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.