Fort Benton hires City Ordinance Officer

FORT BENTON — In April of this year, Fort Benton lost its police department .

"We contracted for the first time in the history of Fort Benton with Chouteau County Sheriff's Office for law enforcement," said Roger Axtman, the president of Fort Benton City Council.

Axtman said the Sheriff's Office was only one part of the solution.

Fort Benton residents, including Clerk/Treasurer of Fort Benton Cindy Farwick, are seeing the issues at hand.

Farwick said, "We have many different issues in the city. As far as dogs and parked cars and people living in campers and those kinds of things that we need to address."

On Monday, a second meeting and adoption took place for a City Ordinance Officer.

"We've had two readings and two public hearings, and we did establish this past week a code enforcement ordinance," Axtman said.

With the adoption, it will take 30 days before it is an active position, but the people of Fort Benton are ready for the position to be filled.

"A lot of people are very interested in getting this person on board to help alleviate these problems in the city," Farwick said.

A person has already been selected for the position, but it will not be publicly announced until the position is active the first week of December.

The position will be acting on complaints reported, not through patrolling the area.