City will chip in for railroad crossing at 12th Ave. West

Columbia Falls will chip in for a railroad crossing at Twelfth Avenue West, but not nearly to the extent that was first thought.

City manager Susan Nicosia told council last week that the city will pay about $72,000 for the concrete panels that go between the tracks toward the project, but Burlington Northern Railway, which owns the tracks, will pay for crossing arms and the state will pay some of the expense as well.

The city first thought the railroad was going to ask it to pay for the whole project, which is not the case.

The city plans to eventually extend the sidewalk and the street, both of which were recently reconstructed, across the tracks when the project gets underway, possibly next spring.

In other city news:

• The city is partnering with People and Carnivores, a nonprofit conservation organization, to install bear resistant garbage cans in all of its city parks. People and Carnivores is paying $5,000 toward the garbage cans.

Bears are out and about, with sightings in Rivers Edge Park and elsewhere as of late. A woman recently posted on social media that a bear broke into her chicken coop near Meadow Lake and ate most of her birds.

Bears have also been frequenting the Flathead River as evidenced by the scat in the Cedar Pointe subdivision bike path.

Last year the city spent $9,000 on bear resistant-garbage cans, as there were numerous bruins in town, including grizzlies.

• The engineering for the city’s wastewater treatment plant upgrades is about nine months behind schedule.

The project needs to pick up the pace or risk losing out on federal grants to pay the upgrades to the plant.

• The city has reached a tentative agreement with the Teamsters Union. The Teamsters represent city public works employees.