Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Last Council Meeting of the Year... Happy New Year!

Today in another special meeting the City Council met to finish up some year end business. We decided to make this meeting a special meeting because there was no business on the agenda that required significant discussion and because it was far more convenient for Councilors and staff.

Because this was a special meeting, the agenda was advertised before the meeting and couldn't be changed once advertised.  There were only a few things on the agenda, so without further ado:


The meeting was called to order at 12:00pm with myself, Councilor Moody, and Councilor Kennedy in attendance.

We moved on to the public forum, where no one spoke, so we moved on to the consent agenda. The consent agenda was the usual three items: Approving the agenda (which was kind of a non-issue because the agenda was set), approval of the previous meeting's minutes, and the payment of bills (which was the main reason for calling this meeting! We like to get our bills paid on time!).
The Consent Agenda passed unanimously.

We then moved on to the approval of Tobacco Licenses for the City. Did you know that we only have 5 locations in the City where you can buy tobacco products? For some reason I thought it would be greater, but there you have it. The State requires that we license our tobacco sellers, so the motion was made to approve these licenses and it passed unanimously.

After that we had to accept (or set) our 2016 mileage reimbursement. The IRS lowered the reimbursement for mileage for 2016 from 57.5 cents/mile to 54 cents/mile and we had the opportunity to accept this change or set a different amount for mileage reimbursement. Considering that if we set our rate any different than the IRS it would result in additional accounting work for our administration and it would result in additional income that would need to be accounted for for our employees, we accepted the IRS's suggestion, thus making reimbursement 54 cents/mile.

The final item on the agenda was the adjustments to the ending balances of our capital accounts for the City.  These are accounts where we budget money each year so we can save up money for large expenditures such as equipment or facilities improvements. Examples of these are street improvements, City Hall maintenance, fire protection, and insurance. This was no problem for us to approve because the adjustments that were being suggested were all positive adjustments.

There was one more adjustment that needed to be done though, that one was for the Gunflint Hills Golf Course.  The Golf Course is owned and operated by the City of Grand Marais and is a useful amenity for those who live in our area. It is an attraction for the Rec. Park and is used by leagues, the Cross Country team, and several visitors. It is a City enterprise and thus is an opportunity for the City to make money. However, due to weather and conditions, the Golf Course did not make any money this year. Thus we needed to transfer $8,000 to the Golf Course account to make sure that it has a positive balance for the year end. This is one thing that we would like to take a look at and see if there is anyway that we can make the course more profitable for the City. More to come on that!

Well, that sums it up!  We will be kicking off 2016 on January 13th at 6:30pm and will begin talking about what we want to accomplish in the year and how we are going to do that. If any of you have suggestions for what we should be considering as a 2016 project, please let me know and I will take note of it for our discussion!

As always if you have any questions, please let me know!

Happy New Year!

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

Happy Holidays to you All!

As Christmas comes closer and the celebrations continue (I think that there have been dozens of holiday parties and potlucks!) I wanted to reflect on the many, many amazing things we have access to in our little village on the Lake.

We have so many people in our community with enormous hearts and very generous souls. They give their time, their resources, their energy to make this place better. Take a few minutes to think of the events you have gone to in the past year that you have really enjoyed and say thank you in whatever way you can. I want to thank the Lions Club, the Grand Marais Playhouse, WTIP, the Violence Prevention Center, and so many more that I couldn't fit them all on this post!

I also wanted to take a moment to think of those in our community that have passed on or that have been facing challenges in the past year. Part of being a community is helping one another out in their times of need. I ask you to think of someone who is struggling this time of year and extend a kindness to them. It will pay itself back in benefits for our community, no doubt.

Now that I have gone on too long already I will finish by thanking everyone for their support in 2015 and extend the invitation to be a part of our City in 2016, whether that means holding down your particular corner of town or getting involved on a City board or just keeping an eye out for one another.

Thank you again! Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Jolly Solstice, and a Happy New Year!

Saturday, December 19, 2015

Special Meeting December 18th-- Levy Setting

We took care of some of our last logistics of the year at the special meeting yesterday afternoon at 4:00pm at City Hall.  It was a short meeting and since it was a special meeting we couldn't discuss anything other than what was on the advertised agenda.

We had Councilors Kennedy, Benson, and Moody present in addition to myself.

Our advertised agenda just had a few things on it:

Consent Agenda with the usual three items (approve the meeting agenda, approve previous meeting agenda, and payment of bills). We do this every meeting so that we can stay up to date. This was approved after perusal of the bills and prior meeting's information.

The final approval of the Levy for 2016 was the next thing. There was a resolution presented that summarized the result of the budgetary work that the Council and staff performed this year. It reflected a total 2016 levy of $871,865.01, up from the 2015 levy amount of $828,384.03 by 5.79%. This change was due to increased expenses the City is subject to through our obligations to our employees and overall operations expenses. The levy numbers passed unanimously.

The final piece of information on our agenda was the setting of wage increases for our non-union employees in the City. Currently all of the department managers are non-union employees and thus the Union agreements that we make as the City do not impact them. Considering our dependence on these employees and attempting to continue a sense of equity between all employees, the Council made a motion to increase the non-union employees' wages at the same level as Union members for the 2016 year. This motion passed unanimously.

At that point we had no further items on the special meeting agenda, so we summarized our next meeting, which will be December 30th at NOON simply to authorize the paying of bills. We can't do much at that meeting because it falls so close to the end of the calendar year, which is why we had to call this special meeting on the 18th to get some of the work done in time.

We then adjourned the meeting and went on to our Friday evening events!

Thank you for a good year and as always let me know if you have any questions/concerns!

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

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!