City Council Meeting December 9th

Here we are, back from the Thanksgiving holiday with a little time to get through the final business of the year. This week's meeting had some very good information in it and a few conversations that we will hear coming back in the future I am certain...

Starting out with Roll Call, everyone was there except for Councilor Benson, who was out of town.


The Public Forum was opened up right at 6:30pm and we were visited by our Sheriff, Pat Eliason, who spoke on behalf of a resident of Grand Marais who has contacted him several times in correlation with vehicle noise complaints near his residence on Broadway. I have also been in contact with this resident and have been working with the Sheriff to find a solution to the complaint. Additional enforcement has been installed during the lunch hour and after school hours to prevent students with overly loud exhaust systems on their vehicles from creating a disturbance. The assistance of the school principal has also been enlisted.
*There was some conversation about how difficult it is to enforce the city's noise ordinance, which is something that will be looked at in the comprehensive planning efforts to be designed for the coming year.

That was the only conversation in the public forum, so we closed it and moved on to the consent agenda!


Considering that there very limited minutes to the previous meeting and that the only addition to the consent agenda was the application for the Lion's Club raffle, the consent agenda passed unanimously.


The Council then ratified and passed the newly negotiated union contract with our employees' union, AFSCME. The Council's Personnel Committee, myself and Councilor Benson, participated in the negotiating process earlier this month where we reached a mutually beneficial arrangement for a two year contract. The City's employees will receive a 3% and 2% increase for the next two years respectively. The only other change to the agreement is the inclusion of a limited amount of vacation time for vetted seasonal workers. The Council hoped that this would increase the number of return seasonal workers we get every year, thus increasing the efficiency of our summer operations.  The only discussion regarding the contract was the use of "Columbus Day" in the contract language because the City has now accepted "Indigenous People's Day" on the same date. It was decided that since the Federal holiday is still Columbus Day, this is still appropriate, but at the next Union negotiation it will be suggested to add "Indigenous People's Day" in addition to the other terminology.
This contract was approved unanimously.


At that point we had to skip forward because our "Truth in Taxation" meeting was not scheduled to start until 7:00pm and we were, strangely, ahead of schedule! We moved on to Council and Staff reports:

Councilor Moody had no news of note to report

I had a list of meetings that I had attended that I wanted to bring up to the Council:
1. Union Negotiations-- We already covered that!
2. The opening of the new Industrial Technology classroom at the school- I attended the opening and saw the facilities now available. It shows great promise for future development of vocational study in our school and community!
3. Conversations about Noise-- spoken about at the beginning of the meeting
4. I have been attending School Board meetings to stay up to date on developments on that front
5. North House Folk School has been meeting to discuss plans for their 20th anniversary, in 2 years. They are discussing further community outreach and continued development of their campus.
6. I have been participating in the League of MN Cities Policy Committee on Improving Local Economies, which made its policy recommendations last month. This committee works on policies concerning growth management, land use, housing, transportation, economic development, and telecommunications.
7. I have also been meeting with the downtown retailers group to see if there are any changes that we can make in the permitting process for outside vendors to a.) streamline the process and b.) give some support for our local businesses.
8. There has been growing conversation in the community concerning getting an Electric Vehicle (EV) charging station someplace in the community. The conversation here is ongoing, but will be returning to the Council as plans develop.
9. The Council of Greater MN Cities is working on a draft resolution for local Councils to pass that would summarize the importance of Local Government Aid (LGA) to small rural municipalities. Grand Marais currently receives LGA monies to compensate for the high expense of operating here in our area, which is in jeopardy due to current legislation at the state level to eliminate all LGA spending. No action was taken. There are many considerations here and we have to look at them all before a decision is made.
10. There is an upcoming training program for municipal leaders that I am interested in participating in, that consideration will be held off until the new year.

That was it! Whew! Busy times! There is certainly a lot of stuff going on!

Councilor Mills reported that the Park Board met again and that Board Chair Walt Mianowski reported that he was going to resign from his position on the Park Board this year. Walt has served our community for decades and will be greatly missed! If you see Walt, give him a pat on the back and your thanks for his years of hard work!

Councilor Kennedy had no report as well.


We moved on to the Truth in Taxation meeting after that. There were no community members there to speak so we went over more revised numbers adding up to a 5.79% levy increase for 2016. This lower figure came from an employee choosing a different medical insurance plan as well as increasing the forecast for revenue from the Rec. Park. At the same time as increasing the forecast for the Rec. Park we increased the amount for capital expenditures at the Rec. Park so there was more funding available for improvements at the park due to the comments received by those using the Rec. Park.

After we completed that conversation we decided we should set another meeting to accept the final levy considering that we couldn't do it at our last meeting of the year on December 30th at 6:30 (It is too close to the end of the year to get all of our budget information finalized). We set a meeting for noon on December 18th for the approval of the budget and thus the finalized levy. This meeting will be a special meeting and will likely not include any conversation at length concerning the budget or levy. The Council feels that we have discussed all of our concerns and will be ready to review and accept the budget at that time.


That was it!  It seemed like a short meeting, but we covered some very important ground!
As always, if you have any concerns or questions, please let me know!