Tuesday, January 19, 2016

City Council Meeting 1-13-16

On the 13th we had our first real meeting of the year and went through a lot of the year-beginning logistics items as well as starting the year on the right foot, setting some time aside for continued work on the development of the Public Utilities Facility.

Without further ado, here we go!

We called the meeting to order at 6:30, right on the dot with all of the councilors ready to go!


I opened up the public forum for comment and Bev Green with Arrowhead Animal Rescue spoke on behalf of the group to share three goals they have for the year and hope that they can be included in the conversation about the Public Utilities Facility in order to find a new home for the City "pound" other than down on the harbor. We acknowledged their goals and encouraged the rescue group to put together the specifics that they would like to see in a new "pound" facility so that we can have accurate information from the group that will use it, so that it will be as useful as possible. She also mentioned that the City and the Arrowhead Animal Rescue haven't had a contract for service for a few years and asked that we take a look at that. The Council acknowledged this and will act on that at a later meeting.

No one else had any comments to make, so we closed the public forum and moved on to the Consent Agenda.


The Consent Agenda included the usual three items (Approve Agenda, Approve Previous Meeting Minutes, Approve Payments of Bills) and since we had a chance to look through the information in our packet, the Consent Agenda was approved unanimously.


Moving right along, Ann Mershon from the "Art 'Round Town" group spoke to the Council seeking partnership in their efforts to sponsor artists to design new banners to hang in the downtown area throughout the year. The "Art 'Round Town" group would facilitate the process of advertising, collecting, selecting, and producing the banners. The City would hang, switch out, and store the banners in exchange. The Council thought it sounded like a great idea and promoted one of our priorities, which is to promote local art and artists, so it was approved unanimously! Stay tuned for more updates and for advertisements for submissions for this project!


The next item on the agenda required a little more conversation. Jim Boyd with the Chamber of Commerce addressed the Council in regards to a letter that he sent summarizing the issues with the Municipal Parking Lot adjacent to the City Hall, Coop, and Stone Harbor. The letter explained the issues that we have all heard about and explained that the latest incident, with the wet, sloppy snowstorm at the beginning of winter and the frozen pond that accumulated in the parking lot was something that can not be tolerated. The Council agreed with Boyd on this matter and went into a conversation about the paving of that parking lot several years ago. It turns out that the parking lot was designed to collect water from rain events and thus slow the infiltration of the stormwater into the lake. This was engineered by our engineers and was approved by the agencies overseeing stormwater and Lake Superior water quality, so it was built. At that time the Council thought that this would be a sufficient solution to the muddy slough that was there previously, but the Chamber's letter formalizes a change in feeling; one that the Council has been working on deciphering a solution to.
Here is a summary of the steps that the Council has/will take(n) to address the situation:
-Councilor Benson will bring up the issue to the North Shore Management Board, who has some funding available for planning that will improve conditions along the Shore, that this project would qualify for.
-I will follow up with the Soil and Water Department to see if they have suggestions for engineers, funding possibilities, and/or guidance from their Stormwater Plan.
-The City will contact IRRRB to inquire about the availability of infrastructure funding that could be had for such a project. This would speed up the implementation of the solution.
*In short, the City will actively pursue organizing our resources and lining up an engineer so that we can pursue a solution immediately this spring. Implementation of ANY solution, which, it was admitted, may be difficult, will depend on project funding and the Council's perspective on whether or not what was suggested will actually solve the problem.
Mr. Boyd thanked the Council for addressing the situation and will stay abreast of the situation.


Now it was time to get into the year-beginning logistics part of the meeting. There is a list of items that we set, so I will list them below with any conversation that happened concerning them:

-Appointments to Committees and Boards-- The City has 5 appointed Resident Committees (EDA, Library Board, Planning and Zoning, Park Board, and Public Utilities) all with term limits. The City has to keep these policy boards full with representation from the area serviced. This year there were 5 openings on City Committees, but 4 current members chose to continue serving for another term as per the term limits. That left us with one opening on the Park Board, vacated by Walt Mianowski this year (Thank you Walt!). The Council received 2 letters from interested individuals, both of whom were amazingly well qualified for the position. There was some conversation about interviewing the candidates, but in lieu of having a set policy that states that is how we handle applicants, it was felt that we can't implement anything like that this year, but will discuss it for next year.
Long to short the motion was made and passed to appoint Jennifer Stoltz to the opening for the Park Board. Jennifer has worked in developing campgrounds and uses the park daily so if very aware of the goings on there. We look forward to her service!

-Selection of the Acting Mayor-- This is the person who runs Council meetings in the event that I cannot be present at a meeting. Last year this was Councilor Kennedy, but Councilor Mills filled in for one meeting when both Councilor Kennedy and I were not able to be at a meeting. I believe that was the shortest meeting of the year, so Councilor Mills has some great efficiency skills! Apart from some back and forth dodging from both of those councilors, Councilor Mills nominated Councilor Kennedy to again serve as Acting Mayor and that motion passed unanimously.

-Designation of Official Newspaper-- This item identifies the publication where the City will publish its updates and information. The City was very glad to renew the contract with the Cook County News Herald to serve as our official newspaper.

-Designation of Depositories of City Funds-- This is a formal declaration of where the City holds City funds. The City holds funds in local banks and has a few investments that other institutions. The Council passed a motion to designate the existing depositories and it passed unanimously.

-Northeast Service Cooperative Contract-- The City gets its insurances from a pool of other services and organizations that are members of the Northeast Service Cooperative (NESC). We have used this cooperative for a long time and we need to renew our Joint Powers Agreement with the Cooperative so that we can participate in their negotiations for lower rates. Considering that this Council has never seen this agreement before, there were questions about whether there were other options, to which our lawyer responded that the only other organization we could consider would be the NorthWEST Service Cooperative... so we decided to look into the contract with NESC. This contract had been reviewed by our lawyer and was found to be in the Cities interest, so we passed a motion approving the NESC Joint Powers Agreement meaning that the City can be a part of their negotiations for lower rates on our insurances.


*In "Other Business" Administrator Roth brought up the possibility of the City of Grand Marais participating in a Class Action Lawsuit pertaining to price fixing for a chemical that the City uses to treat our drinking water. It turns out that several companies that sell this particular chemical worked together to jack up the prices customers paid for several years. The Council instructed Administrator Roth to work with our lawyer to determine if we are eligible and then to follow through with the settlement to see if we can get some money back from this lawsuit. So, we are going to see what happens. We could get some money back from this that would help the Public Utilities fund some other improvements.


Also, Councilor Kennedy requested that we put together a worksession so that we can work on the timeline and specifics of the Public Works Facility. The Council is going to check their calendars and set a time in the next few weeks to come up to speed on where we stand and how we want to move forward so we can keep this project moving forward. More to come on that!


There was no further business after that and the meeting was adjourned at about 8:30pm.

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

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