City Council Meeting 6-24-15

The City Council had yet another meeting last night (June 24th) and discussed several interesting topics and a few logistics items to dot our "i"s and cross our "t"s.


Right off of the bat, Bob Pranis stood up during the public comment period to invite the Council to participate in a potential $25,000 grant through the Broadband Commission to work on creating a trial co-working facility in Grand Marais as well as establishing several remote video-conferencing locations across the County to take advantage of the new broadband installation.  "Co-working" is a term used to summarize an office space that has the general resources of an office (printers, fax, internet, etc), but that can be used by several remote-working individuals to meet their needs for a small charge.  The grant would require a 25% match, not all of which would be coming from the City and which could be matched with "in-kind" donations, such as space or infrastructure.  Since this was not an agenda item and because the Council requested more time to consider possible partnerships with the Broadband Commission on this project, the Council chose to decide on this issue at the next meeting on July 8th. There were a few comments expressing excitement for the proposed project as well as a few questions concerning why the co-working facility had to be in the downtown area since the whole concept of "remote working" doesn't need a specific space to make it work... More to come on that next meeting.


Next came the Consent Agenda, which yesterday included the agenda as published, the minutes of the last meeting, the bills for the City that need approval to pay, and a street permit for the North Shore Federal Credit Union to close down the street immediately in front of their building for their annual member's appreciation BBQ.  The Consent Agenda was unanimously passed.  See you at the Credit Union for a brat on July 16th!


Moving right along, Kristin DeArruda Wharton from Cook County Moving Matters presented the Cook County Grand Portage Active Living Plan to the Council, summarizing the action items that were created BY the City, FOR the City to work on.  The City has taken on many of these projects and has made good headway, but there is more work to do to continue promoting/developing active living in our community.  This is one of the aspects the Council will continue to consider as a part of its Comprehensive Planning activities.  The Highway 61 redesign project was part of this Active Living Plan.  Ms. DeArruda Wharton also invited the City to continue in conversation with Moving Matters to continue finding resources to assist in accomplishing the priorities of the Council.


Tied to the previous item, Administrator Roth brought forward a contract from the Sawtooth Mountain Clinic pertaining to the funds used by the City to accomplish the Highway 61 Redesign project.  The monies for the project came from the Moving Matters grant and thus the City needs a way to represent that we accepted and used that money.  The contract that we unanimously approved did just that in a retrospective manner since we have already spent that money.


Next the Council fielded a resolution that simply corrected some incorrect/confusing language in the description of a property in the City.  This language has created problems in the handling of this piece of property, thus the request to correct the description.  The Council had a brief conversation about why this came up now and not at earlier times when the property was sold/re-sold, but when the Council was satisfied that this was the right thing to do we passed the resolution unanimously.
The Park Department once again came before the Council to hire the remainder of its seasonal workforce, which the Council accepted.  Welcome to the seasonal staff Noah Warren and Michael Sussano!


The last item on the agenda was a resolution for the City to become a joint applicant with the County to apply to the state for "Regional Park or Trail Designation" for the mountain biking trails and infrastructure created at Britton Peak outside of Tofte and Pincushion Mountain outside of Grand Marais.  This application, if accepted, is the first step necessary for getting our trail system eligible for MN Legacy Funding for the continuing development and expansion of the trails in our county.  As part of this application there is a master plan that outlines roughly 50 miles of singletrack trails as well as other traverse trails to connect these systems.  The reason that this could be a big deal and an economic driver for our County is that this trail system, if built, would be a national caliber destination mountain biking facility, something that would add significantly to amenities for our area.  The Council asked several questions about the stipulations and consequences of signing on to this application and then voted unanimously to approve the resolution and become the co-applicant with the County.


On to Council and Staff reports!


Councilor Moody asked for clarification on who the contact person was for Arrowhead Animal Rescue so that he can get up to speed and get meeting dates.  These names were given.


Councilor Mills reported that the YMCA approved its 2016 budget after significant conversation and number crunching.


I reported on four meetings that I attended in the past few weeks:

1. I met with a few residents of the community who brought up concerns regarding blight or poorly maintained properties/areas of the City.  Concerns regarding how we present ourselves to visitors to the area as well as how poorly kept properties effect the property values of those around it.  The big "ask" was, "What can the City do about it?"  I did some looking into this issue with Administrator Roth and we discovered that the City does not have a "Blight Ordinance," but has a "Nuisance Ordinance" which largely applies to physical dangers that are present on a property and not aesthetics necessarily.  When questioned as to why the City does not have a Blight Ordinance, the answer was that blight has not been a big enough problem in the past and that codifying the aesthetic that we would like to have in our city is much more comlicated than just outlawing peeling paint... In the end I volunteered to have a conversation with Sheriff Eliasen about his understanding of the Nuisance Ordinance so that we can see what the best way is for residents to report/have their complaints heard.  It is the City's perspective that the best way to resolve differences between neighbors is to have a conversation with that neighbor or to be personally involved in the solution of the problem, but also understand that there are situations where a positive conclusion is more difficult, so we are glad to have this conversation.

2. I met with Emergency Services Coordinator Jim Wiinanen and County Commissioner Heidi Doo-Kirk to discuss the community's Emergency Operations Plan.  This plan is a master document that summarizes how our community will coordinate and respond to any emergency in the county.  This document is very detailed in its aspects and includes just about every consideration necessary in preventing emergencies from spreading and to put our resources to the best possible use.  Every year roughly 1/4 of the plan needs to be re-addressed to make sure that it is still appropriate for our community.  Our task is to reassess these several points by year's end, but we are striving to complete the project prior to September's Integrated Emergency Management Conference, which will be held in Grand Portage with all local agencies as well as Canadian agencies in attendance.

3. Upon the request of the District Heating Task Force, I made the request for a motion to be made to formally suspend the contract with FVB Energy as stipulated in the contract. This motion was accepted unanimously by the Council and comes following realization that capitalizing the project in the current economic environment would not be financially responsible nor prudent.  The City will be in conversation with FVB Energy to provide a final report on the project and will settle all outstanding payments necessary.  Since this round of work was funded through two grants, the City will now begin the process of reviewing the procedures for returning the remaining grant funds to the granting agencies.  Our hope is that the work completed with provide us with a somewhat turn-key project should the economics of a biomass plant improve to a point where it would be viable again.

4. I met again with a few representatives of the North Shore Health Care Foundation to work on hashing out what the purpose of the conversations we have already had about healthcare for Seniors in our community.  It became clear very early in the conversation that neither the City nor the Health Care Foundation was in a position to, nor should be the leading entity in this conversation.  This created some confusion and frustration because we both believed that this study is a critical part of how we can better serve our residents and keep them in our community from "cradle to grave" so to speak. After much conversation, I made the offer of taking the initial lead in working to put together a coalition of organizations in our area that will invest time in educating ourselves about what the issues/opportunities are, seeking a study to formally understand these issues/opportunities, and then use the information we gather to create plans to meet the needs of our residents, which will benefit the community culturally, physically, and economically.  I will be attending the North Shore Health Care Foundation's meeting on July 13th to discuss this directly with their board.


Following a few comments from Administrator Roth concerning the City's role in the planned library lawn rain garden, the meeting adjourned at a reasonable hour.


*In closing comments, I am writing this summary during one of the breaks at the League of MN Cities Annual Conference where I am attending several sessions such as:

1. Seeking Solutions to the Workforce Housing Challenge2. How can my city get involved with community solar gardens?
3. Attracting and Retaining the Next Generation in Your Community
4. I had a great conversation with the Preservation Alliance of MN concerning ways to preserve aging buildings in our community as well as creating succession planning for business owners in our area.