Havre Town Hall canceled for lack of attendance

Havre City Council canceled it's second town hall meeting Tuesday due to a lack of attendance.

These town halls, the first of which was held last month, were intended to be less-formal gatherings of the Havre City Council to hear from the public about community issues, and for them to provide updates to the community on what the council is doing and why.

"We've felt over the years that the city council meetings had become pretty formal and people were a little intimidated by it," said Havre Mayor Doug Kaercher in an interview about the town hall last week. "So we thought if we did these town halls, you know, a little more casual, a little less structured, maybe that would be a better venue for people to voice their concerns and opinions."

Kaercher said he was happy with how the first one went, and Tuesday night's meeting was intended to give Havre Public works Director Dave Peterson a chance to talk about the state of the roads in the city and his department's activities.

However, when almost no one showed up Tuesday night, he said it didn't seem worth it to have Peterson talk for no reason.

He said said he suspects the cold, well into the negative numbers at the time, and the Montana State University-Northern basketball playoff game kept people away, so Peterson will speak at the next town hall.