a bid of $48,000 and Tamara Barkus with the three-year bid made in three separate payments of $36,000, $40,000 and a $44,000.

Barkus is the sole bid for the city prosecutor services with a three-year contract of $78,000 a year.

The council also approved the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 601 contract for Fiscal Year 2017-18 which has been under negotiation. The contract included a 2 percent raise from the previous year, with the only other changes adjusting dates.

City Clerk and Finance Manager Doug Kaercher said this morning that negotiations on the contract for the upcoming fiscal year will begin shortly.

The council also approved the mayor’s appointing Kristy Smith, an employee of Independence Bank, to a three-year term on the Zoning Board of Adjustments.