City Council Meeting 3-25-2015

Last night the City Council gathered for another marathon-esque meeting that covered many important topics and included a great deal of interesting conversation.  I will summarize these topics here so that you won't have to spend 2+ hours getting up to speed!

Things started out with a bang with community member Greg Gentz approaching the Council with a request for the Council to consider writing a letter of support of the Lakeview Natural Dairy and other residents of the state of MN who want to sell products directly from their farm or garden to consumers.  He requested that this be taken up for the next meeting and that, if written, the letter contain information about the Constitutional protections that are at issue in this case.  The Council agreed to take this up at their next meeting.  We will discuss our ability to write the letter and the language therein...

Then we moved on to the consent agenda.  This is where we take care of a bunch of routine business all in one fell swoop.  There were a few questions about the payment of bills, an item added to the agenda, and a permit renewal for the Cook County Curling Club Consumption and Display Permit (say that 5 times fast...).  That last one had a second of conversation:  to explain, the curling club uses the Community Center.  In order for them to be able to bring in alcoholic beverages to enjoy after or in between their matches, they need a permit.  There has never been any problems with this, so it was included in the consent agenda and passed.  There you go curlers!

Next we had a presentation from Kimber Wraalstad concerning the renovation of the North Shore Hospital.  She presented to us to get us up to speed and to gain the City's support in requesting grant funds from the IRRRB for infrastructure improvements that will be required with the hospital's renovation.  The total amount of the funds available would be up to $350,000 to pay for infrastructure.  The City would act as a pass through for this money and all of the construction would be performed and supervised by the hospitals building contractor, Boldt Building.  The City will require that all of the infrastructure be build to standard, will view and accept bids, and will maintain records of payments going out for this work.  Seeing it as a great opportunity for the hospital to make the reinvestment in our local healthcare more affordable, the Council voted to pass the resolution stating we will apply for the IRRRB funds for their project.  The Council was very impressed with the thorough information, financial planning, and project assessments that were given as background for this request (it was almost 30 MB of files on the computer... That's a fair amount!).

After that we had a community member Randy Sjogren approach the Council requesting permission, or at least an investigation into permission to place a set of viewing binoculars near Artist's Point.  The location identified was on the west side of the Artist's Point parking lot, in the pebbles between the picnic table to the north and the trees to the south.  This spot was identified because of its clear view up and down the Shore.  There were many questions asked, including, "Can we even do this? Who controls that land?" and "How would the binoculars be mounted to the ground?" and "What is your interest in this project?"  Sjogren stated that if he were the one installing the binoculars, he would want to make it a coin operated system so that he could re-coup some of his expenses.  If it were a City project to install the binoculars and he didn't have any income coming from that, that scenario would be great too because he sees it as something that would benefit the City and all of the folks that look out at the Harbor and lake.  The Council thanked Sjogren for his idea and will be looking into the control of that area and how we could permit for something that would be more of a permanent installation instead of a seasonal business without any foundations needed.  More to come on this!

The next thing was the addition to the agenda.  For those of you interested, please look at the previous blog post that I wrote concerning Assisted Living services in Grand Marais to get some background information.  The request before the Council last night was to take action on the decision of the previous Council (in December of 2014) to have a market study done to find out the feasibility of Assisted Living services in Cook County, centered in Grand Marais.  This Request For Proposals (RFP) will be sent out to companies that do market studies o find which company will be the best suited to perform our study.  We are casting a wide net for this study.  The previous market study, done in 2010, drew a small circle around Grand Marais and did not speak with members of our neighboring communities, who would be served by these services.  After some conversation and and introduction by Karl Hanson, a member of the North Shore Health Care Foundation (whom the City will approach for grant monies to pay for the study), the motion was made and passed to move forward with sending out the RFP to the vendors we know of AS WELL AS being in communication with the County Board and the Grand Portage Tribal Council about this process to get their cooperation in gathering information.  I have already sent out contacts to the County Board and the Tribal Council to meet with them and go over the RFP and the process.
*At this point we are not committed to anything.  The purpose of doing this process is to get accurate information pertaining to the needs and future needs of people in our community.  We want our community members to be able to stay in our community as long as possible and not have to move to a completely different community when their healthcare needs change.  Assisted living is the hole in our offerings at present, we need to figure out how big of a hole it is and if we can meet those needs with the services already present in our community instead of trying to attract another entity to fill those needs.  Again, please refer to my previous blog post or give me a call if you have any questions.

Next was the Planning Commission report.  The Planning Commission held a special meeting regarding the Development Agreement between the City and the developer of the proposed Grand Lakeview Development, which would be located in an undeveloped piece of land above the Gofer Cabins property.  Preliminary platt drawings have been done and the City approved a setback variance for the design previously, but before things get started, there needs to be a Development Agreement between the City and the developer.  Why?  Because this development requires infrastructure and the City is going to own that infrastructure.  The City needs to know that this project will be completed to the expectations and specifications that are necessary for the City.  The City is not a developer and doesn't want to be, so there are certain things that our legal counsel has told us are standard in an agreement like this.  We haven't done a lot of this development, so we want to take our lawyer's advice.  These assurances cost money and take time though, and that is something that the developer is concerned about.  This project is slated to be an affordable housing development, something that our community has identified is a priority.  All of the cost for this project will impact that sale price though.  For now I can say that our legal counsel and the lawyer for the developer are working together to figure out how we can both feel good about this project and get the desired result for both of us.

Moving on, we briefly discussed the continuing plan for City Strategic Planning.  There are two channels this planning is going to take: 1. Comprehensive Planning-- A wide, thorough, thoughtful process with a great deal of public input and investment; and 2. Capital Improvement Planning-- This will be more of an internal process, but not without community input, that will seek to determine the areas in greatest need for our City and then work toward creating a plan to accomplish those things.  Considering that our City Administrator is going to be taking a vacation here upcoming (and I hope he has a great time!), these processes will be getting researched while he is gone (looking at other Capital Improvement Plans and Comprehensive Plans), we will be setting dates for these meetings when he gets back.

At this point we were all getting pretty worn out, so we moved to Council and Staff reports.  I reported on a CCLEP meeting I attended where I learned a great deal about programs happening around the region to promote energy efficiency and even an internship program that the City would be eligible for that would potentially give us some opportunities to achieve considerable strides forward in our status as a Green City.  I also reported on the North House Annual meeting that I attended last week.
Dave Mills attended the YMCA board meeting where they are hashing out a facility agreement with the school.  Sounds like a lot of thought going into that as well!  He also mentioned the North Woods Food Project meeting he attended where they began talking about a city compost plan again and the Green Dollars survey that they are doing to gather information to see what kinds of foods we could afford to produce locally instead of buying it from other places.  Very good stuff.

The other Councilors either made their updates in the previous agenda items or had no scheduled meetings.

Our next meeting is April 8th where we will discuss the letter of support for the Lakeview Natural Dairy, the GreenCorps program (to see if we should apply for an intern), the possibility of changing our meeting time to make it more accessible, community bathrooms, and an update on the RFP support from the County and Tribe.

See you there!

Assisted Living in Cook County: What do we need and how do we get it?

Starting back in December the topic of Assisted Living services reared its head yet again in our community as a group of invested community members gathered with a potential vendor of "assisted living" services at the hospital.

If this sounds a little familiar, that is because a very similar conversation happened a little over 5 years ago, at which point a study for the need of these services was done and it was determined that there was not sufficient need for an additional facility to provide for our community.

So why are we looking at it again only 5 years later?

One of the reasons we are looking into it is that the scope for the original market study that was done 5 years ago was done with very few local considerations taken in to effect.  It did not take into effect the services that are currently being offered (nor did it talk to the people who are providing services currently) and it drew a small circle around Grand Marais (which doesn't match our reality of being the only city in Cook County... a city that sends several community members to Silver Bay or Duluth for these services).

Another reason we are looking at it again is that our community is aging.  You may have heard about the EDA's housing study's results that pointed out the fact that the Cook County population is rising, but it is also seeing its average age rise, something that we need to keep an eye on.  If people want to grow old in the community they love, there should be ways to make that possible for them.

Maybe we should go back a few steps... Let's talk about "assisted living" and where it fits into our current situation...

Assisted living can most plainly be explained by showing the progression of services available to elderly or infirm people:

-Independent Living-- You are on your own either in your own home or in an apartment.  You may receive outside help with daily activities, but it is not provided by your housing establishment... You arrange that yourself with your loved ones or social services.  Local example:  Sawtooth Ridges Apartments.

-Assisted Living--  You are not infirm, but are in need of help with daily activities such as meals, medication, bathing, dressing, and transportation, but you can manage yourself and feed yourself.  At assisted living facilities these things are standard along with 24 hour supervision and security.  Most assisted living facilities have a nurse on staff 24 hours a day as well for emergencies.  Memory care services and other medical services may be available based on the facility.  Local example: Silver Bay Carefree Living.

-Long-Term Medical Care-- You are infirm or have a medical situation that requires frequent professional attention.  This is a wide category that can go from short term rehabilitation to long term geriatric care or memory care, but stops before end of life planning or hospice care.  Local example: Cook County Care Center

-End of Life Planning or Hospice-- Focused on giving the patient the best quality of life as they approach the end of it, hospice care deals with not only the physical symptoms of late-stage illnesses, but the emotional challenges as well.  The nearest certified hospice to us in Grand Marais is Duluth, although Care Partners does offer many of the same services that a hospice program would.

-Other options-- We have a few unique care options in our community as well, one is Hillhaven Assisted Housing, which is not a licensed assisted living complex, but is able to offer similar services.  Hillhaven would fit in right between Independent Living and Assisted Living.

So you can see that we do have considerable resources available in our community, but there is a gap.  That gap comes in the area of assisted living.  How can we fill that need without compromising the systems that we already have though?  That is really the question and the one that we are seeking to answer right now.  In the past months I have met with a few of the members of the North Shore Health Care Foundation and have had numerous conversations on this topic with medical leaders in our community.  It was clear in these conversations that we need to look into assisted living, but we need to do it in a smart and thoughtful process.  This process includes the practitioners currently practicing in our community for feedback, it considers the majority of the residents of our county as they realistically would be the beneficiaries of such a facility, it includes considerations for our aging population (but not based on it... we hope to attract more young families to our area as well!), as well as other considerations that we have not yet figured out.

Our first step is to submit an RFP (request for proposal) to several of the companies we are aware of who can do a study such as this.  We are in the process of doing this right now.  Once we have heard back and know who can do this study for us, we will gather interested stakeholders together with the firm doing the study so that the people with something at stake can give feedback and input into the design of the study.  Once a thorough design is agreed upon, the firm will complete the study and will submit that back to the City.  It is then up to the City to invite assisted living providers to review the study and see if they would be able to successfully offer services in a community showing the characteristics that ours has.  *This study will most likely be paid for through a grant from the North Shore Healthcare Foundation, an organization that works for the betterment of healthcare on the North Shore.

What could happen out of this?

Scenario #1: The study comes back and shows a dramatic need for assisted living.  In this scenario, the City would extend invitations to assisted living providers to create a proposal for a facility in Grand Marais.  Based on the study and common sense, the City would then select a provider who would then build their facility (with their own money) and would go into business in our community.  The only investment that the City would have into this scenario would likely be infrastructure, which potentially could be off-set through IRRRB development grants...

Scenario #2: The study comes back and shows a minor need for assisted living.  In this scenario, the same process as #1 would be followed, but there may not be as many providers chomping at the bit to move into our community if the prospects for a strong business are not there.  We could end up with an assisted living facility in our community with this scenario, or we could, at least, know how to re-tool our current care options to better serve those in our community.

Scenario #3: The study comes back and shows a low or non-existent need for assisted living.  In this scenario, the City has done its due diligence and, although it is incredibly trying for families who have to move their loved ones away, there is not much that can be done for new services.  The study will show us where our weaknesses and strengths are in care services, so this could be a great opportunity to re-tool our current offerings to meet the needs of our community.

*Honestly I am not sure which of these scenarios is going to come to fruition, but I do know a few things about this whole process:
1. It will result in better care for our residents.  Either through the construction of a new facility or the re-tooling of our current offerings, this sounds like how we are going to get the information we need.
2. If assisted living comes to our community, it will mean several good jobs will come with it... Meaningful jobs working with the people that built up our community... this looks good to me.
3. The timing is right.  With the remodeling at the hospital occurring in the coming years, it is important to incorporate their expectations for their new facility, and think about how an assisted living facility can benefit them (keeping community members in the community longer...).

*Here are a few of my concerns about the process:
1. Assisted living will squeeze out or stress one of the other providers in our community.  We will do everything we can to prevent this through the structure of the study to the selection of an assisted living provider if that comes to pass.
2. Where will this facility be built if it is needed?  The City has some land that could be used, but would that mean that the City would be donating land to this project?  What kind of requirements would we put on the facility in that case?  In other words...
3. How do we protect the City if this thing fails?  I think that one is pretty self-evident...
4. How are we going to get workers for this facility?  Can we expect people to move up here to take jobs at this facility?  Where are those people going to live?  Will their salaries be enough to support them up here?  Do we have training opportunities for local residents to get certified to work at an assisted living facility?  I would love to see this be an opportunity for Cook County residents to find a meaningful career in our community, how can we make that happen?

In closing I would like to say that this process is going to be informed by our community's healthcare professionals and will move carefully through considering the next steps.  I am optimistic that we will get the information necessary to meet the needs of our community; I just don't know what that looks like yet...
As always, if you would like to discuss this, please let me know and I would love to find a time to talk with you about it.

Strategic Planning Part ONE...

I just got done with several hours of strategic planning with the City Council, the City Department Heads, and the City Administration.  There is a ton of information floating around in my head, so I apologize if this post is a little less coordinated than other posts (if at all!), but I wanted to get all of the information down before it started slipping my mind (and I have another meeting this evening!)...

We started the meeting with the usual introductions (we pretty much knew everyone already, so this was pretty short) and then segued into a "State of the City" report where each of the department heads explained how their department was doing and all of the important information necessary to understand each department.

First we heard from the Water/Sewer Department.  The report was that our facilities are in good to very good condition and that they meet or exceed the expectations for water quality except for one new factor:  mercury in our wastewater.  The amount that they are testing for is measured in parts per trillion which is a minute minute measurement, but the state standards are there for a reason.  In response, the water treatment plant has created a mercury mitigation plan to help lower these amounts.  YOU can help too by trying to keep mercury containing chemicals out of circulation and certainly don't flush them down your sink or toilet!  Our distribution system for water and our collection system for sewage are more complicated than other cities our size due to our geography and how hard it is to get water to flow uphill... or downhill slower than it wants to.  Tom Nelson told us that if there weren't things in place to reduce water pressure coming from the water tower, downtown businesses would have 180 psi coming out of their taps... Now THAT'S water pressure!

In lieu of all of that infrastructure, there is a good deal of maintenance that needs to be done to keep our water/sewage system in good shape.  Roughly 10% of our water mains are slated for replacement and a slightly higher percentage of our sewer mains are on the docket as well.  These are complicated replacements though and usually are done when the streets are reconstructed... which adds to their complexity and expense.

I was surprised to hear that Grand Marais has a lot of water that is unaccounted for in its fresh water system.  It is not unusual for municipalities to have some lost water, after all, we are talking about miles and miles of pipes buried in the somewhat unforgiving ground.  When the water mains are re-done under the streets this amount of water goes down.  Go figure!  This is a good reason for us to work on making a plan for getting these things done!

Next was electricity.  Did you know that 10 years ago our electrical system in town was really bad?  I guess that there were many short circuits and small outages due to poorly run lines and capacity problems, but over the past 10 years almost all of the city's electrical infrastructure has been redone and the result is that last year there were only 27 outages in the city of Grand Marais ALL YEAR.  9 of those were from trees falling on lines, 8 were due to animals causing problems (squirrels mostly it sounds like...), 3 were weather related, 2 were due to humans causing problems (probably similar to squirrels), 3 were equipment failures, and 2 were unknown.  It is really impressive to hear about all of the work that has gone into this system and the fact that there are only a few sections of the current system that need to be upgraded.  Future expansion of the system is possible, but there isn't really anything planned since there isn't a lot of development planned.  We also got an update on the city's backup generator station, which is located up on Lupin Lane.  That system was built in cooperation with the company whom we buy our electricity from, Southern Minnesota Municipal Power Agency (SMMPA).  SMMPA pays the city a considerable amount of money to have that station, which pays for us having it... It is a very good deal for us, and for them!  That plant can produce all of the electricity that our community uses, but is designed for peak assistance and outage coverage, not continuous use.

It was brought up several times that it is a liability for the city to have all of the utility equipment stored down in the Rec. Park on the shore and that it is a high priority for them to relocate that facility to better be able to serve the community and to clear all of that equipment out of a very sensitive and highly traveled area.

Streets/Maintenance came next.  Right off of the bat the facility was brought up again.  The Streets Department houses all of its equipment in the shared facility in the Rec. Park which poses many challenges for the department.  They are responsible for the upkeep of our city streets, maintenance on all city buildings, plowing and snow removal on some of our city streets (the county plows most of our city streets), and performing garbage pickup/maintenance across town.  The number of small ancillary responsibilities that were given to this department was long, and I was surprised to hear of all of the little things they do to make our experience around town better.

The department head lamented his inability to plan for road reconstruction because the accomplishment of any of those projects needs significant cooperation between many different entities, some of whom are hard to get on the same schedule.  In the meantime, they will work on repairs to the roads to extend their serviceability (seal coating and crack sealing and patching...).

The poor condition of City Hall was also brought up.  It appears that the deferred maintenance on City Hall is starting to reach a critical point where the roof leaks, the doors don't shut properly, there is considerable heating inefficiency, and space is not being used well... to name a few things.  The City Council voted in our first meeting to get an inventory of City Hall done so that we can tell what the potential of that building is, either as an asset or a liability.  Those results should be coming in April or May.

The liquor store came next.  Probably the most commercial aspect of the city, the liquor store is a huge source of income for the city and could be so much more.  The store manager lamented (as well) that although the liquor store's location is good, the space designated to it is not.  The store's coolers are in good shape, but there aren't enough of them, the flow of the store is poor, it is not a comfortable place in either summer or winter, the roof leaks, the back door has issues, the employees have to use the bathroom in the City Council Chambers, the list went on.  The space doesn't allow the store to respond to trends in the industry and thus we miss out on a lot of potential business.

Beginning a few years ago there has been a movement to get an assessment done of our liquor store to see how it could improve it's business.  This hasn't happened yet, but we know many of the things that would improve the experience.  It is the assessment of how we can run a better liquor store that we are looking for, and that has proven difficult to nail down (no one we can find specifically does liquor stores...).

Then the library.  Our shared library with the County.  Our shared 5 star library!
The library director started by explaining the joint powers agreement with the county for the operation of the library.  The City manages the operations of the library and the county helps to support it as a resource to county patrons.  He also explained that the library board is more of a managing board than other boards in the city as legally the library is an independently operated entity under the city.  If you would like the ordinance, let me know, I can find it for you.

Staffing was brought up in regards to the library.  It was identified as the biggest point of concern.  There are many very good employees at the library, but they are just enough to take care of the transactional needs of the library's many users.  In order to continue the high quality of service at the library and to continue to meet the public's need for technology, reference, resources, etc, the library will need more staff.  The director gave a list of goals that were identified by the library board for 2015 through their strategic planning.  Accessibility, attraction of new users, programming, and involvement were all themes.  These themes are in line with the library's goal of being a community center for learning and education.

The Park and Recreation Department closed down this first part of the meeting with a summary of the P&R Dept's assets and what it does.  It does more than just operate the Rec. Park!  It takes care of all of the public spaces in town, mows many fields and boulevards, takes care of seasonal decorations, the marina, and the golf course.  The P&R Dept. spoke briefly about its Master Plan, which was done several years ago after a long session of public comment and contribution.  There are many capital improvement pieces to this plan, from bath-houses and upgrading camping sites to the rebuilding of the boat launch in cooperation with the DNR (which again brought up the relocation of the city facilities down on the shore).  There was also a brief discussion about the difficulty to find seasonal workers to meet the needs of the park department from cleaning bath-houses to picking up all of the little tasks that the full-time employees can't complete.

In a positive note, it was mentioned that now that the old pool is gone, the Rec. Park contributes a staggering amount of money to the city, something that we should be aware of because it is a big piece of why our tax levy is as low as it is (it would be much higher without!) and because that part of our city finances is highly volatile as it is based on tourism.

*There were a few things brought up by several departments.  One was succession planning.  We have several city employees that are nearing retirement.  Getting qualified employees to take over these positions could take years and should be considered before the time comes for the City to hire someone new.

*Staff retention was also talked about.  The City doesn't employ many people, roughly 20, but those people are largely very well trained and qualified for their jobs.  Finding replacements for these people could take up to 4 years as it did to train one of our current electrical linemen.  This is a concern for the City definitely.

****That was half of the day more or less.

We returned to begin talking through the process we would like to use to create our priorities/ discover our values for moving forward.  We started by identifying our stakeholders.  These are the people who care or have some investment in our decisions.  The list started simply with voters and tax-payers, and businesses, and the Council itself, and employees, etc.  Then we started getting more abstract in talking about organizations such as non-profits, environmental organizations, governmental agencies, service organizations, etc.  We ended with the City's many partners, both for services to the community and for support in other ways.  It was really an impressive list...

Starting with this list we looked at the next exercise through the eyes of these people/groups.  It was called a SWOT Analysis, or Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats Analysis.  I am not going to do this part of the process justice in listing the things that were mentioned, but I can summarize to say that many of the things that were in the Strengths list also showed up in the Weaknesses list and vice versa!  For example, we have a great sense of tradition and cultural history.  Definitely a strength.  Also, at times, a weakness.  Our proximity to the lake?  Definitely an opportunity, but also a threat as we are subject to very strict standards and what happens to the lake happens to us.  I will be getting the complete list, so if you would like to see it, I could try to show you the whole thing.

Building on these SWOT, we tried to distill down what were the values or issues that were present in our community.  In order to direct this more we did a simple exercise that I would encourage you to do at home in order to continue thinking about this process:
1. Picture what a healthy Grand Marais looks like in the future.  A simple sentence that summarizes your desires for Grand Marais
2. What is stopping us from getting there?
3. What can we do about it?

We did this in three groups and got three very different images of a "healthy" Grand Marais.  But throughout these three there were similar veins of meaning.  It seemed that we all saw Grand Marais as a place with similar values and we were all very interested in how the general public sees it as well.

Seque...

Thus the City is going to be working on some kind of a structure for public input on these values because the Council really wants to know what YOU ALL value.  This way we will be able to drive policy and help the City get closer to this ideal that we put out there in question #1.

So that is largely where we ended.  We DID produce a list of values, but I would like to hear from you about what YOUR values are.

We also identified that there are things that the City just needs to accomplish, like being a good steward of our facilities and our property.  That means that we are going to have to seriously start looking at solutions for both the city facilities down in the Rec. Park and the City Hall as well as the utility infrastructure in the ground.  It sounds like a lot, but we can make a plan that will pay back the city for its hard work.  Nothing is going to happen overnight though, and we are committed to making sure that whatever decision is made is financially prudent and will meet the needs of our community.

There was much, much more to this.  If you would like more information, please let me know and I would love to sit down and talk more thoroughly on it.  I will also be doing an interview on WTIP where there will be more information shared as well...

Council Meeting 3-11-15

Safe City Example

The last meeting of the City Council happened on Wednesday, March 11th at 4:30 in the City Chambers.  The agenda didn't look that substantial on paper, but it turned out to be a very interesting and informative meeting.

Right off of the bat, after paying the bills and approving the minutes for the previous meeting, Sheriff Pat Eliasen stepped forward to briefly discuss the City's contract with the County Sheriff's Department.  Since 1998 the City has contracted with the Sheriff's Department for law enforcement services within what is considered the "City Response Area," an area that approximately mimics the Gunflint Volunteer Fire Department's call area.  The Sheriff mentioned the two deputies that are assigned to this response area, Deputies Julie and Joe, and that there have been 327 calls THUS FAR IN 2015!  That seemed like a lot and got a response from the Council, but Sheriff Eliasen reminded us all that these calls include the "Help, I'm in the ditch" calls and the "My neighbor's dog is barking constantly" calls as well as calls where actual violations of the law are reported.  The Council asked him questions about whether he felt the contract between our two entities is sufficient and/or appropriate for our relationship, to which he said that he did think the contract was appropriate.  We asked about the progress on the jail expansion, to which he said that the idea is still in a very early explorative stage so there wasn't really much to report.  We also mentioned the interest in the community of becoming a "SafeCity," using a program of activities and incentives for residents of town to know how to best contact their law enforcement and also to be aware of their rights.




After we finished talking about that relationship, it was time to start talking about another relationship: Between the City and North House Folk School.  Greg Wright and Board President Mary Anderson presented class registration numbers and membership numbers while reminding the Council that the school is definitely now a year-round school that is in its 11th year of a 25 year lease with the City for part of the land that its campus is on.  The lease agreement stipulates that if North House meets three performance criteria, then the lease will automatically be renewed for another 25 years.  Mr. Wright also explained that even though the North House organization, a non-profit entity, has invested over a million dollars in the property it now owns or leases, they are quite honestly outgrowing their space and will need to start thinking about future expansion and thus asking some hard questions.  He mentioned that he would like to invite the City to participate in those conversations because keeping the relationship with the City strong is vital to the success of the school and the health of the City.  Like with the Sheriff, many questions were asked of Mr. Wright pertaining to the current arrangement and if there was anything in particular that he would like to see revisited.  He indicated again that he would love to include the City in future conversations and that the relationship with the City in the future could be more than just a lessee/leaser relationship.

Now for the item you have all been waiting for!  The Council looked over a draft agenda for a full day planning workshop aimed at producing the values and priorities that will direct the Council through its tenure.  This workshop will happen Monday, March 16th at 9:00am-4:00pm at the Community Center here in town.  It will include presentations from each of the department heads for the City showing what the status of each department and thus the state of the City.  The Councilors felt like this was a great first step in creating a more comprehensive list of priorities and action items in the future.  The Council was excited to get this first step done so that we could have a clearer image of what the rest of the process should look like and what public comment would be needed to make the process as strong as it can be.  There is a great deal of energy surrounding this task and I for one am very encouraged that there will be positive work done to address the needs of our community.

An increasingly interesting agenda item has been the Council and Staff Reports.  As the year progresses, the Councilors have been attending their committee meetings and thus are bringing back reports of the work these other committees are doing.  It is very exciting to see all of the work being done and thank you to all of our residents serving on these committees!

Dave Mills made several comments on things that have come up at the Park Board meetings including concerns about street lights and the idea of the City applying to become a Dark Sky city (a certification that acknowledges that your city has very low light pollution and thus allows uninhibited viewing of the stars at night) and potential improvements that could be made to the Rec. Park.  He also brought up an idea coming from the Northwoods Food Project concerning a city composting program.

Anton Moody brought more information to the Council concerning the EDA's Housing Study and the work of the EDA Sub-Comittee on Housing.  They are looking for potential ways to lessen the financial strain present for younger families in our community, a problem that is multi-faceted and hard to nail down.  He also talked about a meeting that he was invited to concerning the potential of small scale (personal home use) pellet stoves and other biomass options for our area.  As a former user of a pellet stove, Mr. Moody spoke about the reliability and cost-effectiveness of pellet units and announced an Energy Fair that is in the works for the fall through CCLEP.

Tim Kennedy announced that there will be a Planning Committee meeting next week to discuss the development agreement between the City and the developer of the Grand Lakeview housing project, a twin-home development looking to be located in the lot above the current Gofer Cabins location.  He also mentioned that the PUC had a meeting and received a thorough update on the progress of the District Heating project down to the questions offered by the potential customers and the plan for getting all of the correct information regarding the project out to the community.  Look for ads in the paper as well as informational posters on bulletin boards around town.  There will also be handouts that will include the majority of the nuts and bolts of the project.

Tracy Benson brought up a few topics: meeting time and personal email usage...  The Council agreed that talking about changing the current meeting time should be addressed at the strategic planning retreat, so we moved on to the email situation.  As many of you may have heard, there has been some buzz recently in the media concerning the use of personal emails for official government business.  The City for a long time has had a no-holds-barred approach to this saying that whatever form of contact the Councilors want to use is ok, but Tracy mentioned that it would be the right thing for us to do to be consistent with the Data Rights Act and designate official business emails for each of the Councilors.  All of the Councilors saw the use and agreed that this would be the appropriate thing to do, although a few Councilors were hesitant to have yet another email address to check... There was a motion made that passed unanimously though, so stay tuned for the new City Council email addresses.

I brought many announcements to the Council as well.  The Library Board recently did its annual strategic planning retreat and set its action items for 2015.  These action items are aimed at making the use of the library easier for ALL users, whether you be a child, a young reader, an experienced reader, or an older community member.  New policies were called for that would allow the e-book readers owned by the library to be borrowed similarly to a regular book as well as other policies to encourage technology use in the library as a teaching tool.

I also attending meetings of the Cook County Ministerium to discuss the City's interest in being a partner with them in our emergency planning and the downtown retail group to let them know that the City would like to hear from them if there is anything that they feel needs to be addressed.  Right off the bat there were a few things brought up, so I believe there is some work to be done there!

I asked the Council if I could attend a Minnesota Mayor's Association training in April in the Twin Cities aimed at training mayors to better serve their communities.  Considering how much I learned at the previous training I attended and how much I still have to learn, I thought this would be a great opportunity.  The Council agreed and voted to send me to this training.

The final thing that I brought up was my FIRST OFFICIAL PROCLAMATION!  Did you know that this week is Girl Scout Week?  Well it is!  Partially because it has been celebrated before, but officially because I declared this week Girl Scout Week at our meeting last night!  If you know any Girl Scouts or any adult leaders, please thank them for their service to our community through the Girl Scouts and order a few boxes of cookies!

I think that is about all for this one.  As always, if you have any questions about the meeting, please don't hesitate to contact me... but you may have to wait until I get my new email address!

Busy Weeks!

It has been a few weeks since I have put a post up here and I would like to take a little time to update you all on the things that have been happening on the city-scape:

1. Grand Marais was voted the "Coolest Small Town in the Country" by Budget Travel!  This is a great honor for us considering that we beat out some pretty amazing small towns throughout the country.  A big thank you goes out to the staff of Visit Cook County who hit the promo on this hard and earned us a great deal of extra votes!  Another big thank you to everyone who shared the contest with friends and family and who put in the time to vote every day.  Now we need to figure out what we are going to DO with this title!  For a little background, this contest has been going on for 10 years, so there are 9 other "Coolest Small Towns," Ely being one of them.  I do think that the concentration of 1/5 of the coolest towns in the country being in Northern MN is not a coincidence...

2. The EDA's Housing Study came back with some very useful information.  As reported in our last Council meeting and in conversations that I have had with EDA members, it seems that there were not very many surprises in the report, but many troubling implications.  We are seeing a net growth in Cook County of residents, but the age of those new residents is indicating that we are getting retirees or people who are looking for a second career or empty nesters.  These things are not too disturbing because this demographic has definite advantages, but we are not seeing families moving up here to settle and raise their kids at the levels other rural areas are seeing.  This is the topic that we have to tackle and it is multi-faceted.  Rest assured that this topic will become a high priority for the Council in the coming years.

3. Talks with potential customers of the District Heating Project (Biomass heat for large consumers of heat energy in our city) have begun again and have picked up speed.  The City adopted the standing District Heating Task Force as the City's Committee on District Heating and thus we have been pursuing this project as a potential Public Utility offered by the City on a limited basis to buildings that consume enough heat energy that it is cost effective to hook them up.  The word "Feasible" has been said many times in these conversations and I would like to speak to that for a second:
This project is NOT being strong armed through by any means.  The contracts that the City has signed have many, many requisites that include safeguards for the residents of the City.  This project will only proceed IF and ONLY IF many things happen in a timely and accurate manner.  First the Committee is going around talking to potential customers and showing them the information that we have gathered showing that the cost of biomass and the cost of running the plant will be significantly less over time than each individual entity maintaining and operating their own boilers using propane or fuel oil.  The Committee then gathers the customers' concerns and questions in order to address them.  We will provide updated service agreements that address as many of the concerns and questions that are possible to address and will ask each customer to sign a contract for service (These contracts are null and void if any of the further steps fail to happen).  Once we get the contracts signed AND we get enough contracts signed to cover the expenses of operating the plant, the Committee will return to the City with an application for bonding funding from the State of MN and other entities (regional development funds, low interest loans, etc) to complete the financing package.  IF the City is successful in securing the needed funds AT AN ACCEPTABLE COST (it costs money to borrow money and this plant needs to support itself and still hit the cost projections in the contracts to customers!), then the City will seek bids for construction, accept the bid that fits the best, and then construct the plant.  This whole process is likely to take until the fall of 2017 when we would be ready to hook up buildings and provide heat.

*I hope that helps in the understanding of the project progressing.  If you have any questions about this, please let me know.  I would be glad to meet with anyone to answer questions or explain it in person.

4.  Downtown Retailers and Cook County Ministerium Meetings:  As the Council works toward addressing the City's Comprehensive Plan, I have been meeting with several of the important groups present in our community so that I can get their perspectives on their roles in the Comprehensive Plan.  There are many things that the Chamber, Visit Cook County, the downtown retailers, the Ministerium, and other groups offer to our community, and all of these things need to be considered in our Comprehensive Plan.  I have been getting great input and insight from these groups and look forward to bringing up some of their concerns on the Council level for discussion.

5. Joint Meeting:  The City hosted the first joint meeting of the year between the City, the County, the Tribe, and the School.  Many board members attended from each entity and we discussed the structure of the meetings, deciding to use the time together to bring one another up to speed on what was happening in each of our organizations as well as making it an opportunity to ask questions of each other in a structured meeting.  The group also agreed to extend an invitation to the Hospital Board to attend and participate in these meetings.

6. Library Strategic Planning: The library board met for its annual strategic planning retreat to discuss action items and reassess its goals from last year.  Movements forward on improving accessibility of library resources, both physically and intellectually as well as improving outreach to the community topped the list, but there will be on-going developments at the library to better serve our community's needs!

**As the Council gets deeper into the year the Councilors have been attending more of their committee meetings and have been bringing very interesting reports to the meetings.  Our next meeting is Wednesday, March 11th at 4:30 at the City Hall Chambers.  You are all welcome to attend!