With the city of Watson losing full-time utility employee Mark Radtke, overtures have been made to Montevideo city officials regarding supplying utility services.
At Monday night’s Montevideo City Council meeting, city manager Steve Jones told council members that he and Byron Hayunga, city utilities director, had been contacted by Watson Mayor Todd Vogel about the possibility of Montevideo supplying services or oversight over Watson’s water and waste water utilities.
“Maybe there’s a way for both (cities) to win, maybe not,” said Jones. “I think it’s worth sitting down to talk.”
Hayunga currently offers some private services to Watson under his license, but at this point more assistance is needed than he alone can provide.
Jones added that the city does not want to totally support Watson, but does want to help the community out. He said he understood the city of Watson would probably still want to hire a maintenance person.
The Watson City Council also met Monday night at a special meeting to discuss Radtke’s upcoming retirement from city employment. Without someone to take care of the city’s utilities, the council discussed how to accomplish the required work until someone could be found.
Council members also discussed what sort of position they would be offering to a prospective employee.
It was decided that, while they would begin searching for a new employee, they would wait to decide if the position would be full time or part time, and what sort of licenses they would be requiring.
Depending on what services and staff can be provided by Montevideo, Watson may have stiffer or lighter requirements of a new employee, explained Vogel.
Both councils agreed to pursue this possibility further, and decided that they would try and set up a meeting to discuss what arrangements would be made.
(Staff writer Jeremy Jones contributed to this article)
