Monday, November 30, 2015

Council Meeting 11-24 and Christmas Tree Lighting!

Hello again Everyone!

I thought that I would put out a brief update on what happened over the Thanksgiving week. As I mentioned before, my family travels for the Thanksgiving weekend so I was not present for the meeting on the 24th, but I can give you a summary of what happened at it because there were actually some items other than the normal consent agenda items!

Also, because I was not in town for the Christmas Parade and festivities, I organized a contest to offer the honor of lighting the Grand Marais Christmas tree to a young person who could best summarize what it is about the holiday season that makes it special to them. I received a few submissions for the contest and I picked Hailey Anderson to do the honors! She is a kindergartner who wrote about time with family and friends, the happiness that comes at the holidays, and the presents and treat as well!

Congratulations to Hailey! It sounds like she did a great job lighting the tree!

Ok, on to the Council meeting:

The agenda for the meeting was set (nothing could be added to it after it was publicized) so what was on the agenda was what the Council was able to attend to. One step further, the agenda was organized with all of the items in need of approval listed under the consent agenda, so all of the business could be addressed with a single motion.

These items were:

1. Approve the Agenda-- This is strictly a formality because the agenda was already set due to the fact that this was a "special" meeting, i.e. not happening at the normal date and time)

2. Approve meeting minutes from the previous meeting

3. Approve payment of bills-- This is really the important one. If we don't approve these on a 2 week cycle then we run the risk of having to pay late fees, which isn't in anyone's best interest!

4. Fire Benefit Level Change-- This was the official acceptance of the resolution approved at the last meeting to raise the annual firefighter's benefit to $1500 from the $1250 it was previously. Our firefighters provide all of our response to these emergencies and much more. Now the benefit amount is on par with the Lutsen Fire Department and hopefully will attract some new applicants to the department.

5. DEED Grant Contract for Hospital-- Earlier in the year the Council agreed to work in conjunction with the hospital to apply for a grant to help offset some of the infrastructure upgrades required for the hospital renovation project. This grant was worth $250,000. Since we already voted to participate in this project with the hospital in the application for the grant, accepting the contract is somewhat automatic based on approval of the language in the contract. Our lawyer gave us no reason to be concerned with the language, so it was included in the consent agenda.

6. Winter Maintenance and Equipment Bids-- As per every winter we receive bids for the rental of equipment the City does not have the capital nor interest to buy for itself. This is namely front end loaders and dump trucks for the removal of massive piles of snow. These bids offer the City access to well-maintained equipment for the infrequent use that we require it for at a price that is very low compared to the purchase and operation of the equipment itself. After seeing this and seeing the prices that are in line with what was paid in the past, this was included in the consent agenda.

**Although I wasn't there, I assume that there was a motion made and passed formally accepting all of these things.

Our next meeting is December 9th at 6:30! Please attend if you would like to make a comment to the Council or just see how the meetings run!

As always, please let me know if you have any concerns and I would be glad to meet with you.

Saturday, November 14, 2015

Council Meeting Friday the 13th!

Due to the Veteran's Day holiday (all government offices are closed... Thank you to those who have served our country!) the City Council rescheduled our Wednesday the 11th meeting to Friday the 13th at 4:30pm.

*The next meeting will be Tuesday the 24th at 4:30 as well. The Council concluded that having a meeting the day before Thanksgiving wouldn't result in a quorum, so we found a date that worked.  That meeting will simply be to pay bills and attend to necessary business. It is expected that nothing of much substance will be handled at that meeting.

A little about rescheduling meetings:

It is in City Resolution that our meetings will be the second and last Wednesday of each month, commencing at 6:30pm. This is important so that the public both knows when business will be conducted and so that they have the opportunity to weigh in on it. When we have to change meetings a few things change with it:

1. It is considered a SPECIAL meeting. We HAVE to have a set agenda. This is so that the public knows what is being discussed at the meetings and so items can't be "slipped in."  All agendas have to be published before the date of the meeting. You can get a copy of the agenda for any of our meetings at City Hall right on the front counter.

2. The structure of the meeting can be different. We don't technically have to take public comment for a special meeting. We usually do. Largely this is to keep special meetings short and to the point because special meetings are usually to discuss special issues. For us, our rescheduled meetings will follow the same structure as regular meetings because that is how we conduct business...

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Ok, on to the meeting!

The meeting was called to order at 4:33pm with all members present except for Councilor Moody, who had told us he would be absent.

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We moved on to the Consent Agenda, which contained the usual 3 items: Approval of the Agenda, Approval of the previous meetings minutes, and payment of the City's bills.  Hearing no need for discussion, the Consent Agenda passed unanimously.

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We moved on to an exciting and new request for fireworks!  Our own Bob Spry, in conjunction with the Chamber of Commerce and the Lion's Club are going to put on a fireworks display to go along with Visit Cook County's Christmas kickoff on November 27th. Seeing that the request was in order, the Council quickly approved the request, so there will be fireworks in November!

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The next conversation was the bulk of the meeting. The Council re-visited the City Budget with some updated information from Administrator Roth. The previous number that the Council was presented with, a 12.2% increase in the tax levy, was revised downward due to a few changes in staffing and administrative costs as well as a revision upward in the revenues from the Rec. Park. The new number that was brought before the Council was 6.87%, roughly half of the previous amount.

*There was a motion at the END of this long conversation to use the 6.87% as our new number for consideration, which effectively lowers the maximum levy to that 6.87% number. I wanted to say this right off of the bat, but will get into the conversations now.

There were really two parts of the conversation: 1.) Revenues from the Rec. Park and 2.) How do we fund our capital improvements in the future?

Starting with #1.

Revenues from the Rec. Park have been on an upward trajectory for at least the last 8 years. Some years the growth is faster than others, but even in poor years we have managed to meet or exceed the previous year. This is good news for the City and shows that the Rec. Park is still performing very well. With that said, we have heard from users of the Rec. Park this year that there are many elements of the experience there that need to be improved or addressed. The City currently allocates $145,000 to improvements in the park every year and would be interested in increasing that number if the Park Board decided that it wanted it. Our current best estimate of the positive revenue the City gets off of the Rec. Park is somewhere in the neighborhood of $250,000 and $300,000, which goes directly to the general fund, which results in property tax relief for residents. If we increased the amount allocated for improvements at the park, that would increase the value of the park, but would decrease the amount of that money going to property tax relief, which would have to be accounted for by either increasing some other revenue source (taxes, or increased sales at one of the City Enterprises). It was the popular belief of the Council that investing more money in the Park would be a great idea, but it has to be asked for and planned for by the Park Board. Currently all of the identified projects in the Rec. Park can be paid for by the current allocation, so that conversation will have to continue!

For 2016 the Council is going to assume a conservative gain in the Rec. Park's revenues to continue with the 8 year trend we have observed. This protects us in the case that we have a bad year, we won't lose too much from the general fund and if we have a good year we will end up with a surplus that we can reinvest in either capital improvement accounts or the Rec. Park.

Good performance at the Park for 2015 caused us to raise our estimate for income for 2016 from what we thought we would get, which lowered the levy amount somewhat.


#2. Capital Campaigns:

The City has identified major projects for each of the next 5 years that will cost the City some money and thus we need to plan for. Here is a brief summary of those projects:

2015-- Electric Service Truck (Paid for by the Electric Utility)
2016-- Public Works Facility (Garage- shared expense)
2019-- Electric Digger/Derrick (for digging in power poles)
2019-- Highway 61 Project (Shared expense)
2020-- 1st St. Reconstruction (Shared Expense)
????-- 5th Ave. Reconstruction (Shared Expense)
????-- City Hall and Liquor Store (Paid for by Liquor Store Reserve)

These projects are funded by a combination of cash payments from the City's reserve accounts and borrowed money. Since the City has a "AA" credit rating and healthy reserves, which are very good, borrowing money isn't that expensive for us, but it will get more expensive as general interest rates increase, so it would be financially a pretty good idea to plan for higher payments in the future, which, again, can be paid from reserves or from taxes or rate increases on public utilities etc.

We sock away a pretty good amount every year for our reserves, partly because it is City policy to keep a certain balance in each of those accounts and to a certain extent it is mandated that we have money in reserve so we can pay for any emergencies we run into. The Council wanted to maintain these amounts and try to grow them modestly to keep up with the interest rate increases that we are expecting in the coming year as well as to accommodate future projects.

**A reminder: Our Public Utilities are non-profit. They are on a break-even budget with their reserve contributions. Their budgets are calculated off of known costs (labor, benefits, materials, reserve contributions) and anticipated costs (planned projects, etc).

WHEW! You still following??? There was conversation about whether or not we should raise the levy at all since the Rec. Park and Liquor Store have been performing well, but taking a look at the historical levy information versus spending the Council seemed to lean toward a raise of some sort to offset rising costs that the City incurs (benefits, union negotiations, rising cost of materials, etc). If we don't do that then we risk eroding our reserves, thus shooting ourselves in the foot in the future when we want to get some projects done and need to borrow more money at a higher rate... So that is the general direction that the Council is moving for the tax levy: an increase of some kind, but likely between the 4.08% increase in general fund spending and the 6.87% estimated levy increase we were presented at the meeting.

One last piece to be discussed with the budget: Tennis Courts. There was a conversation about how much, if any, the City should put toward the rebuilding of the 2 tennis courts up by the school and YMCA. It was made clear that the courts are owned by the County and that the County has pledged money to their rebuilding and also has allotted $7,000/year for the maintenance of the courts. The Cook County Tennis Association heads up the efforts for rebuilding and has gathered over $100,000 for the job. After the previous conversation about the City's budget, the Council was ready to discuss how much we could put toward this project. Councilor Mills made a motion to allocate up to $20,000 for the project, as their needs for the project required. There was some lively conversation about what that meant with the statement being said that if we pass that motion we should expect to be paying $20,000 toward the project. Councilor Benson expressed her feelings that she was uneasy about allocating funds without creating some kind of structure for entities seeking funding from the City, suggesting that if all entities have to do is come and ask, then the allocation is pretty arbitrary. Administrator Roth suggested that if we had a process to do this we would probably have more requests for funding because then there would be a set process for it... Either way, the message that the Council needs to sit down and plan this out was pretty clear.

That motion, to allocate $20,000 to the reconstruction of the tennis courts, ultimately failed with a 2-2 vote. I was the swing vote on that one and embarrassingly took a long time to weigh in. When the motion failed, however, I proposed a counter motion to allocate up to the $17,000 that the CCTA identified was the money they would be short when all of their grants came in. This means that the City could not pay any more than that amount, but potentially could pay less... but we should be prepared to pay the whole amount. This amount was the direct balance between the bid on the project and the money the CCTA has already rounded up. This motion passed 3-1 with Councilor Benson voting Nay because she feels it is premature to be allocating monies without a process.

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In another important conversation, the Council looked at proposals for increasing the benefit amount for the Grand Marais Volunteer Fire Department employees. Currently the fire department employees receive $1250 per year they have served in the fire department as retirement benefit. They get this money at the point of their retirement in a payment from the firefighter retirement plan through PERA (Public Employees Retirement Account). A few months ago the Council requested to see what an increase of that benefit to $1500 per year of service would cost the City. We were pleased to see that at the current rate of growth and interest in the PERA account we would be able to increase the benefit for the firefighters to $1500 without seeing an increase in the expense to the City. Increasing the benefit amount DOES increase the risk that the City would have to pay into the account in some amount at some point in the future, but the Council saw that risk as acceptable for the services that we get from the employees of our fire department. This increase puts the Grand Marais Fire Department on par with the benefits that the Lutsen Fire Department gets.

*We chose to do this so that we could continue to attract young people to apply as employees of the Fire Department. We are currently well staffed in the department, but have a handful of firefighters nearing retirement so need to start planning for replacing them! The Fire Department meets on the first and third Wednesdays of the month for training. If you are interested in applying to become a part of the department, talk to Chief Ben Silence or stop by City Hall to complete an application!

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The final item on the agenda was a housekeeping item to remove a signatory from the City accounts. The Council moved to do so, and that was all done!

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On to Council Reports!

Councilor Moody was absent, so no report from him.

Councilor Benson had no meetings in the past weeks.

I reported on a very productive Library Board meeting where we discussed the writer's conference (done by the Art Colony) which was a HUGE success, continuing education for members of the Library Board to learn what it means to be a board member, new work to begin a tribal library up at Grand Portage (This is really exciting actually. There is a lot of funding available for this and it would be a great resource for the community!), updated usage numbers (we got a door counter for the library that has shown usage is WAY higher than we thought!), upcoming Film Nights at the library (starting November!), efforts to make the library more welcoming to gay, lesbian, and transgender people, as well as the success of the borrowed 3D printer. A few of the Council members also went to a joint meeting of the County, City, Hospital Board, School Board on Thursday the 12th where updates were given from the different entities and the School Board spoke about their upcoming challenges due to the referendum failure. The group scheduled another meeting on February 29th to discuss future options for daycare, early childhood education, special education, etc.

Councilor Mills reported on a YMCA meeting where they appointed Hillary Freeman as the next Chairperson of that group and that the YMCA is experiencing delays in getting their daycare licensed to the level that they are seeking.
The Park Board is working on revising the naming of some of the site descriptions as well as finalizing rate changes for the 2016 season. He spoke about how the rate structure is complicated because it is based on the length of stay, storage, site location, etc.
The Northwoods Food Project is preparing some information for a presentation to the Council of the Green Dollar Survey... so stay tuned for that!

Councilor Kennedy reported on continuing work by the Planning and Zoning Commission to revise the definitions for properties in the zoning ordinance, such as hotel/motel/B&B/boarding house/vacation rental. He also reported that the County Task Force on Vacation Rentals has met and will continue to meet to create a plan for the County. Safe Routes to School is going to focus on assisting with the City Comprehensive Plan, Workers on Wheels Program, and the Healthy Food Project. These are all exciting projects for the community.

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Well folks, that is about it. The meeting was almost exactly 2 hours long and we felt like we got through a lot of good information.

As always, give me a call or send me a message if you have any questions or concerns!

Thursday, November 12, 2015

Solar in Grand Marais!

Over the course of the past year Rose and I have been exploring the possibility of getting photovoltaic (electricity producing) solar panels on our house. We went to the University of Minnesota's solar suitability map (http://solar.maps.umn.edu/app/) and found our house, which happens to have an "optimal" rating because of it's southern exposure.

 Seeing that, we were pretty excited to start the process!  I contacted several solar installers in the state (there are a bunch! Check out this LIST) including our local installer Outback Solar who was already booked up for the year, so I decided to go with All Energy Solar out of the Twin Cities.  They produced several graphs and ideas for us to consider that showed how effective the different systems would be at offsetting our considerable consumption.

 We finally decided on a design that would take advantage of our entire southern facing roof as well as adding a pergola to our deck to both shade the living room from the summer sun/rain and expand our production.  Our plan for the future is to have the posts on the pergola carved in a Scandinavian style and then painted/stained to match the house/deck. We are also going to hang the porch swing that Rose has had in storage since we got married, so that will be a great place for us to hang out!

The planning process was the majority of the time spent on the project. All Energy did a great job of talking with the Grand Marais Public Utilities, who have not done a grid-tied installation in the City yet, getting the permitting/licensing taken care of, and coordinating the inspections/ meter changes that were necessary.

The meter that we are using is a bi-directional meter. That means that it can spin both directions. When we are using more than we are producing, it spins forward. When we are producing more than we are using, it spins backwards. When we are using exactly as much as we are producing, it doesn't move at all. The utility reads it exactly like a normal meter and charges me for the amount it has moved forward, thus, the amount of electricity I have used from the grid.

How big is the system?

We ended up with a system that is 5.94kw. This is pretty big actually! The Gunflint Hills system is 7.41kw!  Our panels are made in the USA and are warranteed for any defect for 25 years.

Each of the panels has its own dedicated micro-inverter. These  change the electricity from DC (the form the panels produce) to AC (the form we all use in our houses) immediately after the panels produce it. This is more efficient than using a single inverter because AC travels better than DC without losing current. It also isolates each of the panels better from damage. Just like an old string of Christmas lights, if you use one inverter you run the risk of having one panel burn out and thus bring down the entire system or if your inverter goes out, you are done producing electricity until it is replaced. With the micro-inverters if one burns out the rest of the system continues to function just fine until that inverter gets replaced.

The rest of the hardware that was installed was for safety and monitoring. There have to be a few different shut off breakers because even if the grid electricity goes out, my panels will continue to produce electricity which could zap any linemen who are out there working on the grid, but didn't know that we are still pumping electricity into it! So that is by far the most obtrusive piece of equipment apart from the panels themselves.

Down in our scary basement they installed the tie-in to our current electric system with a double pole breaker in our existing electrical box. That was WAAAAAY easier than I thought it would have been. I thought they would have to re-do our box to get it all to fit, but it was really straightforward. They also installed a monitoring device that pushes the information to a monitoring website so that we can follow how much we are consuming and producing.

The website for that is egauge.net. Our system is number 23307. It will show a graph of usage and production. *This has not yet been calibrated, so our consumption is shown as a lot more than it is...
This gets me to the next step in this whole process: Energy reduction. We switched over to LED bulbs earlier this year with the help of the City's rebate program, but have it in our 5 year plan to replace all of our energy intensive appliances with more efficient ones. This will increase not only the payback on our solar panels, but also the payback on those appliances. We aren't trying to get to a point where the PUC has to pay us for our electricity though. That isn't how we designed the system. We want to be as break-even as possible because that too is the best payback schedule.


So, the question you all have been wondering since I started talking:

How much did it cost?

The market cost for the system was somewhere in the neighborhood of $25,000 finished. This included everything. There is currently a 30% tax credit from the federal government that would help us a little, but that we aren't going to be seeing very much of because we don't make enough money to have it effect us much. *I say this because it is important information to consider.

We did, however, participate in a program through AEOA, the Business Energy Retrofit Program. This program helped us to cover the costs of the system and make it more affordable. Our loan payment for the solar is less than our normal monthly electrical bill, so I feel like we are doing ok on that! 

Also, All Energy helped us to get a loan with the understanding that solar loans are very easy to pay back because you are basically paying the same amount as you were before, but most of that money isn't going toward your bill, but toward the cost of the system...

There are a few other reasons we did this: 
1. Added Value-- We added a lot of value to our home with this. But, because the State of MN has an exemption for renewable energy infrastructure, it won't increase our taxes. 

2. Environment-- We feel really happy about contributing to the electricity we use. Our goal is to be net zero when it comes to energy use. This will be really hard because our house is not the most efficient to start with, but we will get as close as we can!

3. Example-- We wanted to show that it can be done... and SHOULD be!  The process was very easy actually and the product very robust and low maintenance. The Cook County Local Energy Project has been promoting solar in our community for some time and has a great handbook for the process specific to Cook County! If you are interested that is a great place to start. If you want to ask me questions about it, I would love to answer them to the best of my ability.

Monday, November 9, 2015

Proclamation: Cook County Volleyball Week!

I have been incredibly impressed with the hard work and dedication of the volleyball team, their coaches (way to go Pam Taylor!!), and the community as well!

This community has pulled together around this exceptional group of young ladies in a way that is inspiring. For that alone I would have made this proclamation. It is icing on the cake that they have a record setting undefeated season!  Let's all support them during their run at State in whatever way we can! Go Viking Volleyball!

PROCLAMATION:

WHEREAS, Cook County High School is a learning and teaching community committed
to excellence, whose mission is to ensure the success of diverse learners through relevant and challenging explorations resulting in learning experiences, empowering students to find success as they further their educational, technical and/or employment experiences; and

WHEREAS, Their girl’s volleyball team exceeded all other teams in our region by winning
Class A, Section 7A, with a historic perfect 25-0 record; and

WHEREAS, Each player was an important and integral part of the team; and

WHEREAS, The players and coaches united our community in pride for our community and students through their dedication and skillful play; and

WHEREAS, Today, we recognize the Cook County High School Volleyball team for their victories during the 2015 season and cheer them on in their State High School League performances.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, JAY ARROWSMITH DeCOUX, Mayor of the City of Grand Marais, do
hereby proclaim the week of November 9-15th as COOK COUNTY VOLLEYBALL WEEK in the City of Grand Marais


_________________________
Jay Arrowsmith DeCoux

Mayor

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Do YOU Want to Light the City Christmas Tree?

Hello Everyone,

I am writing with something exciting for you all.

I am going to be gone for Thanksgiving!

Well, that may not be the most exciting thing, but my annual Thanksgiving trip to hang out with my family leaves one very important Mayoral Duty unfilled:

THE LIGHTING OF THE CITY CHRISTMAS TREE!

For those of you that don't know, the City Christmas Tree is set-up and prepared in the week before Thanksgiving along with the decking out of the downtown for the holidays. This giant evergreen is then lit as the culmination of the parade that happens on the Friday immediately after Thanksgiving! The tree will say lit throughout the holiday season to give us all some holiday cheer and a little light in the dark season.

BUT WHO'S GOING TO DO IT?

To solve this dilemma I thought up a plan. Here it is:

CALLING ALL KIDS! WRITE ME A SHORT ESSAY (100-300 words) ABOUT WHY YOU LOOK FOWARD TO THE HOLIDAYS!  IF I SELECT YOUR ESSAY, YOU WILL BE THE PERSON IN CHARGE OF LIGHTING THE CHRISTMAS TREE!

A few hints:

1. Make sure that you are going to be in town on Friday November 27th... The lighting ceremony will be right after the parade.

2. I like stories! Tell me a short story that explains why you look forward to the holidays. You can do it!

3. Be clever! I like to see how smart our young folks are!



So here are the official rules:
-You have to be in school (elementary, junior high, senior high, it doesn't matter!)
-You have to get your essay in to City Hall or emailed to me by Friday, November 20th
-You have to be able to show up and light the tree on November 27th!
-You will get a copy of the City Proclamation declaring YOU the official tree lighter of 2015!

So go on and write your essay and get them in to me!

Monday, November 2, 2015

City Council Meeting 10/28/15

It happened again! Another City Council meeting happened on the 28th at 6:30pm at the City Hall Chambers. There wasn't much on the agenda, but what was there was substantive and required some discussion and clarification to make sure we were all understanding our decisions and instructions.

Without further ado...


We called the meeting to order right at 6:30 with Councilor Kennedy absent and opened up the forum for public comment.  There were a few people in attendance at the meeting,  and a few people had something to day:
One resident commented that there is a single lone sign in front of the brewery that says "No Parking Between Signs," but not another sign to indicate where "between" is. The Council said that we would look into it.
The other was a question from a resident about why we were not closing the meeting at the end of the agenda (the "attached correspondences" fell after the closed session). It was clarified that the attached correspondence was not an item that was discussed often, it is mainly the minutes of department meetings from the previous month.  Sometimes there are attached correspondences, sometimes there are not, so the closed meeting did actually come at the end of Council business, so that people don't have to leave for the closed session and wait for it to reopen.

We put the closed session at the end of the Council business for this very reason...

There were no other comments so we moved on to the consent agenda.  The consent agenda had the usual 3 items, the current agenda approval, the approval of last meeting's minutes, and the payment of bills, but it had an additional item this meeting: an application from Visit Cook County for permission to use the downtown streets for the Christmas Parade on the Friday right after Thanksgiving. This will be the exciting kick-off to the Christmas season as well as the lighting of the Grand Marais Christmas Tree!

Seeing nothing of concern, the Council passed the consent agenda and we moved on.


We were next addressed by a large group from the Cook County Tennis Association who wanted to update the City on the progress they have made gathering funds for the re-surfacing of the 2 asphalt tennis courts closest to County Road 7 up by the Community Center.

The CCTA has been very successful in gathering over $100,000 for the project from a number of agencies and also got a bid for the reconstruction that was less expensive than they anticipated.  This was very good news for them and gave the City an idea of the need that was present.

You may remember that the CCTA came before the Council earlier in the year requesting funding, but the City chose to wait and see what other funding they would be able to pull together because at that time they had many grants in process (most of which they got!) and because the City doesn't technically own the courts (they are on County land), thus the Council wanted to see the County's thoughts on the matter as well.

The Council agreed with the CCTA speaking about how widely the courts are used and how important it is to have a good quality surface to play on. Wide support was shown from the Council of the project expressing that the City would like to be a part of the project and will contribute to the construction costs. The exact amount of the contribution will be decided at the Council's next meeting in November where the Council will work again on finalizing the budget for 2016.


Satisfied with this progress, the CCTA thanked us and took their leave, moving us on to the next item: a draft enforcement plan for lodging activities happening in the residential zone.

I completely understand that this is a very sensitive topic and I will do my best to explain it thoroughly so that the Council's intention is clear. We spent (and have spent) quite a lot of time talking on this item and the current Council decision is to not change the description of the residential zone to include short term lodging. In reaction, the City must then do something about properties that are offering these services. Administrator Roth took the Council's direction and prepared a letter that will be sent out to any properties seen to be in violation of the ordinance. This letter re-iterates what the ordinance says and directs the property owner to bring their property into compliance with the ordinance within 60 days. At the end of that period the City will check to make sure that the property is in compliance. If the property owner is not in compliance, then the issue will be referred to the County Attorney for solution.  There were some suggestions from the Council of other ways to deal with this that didn't seem so harsh, but Administrator Roth told us that if we wanted to do this legally and fairly, this is about the only way to do it, even if it isn't ideal.

For the record, this does not mean that there will be no vacation rentals in Grand Marais. There are still several zones in which that activity is allowed. If anything, the definition update that the Planning and Zoning Commission has been instructed to perform will make the permitting of vacation rentals in those other zones more streamlined as there is currently no definition of "vacation rental" as a use. Thus it has to be listed as something else, such as a "small resort," which the last vacation rental the City permitted was actually approved for. The existing method is clunky at best and does not reflect the use that a vacation rental describes... I would venture to say that a "small resort" can be a great deal different than a "vacation rental." We are striving to clarify this in order to be able to better accommodate it.

*If there are any new/other properties that are found to be in violation of this ordinance, they will also receive this same letter and will be given the same 60 day period to come back into compliance.

There will be another opportunity to discuss this topic and to reopen this issue next year when we begin our comprehensive planning efforts. My hope is that we hear from a large percentage of the community so that we can get clear direction as to how to move forward with this at that point. For now we are sticking with the ordinance and the purpose of the zones as designed.


Following that conversation we realized that we have a scheduling problem for our November meetings. If we followed our traditional schedule we would have a meeting on Veteran's Day and the day before Thanksgiving... Both days that are not good for a Council meeting: Veteran's Day is a Federal Holiday and we legally cannot hold our meeting that day. The day before Thanksgiving is a huge travel day and prep day, so also not a great choice.

Due to these factors, the Council looked at other dates for the meetings. We came up with the following dates and times:

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13TH @ 4:30PM AT CITY HALL

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 24TH 2 4:30PM AT CITY HALL

A few things about these meetings:
1. These will technically be SPECIAL MEETINGS. That means that the City needs to publish and advertise the agenda for the meeting 48 hours before the meeting and thus the agenda cannot be changed or added to once it has been advertised.

2. These meetings will be to cover the 2016 budget on the meeting on the 13th and to conduct basic bill paying business on the 24th. There will likely not be much more than that on the agenda.

3. I will be gone for the meeting on the 24th, so Councilor Kennedy, the Deputy Mayor, will be presiding over the meeting.


On to Staff and Council reports!

Councilor Moody updated the Council that he attended the Arrowhead Animal Rescue meeting since the last meeting and learned a lot about how that group operates. He also had a few EDA meetings including a special meeting to approve the purchase of a lot in the Cedar Grove Business Park. This is the second lot in 2 months to sell, which is a great development for the EDA! They also went before the County Board to discuss their 2016 funding and also have just started advertising for an EDA Director to assist them in their programs.

Councilor Mills said that he had been receiving many comments about the City's imminent purchase of 1800 W. Hwy 61 as well as the vacation rental conversation and thanked the public for sharing their thoughts. He attended a YMCA Board meeting and reported on their efforts to get the daycare restructured to better meet the needs of the community.  The Broadband Commission also reported that there are nearly 1700 hookups in the County now and the final connections in Hovland and Grand Portage are being scheduled. Mastec is out of the County and connections remain. They are working on two projects: possible Fire Hall connections up the Gunflint and throughout the County to create possible videoconferencing locations, and the Co-Working facility where people without office space would be able to share connections and space to accomplish work.

I attended a number of meetings including a North House Folk School Executive meeting where they discussed options for growing the North House campus. I have also been hearing from many residents about the 1800 W Hwy 61 purchase and the vacation rental policy and thank you for that discussion. I also attended a meeting of the downtown retailers where we discussed the City's protocol/policy for approving vendors for special events and independently. The downtown retailers would like more input into how that happens so they can better protect the space in front of their businesses. I will be reporting more on that when the retailers bring a plan of action to me for consideration. The conversations that happened already were very sensible; I believe that a solution can be reached that will be clear and effective.


So that is about it.
Please let me know if you have any questions and I would be glad to get together and chat with you.