City Council Meeting 6-10-15

Another City Council meeting was held last night starting at 6:30 at the City Council Chambers (we are good at starting on time!).


As usual, we started with the consent agenda (for review, the consent agenda is all of the routine things that the Council has to approve. We look over these things before the meeting and if there are no objections, we can approve the whole bunch with one motion in order to expedite things a little more...).  In addition to the usual things there was the street permit for the 4th of July parade from "Visit Cook County."  There was a wording change to the previous meeting minutes and the addition of the application for the Fisherman's Picnic Raffle from the Lion's Club. Other than that, there were no objections to the consent agenda, and it passed unanimously.



The Council then saw a presentation from Deborah Morse-Kahn, an author and historian who lives in Lutsen.  Deborah has written numerous historical books and has worked with the MN Historical Society on projects in the past.  She brought a proposal before the Council asking for the City to be her sponsor/partner in a Legacy Fund Grant application she would like to apply for.  The grant that she would like to apply for is considered a "Small Grant" because it is $10,000 or less.  The project that she proposed is a "re-photographic survey of historic buildings within Grand Marais." She explained that unlike other cities, Grand Marais is a treasure of historic buildings with amazing stories and legacies that should be recorded and/or preserved as a means to protect our local heritage and collective memory.  "Re-photographic" means that she will be taking exterior photos of historic structures and researching their histories.  Since there is a lot of institutional knowledge in our community of the histories of many of the structures, this could be really fun and interesting to see.  If she would like to get more up-close to a property, she will be required to get the express permission of the property owner, so she won't be trespassing on private property. Originally she was asking for the City to be a "partner" with her in her application, which meant that the City would pledge a certain amount of staff time, resources, or office access as a part of her application.  She seemed very confident in the application and the uniqueness of the project, though, so the Council decided to serve as her sponsor and not to dedicate specific amounts of staff time to the project.  This is because the process of monitoring and recording the City staff's contributed time and resources to the project would likely far exceed the reimbursement and would then require, for the grant's accounting and fulfillment, a specific amount of time to be used.  We anticipate that the amount of City staff time needed for her to successfully complete the project, if funded, would be small and the questions that she would be asking of our staff are things that they are already obligated to perform for residents of the area, so the duplication of efforts to create a partnership is unnecessary.  The Council voted to sponsor Ms. Morse-Kahn's application as a sponsor, with no dedicated in-kind partnership.
*What does this mean?  This means that the City will submit an application in our name to the MN Legacy Fund for the project as described by Ms. Morse-Kahn. The results of her work will then be owned by the City and can be used to fill out our records, inform our future planning, be given to the historical society for their uses, or any number of other uses.  The grant funds will be paid to the City and the City will have a contract with Morse-Kahn to perform the work necessary to fulfill the grant.



After that discussion, the Council dove into another deep discussion concerning the update from the Planning and Zoning Commission.  Two items were on the docket: 1.) A zoning change for some the EDA's Business Park lots and 2.) The Commission's thoughts on vacation rentals located in the residentially zoned areas of Grand Marais.

1.) It sounds as if the Planning and Zoning Commission is preparing to step into the process of getting the zoning change for the west 6 lots in the Business Park to allow for business owners to live on their lots in addition to locating their businesses there.  Stay tuned on that.

2.) Vacation rentals located in the residential areas of Grand Marais is something that we talked about for quite some time.  Many other Cities, such as Duluth, are having this same conversation. The concern is that vacation rentals located in the residentially zoned areas of Grand Marais are, or could, take away potential living opportunities for residents of the area, thus limiting the availability and raising the cost of rentals. The other side of the conversation is that vacation rentals allow residents of the residential areas to have additional income, which is an economic driver.  The Planning and Zoning Commission ALSO had a very long and heated conversation about this topic, reviewed the current ordinance, and decided to honor the current ordinance, which clearly states (by not mentioning vacation rental properties of any kind) that the only use of the residential areas is residential.

This is where it gets complicated though, so don't jump to any conclusions about what that means.  There are a number of exceptions to this, which I COULD go into right here, but it would make this conversation MUCH longer and confusing.  I would encourage any of you that would like to hear about these exceptions to give me a call and we can discuss this further or a cup of tea or a beer, depending on your tastes...



Following all of that discussion we had a few items that were a little less controversial.  One of those was a recommended hire for a seasonal maintenance worker for the Park Department.  Park's Director Dave Tersteeg requested that the Council hire Dene Taylor for the position, and the Council did so.



In an interesting technical discussion, the City decided to start issuing tobacco licenses to 5 businesses located in the City.  The City used to do that, but stopped issuing the licenses several years ago because it seemed unnecessary due to the fact that the State of MN requires a similar license to sell tobacco and the City saw this as unnecessary duplication of information. Well, I guess that we were wrong when we heard from the local businesses selling tobacco products saying that the State was requiring them to present their City license.  The Council paused to think about the impacts of NOT issuing the licenses, but after some more thought, the motion to approve the licenses for the 5 businesses passed unanimously.



The additions to the agenda were as follows:
1.) Joint Meeting? The Council directed me to follow up with the other joint powers entities to see if and when we are going to have our next joint meeting.  I agreed to do that
2. Toilets? In an effort to keep the conversation going, we agreed to look into alternative options for bathrooms to keep ongoing costs down, i.e. composting toilets, seeking grants to assist in building the toilets, etc. We will be checking into the regulations that would impact us as we are thinking about the possibility of putting a bathroom unit near Boulder Park.
3. City Buildings and Garages-- The Council set a work session to take a look at the plans that have already been done concerning City garages and facilities.  Also, the Building Analysis that was approved in January has finally been completed and will inform us of the state of City Hall, including what improvements would need to be done to get the building back into functional shape. We are anticipating an interesting report to say the least...



For Council Reports:

Councilor Moody reported that there is some exciting activity on the EDA, apart from their 7am meeting times... The EDA is looking forward to getting some housing units planned as they now feel like they have the information they need to create a well-informed plan.  For more information on this, please contact Councilor Moody or any member of the EDA.

Councilor Mills reported on the Park Board meeting where they discussed a request from the North Shore Music Collaborative for a busking permit to allow musicians to casually perform in Harbor Park for tips or voluntary donations.  In the past each performer had to apply for their own permit, but the Music Collaborative is offering to hold the permit and keep record of the musicians who are performing, thus keeping with the ordinance and allowing musicians a more accessible avenue for playing their music in a public place. I don't believe a decision has been made on this yet.

He also reported that the YMCA is in the budget-making process as we speak and are pinching pennies to make sure they are on budget.  They are also considering re-negotiating their arrangement as a branch of the Duluth YMCA because under that arrangement we are obligated to pay a percentage of membership dues to the Duluth YMCA.  Considering that we have so many more memberships than we anticipated, it may be to our benefit to be independent... If you have questions on this, please contact Councilor Mills or the administrative staff at the YMCA.


For my report I had several things:
1. Cook County Local Energy Project is making good progress on its "Solar Toolkit," a collection of information aimed at answering all potential questions one would have in considering adding solar electricity to their property.  This toolkit will hopefully streamline the process for people interested in solar technology on their property and allow more of it to appear in Cook County.
2. The Library Board is in the midst of budget talks as well.  The Board is considering different levels of staffing increase to get to optimum levels.  This will probably result in a larger than usual increase in the library's requested budget.  If you would like more information on this, please let me know and I would love to explain what is being considered.
3. Jim Wiinanen is gathering people to take a look at renewing the Cook County Emergency Operations Plan. I will be sitting on this committee.
4. A few weeks ago I sat in on a meeting between representatives from the Snowmobiling Club and Visit Cook County to brainstorm some ways that we can promote snowmobiling in and around Grand Marais.  We re-hashed some of the history of snowmobiling in town and strove to learn from the mistakes that were made in the past.  We are going to keep talking about ways to create a sound access to town for snowmobilers while not compromising the peace and quiet that we all appreciate.  Stay tuned for more.
5. Lastly, the group that was formed by the City to discuss the services that are available and not available for older adults in our community met this past week to review some of the proposals received by the City and to discuss the next steps.  The group now feels comfortable with its purpose, which is to gather the information so we can plan for the services that we need in the future and to fill in the gaps in the services currently available.  If there are services that are identified by this study that are not currently available, then the City will have the information to direct potential changes in what is available, with the assistance of the service givers available to us.

So that is about it for that meeting!  I am continuously impressed with the commitment of the Council to stick with some of these tough conversations until we feel that we have an acceptable solution or until we fully understand the situation.  That means that the meetings are longer, but it is an investment that will definitely pay off.

As always, if you have any questions about anything in this meeting, let me know and I will follow up with you.