Vester gives Wallace's State of the City address

On Wednesday afternoon Wallace mayor Dick Vester gave a “State of the City” address to the members of the Wallace Chamber of Commerce.

Vester was able to discuss a vast amount of topics ranging from the city’s finances, their relationship with the Shoshone County Sheriff’s Office, the ongoing sewer project in Wallace, and even some areas that Vester believes the city could do better.

“Financially we are doing very well as a city,” Vester said. “We know how difficult small town retail can be and we are doing well. But I really do think that we, as a city, aren’t tapping into the winter recreation market like we could be. We are kind of in between both Silver Mountain and Lookout Pass and we know these winter months can be a handful.”

The trying winter season forced Wallace city officials to have to hire a part-time worker for snow maintenance and contract out with local companies for snow removal.

Following Vester running down the city’s employees, he discussed how Wallace’s contract with the SCSO had become a topic of frustration within the City Council.

“We have a contract with the county and the SCSO where we pay $102,000 yearly, and that has become a real point of contention over the last few years,” Vester said. “Councilman DeRoos and I had a chance to sit down with Sheriff Gunderson and air our grievance that we may have not been getting all the coverage we were paying for. Sheriff Gunderson has assured us that we are going to have good coverage and we will be optimistic moving forward. Our contention was that cities without local police departments such as Mullan and Smelterville aren’t paying but the county is still required by statute to patrol there.

Mayor Vester then announced that the SCSO had hired a new deputy specifically for Wallace on Tuesday.

One of the biggest concerns for the city is the ongoing sewer project.

“About three years ago the voters of the city passed a levy by 80 percent to increase the sewer rates,” Vester said, “I’m sure everyone noticed last summer when began replacing these 100-year old pipes. The rates will increase, but they are being phased in.”

Vester thinks that Wallace may have bitten off more than they could chew last summer when the work was going on.

“I think we made a mistake last year in that we tried to do too much, particularly in the downtown commercial area,” Vester said. “There is going to be more sewer work, but most of the downtown is done.”

In March there was news that some of the work that had been completed last summer had been done improperly and would have to be fixed, upon asking, Mayor Vester confirmed this rumor and explained the situation with some help from Elmer Mattila.

“The T-junctions that come from the laterals into the main line are the wrong T-junction,” Mattila said.

“Nothing was discovered until they pressure tested the line,” Vester added “There is a little bit of differences of opinion on who’s at fault. Whether it’s the construction company Noble Construction, or if the engineers at JUB Engineers should have more responsibility.”

The issue with the wrong connection between the laterals and main line is that they allow groundwater into the pipes which forces more water to be pushed through the waste treatment plant that the main lines flow into.

“We know that sewers fail,” Mayor Vester said. “But that isn’t what happened here. We will need to get these replaced, but it isn’t an emergency situation.”

The good news is that despite these needing to be replaced, Mayor Vester assured the listeners that the replacing wouldn’t cost the taxpayers anything extra.

Vester also touched on how the road remediation project would continue throughout the summer, but cautioned his residents to be patient and that the city has no control over where work gets done or where it doesn’t.

“We don’t get to pick where the work happens, we don’t get that choice,” Vester said. “I know it’s tough for people who don’t have garages or places to park beside the street, but I think we are going to be done with it by the end of this year or maybe early in 2018.”