Longtime Columbia Falls city clerk retires
CHRIS PETERSON | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 3 hours, 19 minutes AGO
Chris Peterson is the editor of the Hungry Horse News. He covers Columbia Falls, the Canyon, Glacier National Park and the Bob Marshall Wilderness. All told, about 4 million acres of the best parts of the planet. He can be reached at [email protected] or 406-892-2151. | July 8, 2026 7:25 AM
Longtime Columbia Falls City Clerk Barb Staaland retired at the end of June.
Staaland began her career with the city as a payroll clerk and then deputy city clerk under former City Manager Susan Nicosia.
She was named city clerk on April 1, 2013 she recalled in an interview last week.
Ask her what the job entails and she simply said, “everything.”
A city clerk is a jack-of-trades. She did payroll, city records and the minutes of city council meetings, along with addresses and ordinances.
“I was never bored,” she said of her tenure. She said her vacations and time off over her tenure went around city council meetings and payroll deadline.
Mayor Don Barnhart presented her with her 20-year pin at the June 15 council meeting. Her last day was June 30.
Chassity Murphy is the new city clerk, while Roger Elliott, who managed Big Sky Waterpark for more than 40 years in Columbia Falls is handling payroll and other accounting duties for the city now.
Staaland said she plans on enjoying retirement, doing some traveling, but mostly training her horses and mules for backcountry travel so she can help her husband set up camps on hunting trips, though she says she’s not a hunter herself.
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