City and county news in short

Midtowne election

The Midtowne Sixth Ward Neighborhood Association recently elected officers and board members.

Helena Citizens Council President Justin Trafton was elected president. M.C. Beeby will serve as vice president. Mike Anderson is secretary and Jon McCarty is treasurer.

Andy Tocke, Bonnie Lorang, Clayton Sheets, University of Montana-Helena College of Technology Dean Daniel Bingham, Thom Warsinski, Phil Sebastian, Betty Lou Gunstone, Paul Miller, Dave Von Bergen Sr., Rose Casey and Ralph Coslet will serve as board members.

The boundaries run east on Prospect Avenue from the Montana Avenue intersection to Interstate 15; north to Cedar Street; west to National Avenue; south to East Lyndale Avenue; west to Rodney Street; south to East 15th Street; east along the football field to Idaho Avenue; north to Billings Avenue; east to Montana Avenue; and south to the intersection of Prospect and Montana avenues.

The association is putting together a comprehensive neighborhood plan, which will address traffic, pedestrian safety and access, crime, zoning, historic preservation, junk vehicles and other issues.

The group meets the first and third Thursdays of the month at UM-Helena from 5:30 to 7 p.m. For more information, contact Trafton at 442-4534 or Beeby at 449-6131.

Rodeo awards

Public Works employees Doug Nisbet and Larry Chapman represented Lewis and Clark County well in recent equipment competitions in Montana and Colorado.

Nisbet was the Master Grader at the Western Snow and Ice Conference in Estes Park, Colo., placing first out of 44 competitors. He also placed 19th out of 67 in the loader competition.

Chapman was seventh out of 44 in the motor grader and 11th out of 67 in the loader.

As a team, Nisbet and Chapman placed 10th out of 53 in the tandem-axle snow-plow competition and 18th out of 43 in the single-axle snow plow.

The conference included participants from 13 western states.

At the 17th annual Montana Snow Rodeo, Nisbet was declared all-around winner and Chapman won the backhoe competition. Nisbet took second in the motor grader and third in the backhoe. Chapman took third in the loader. Ed Tinker took third in the snow plow.

Records committee

Lewis and Clark County commissioners recently agreed to create a records management committee, similar to one city commissioners recently approved, to ensure permanent records are maintained for posterity and public access.

The county holds 3,800 linear feet of permanent records, some of which is now stored in the City-County Building's basement in stacks, mixed in with nonpermanent records, broken furniture, light bulbs and a few old Christmas trees.

The boiler room storage area sometimes reaches 85 degrees, Missoula-based archivist Jodi Allison-Bunnell told commissioners this week. Ideal storage temperature is 65 degrees, she said.

Allison-Bunnell was hired by the county in October to assess its record-keeping system. She spent time with county staffers, who she said were enthusiastic and hardworking, but said the county needs to develop a clearer system of organization for its records.

-- By Larry Kline, IR Staff Writer