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!