City Council Meeting 2/24/16

The Council got together once again for its regular meeting this Wednesday, February 24th at 6:30pm. The agenda was full of updates on community endeavours and it was an exciting meeting to participate in. There were even a few community members who attended and said that they enjoyed it!

I called the meeting to order at 6:30 and noted that everyone was present but Councilor Kennedy.

The Public Forum was opened and two residents spoke. One resident spoke to the possibility of members of the City developing a buying group that could potentially meet the needs of some of the lower income residents of the community and even could provide a little extra money for whomever would be the person selected to make the "run" to Duluth to collect the goods ordered.

Another resident asked Councilor Benson if she could please pass on her research on the impacts of Dollar General stores on small towns because it would be interesting to look at. This resident also mentioned relief that the Council passed the moratorium on commercial development in the C/I Zone and commented that Grand Marais is quaint and needs to stay that way. There aren't any comparisons to Grand Marais and we need to create our own ways to meet our needs.

No one else spoke, so the Public Forum was closed and we moved on to the Consent Agenda, which was populated by the three usual items. The Consent Agenda passed unanimously.

Councilor Mills was the next person to speak on behalf of the Broadband Commission who were looking for approval from the Council to start doing some of the work required to turn the old Visitor's Bureau space into a new Co-Location Working Space as per their plan and grant funding to do so. What is Co-Location? It is something like this. So, the Council asked a lot of questions about what the model for the facility would look like and a lot of that information is still in the development stages, so there were just guidelines that were mentioned. For example: the facility would have cheap rent for people looking for work space away from their home to perform their business or do their writing, designing, anything that needs a strong internet connection and that would benefit from not having to buy their own printers, conference call equipment, etc. The Council made a motion to approve work starting on the expectation that before any occupancy begins there will be a lease created between the City and the Broadband Commission (or the County, who is the fiscal agent) to cover liabilities and other risks. This motion passed unanimously.

Next was Emily Marshall from the Cook County YMCA who came to give us her update on the past year. She wowed us with the incredible numbers that the YMCA has been pulling in. Over 1,600 members, about 90,000 individual visits last year, almost 7,000 out of town visitors, 35 employees, a new daycare with a waiting list of 29 people, and much more.
She gave us a breakdown of the expenses and incomes for the YMCA and showed that the organization is operating very well within its means and didn't draw the entire allotment of funds from the City and County because of its increased membership income. Good news.
She was also very realistic about the shortcomings of the Y and mentioned that they have done a locker room survey and area trying to figure out next steps to make the locker rooms work better for the members. They also created a strategic plan for 2016 that includes increasing member retention, developing a comprehensive building services, maintenance, and long range care plan, and striving to meet the needs of our early childhood community. Overall it was exciting to see the positive things the Y is accomplishing in our community and we look forward to another great year!

Following that update, it was Councilor Mills' turn to report the Northwoods Food Project results of their "Green Dollar Survey" where they attempted to get to the bottom of how much our local production of food impacts our economy. The numbers they came up with were nothing short of incredible. The study reported that the annual economy for Cook County (all economic activity) is somewhere around $207 million. Of that activity, roughly $78 million of it is related to food. This includes food sales, wages for food prep, food handling, wait staff, etc. That is over a third of ALL economic activity. Crazy. I did not know that and am trying to figure out the implications of that...
Here is the last piece of information that I thought was really interesting (the whole presentation was interesting; you can get more information about it from WTIP's coverage of the survey):
How much does food production take up of that $78 million?
$1.3 million. That's it. There are a lot of barriers to production up here from zoning limitations to arable land to equipment, to market availability. Restaurants and grocery stores also need to know what is available and need reliable sources, and sometimes local producers can't promise that. There is a pit of a disconnect there, but the survey did a great job of collecting information to identify the barriers so that the Northwoods Food Project can start working on breaking down those barriers. If you want more information on the survey you can contact Diane Booth at the Community Center.

Finally the Art Round Town group came before the Council again to request the City serve as the Fiscal Agent for their grant application to make new banners for the downtown light poles out of submissions from local artists. The Council asked a few questions about the process, which sounded very straightforward and simple, so the Council agreed to serve as their Fiscal Agent. Stay tuned for more about the application process to get your art included in the new banners!

On to Council updates:

It wasn't a very busy few weeks it seemed as Councilors Moody and Benson didn't have anything to report.

I reported on several meetings that I attended and other activities:
-I joined the League of MN Cities' Coalition for Active Transportation on the invitation of the group's leaders. It seems that Grand Marais' activities in creating Safe Routes to School and the Hwy 61 Redesign has gotten us some attention...
-I attended a Bureau of Criminal Apprehension meeting in St. Paul that was for a policy group that I joined regarding Criminal and Juvenile Justice Information Policy. In other words, it is the group that works on developing the policies that oversee the Criminal Information System for the State. They are working on creating a thorough and functional electronic information system so that officers in the field can access all of the information they need to make educated decisions regarding enforcement or so they can see if there are outstanding warrants, orders for protection, etc for any particular person when they are stopped. It was VERY interesting and I believe some of the work that is happening there will dramatically affect Cook County in our rural location.
-I have still been having a lot of conversation with people regarding the commercial development moratorium.
-Administrator Roth and I traveled to Eveleth on Monday to attend the IRRRB Board meeting where they were going to decide if our Public Works Facility project would receive $100,000 in assistance from the IRRRB. It was a very interesting meeting and we did manage to secure that funding.
-The Library Board met Monday night and starting making plans for its Strategic Planning retreat. There were updates concerning the Friday Night Reels Film Nights, which have been very successful, as well as good news concerning programming and new book acquisition. The Board also decided that it is time to start the process of issuing Requests for Proposals for the "Poetry Walk" sidewalk that will be built to connect the front of the library with the Hwy 61 sidewalk. This should be done relatively soon.
-I have been in continuing conversations about the Art Commission being formed and will likely bring a recommendation to the Council soon.
-I also was invited to participate in some planning meetings concerning the Arts Economy in our area.

Councilor Mills reported that he has had some conversations with local contractors who are frustrated that there are all of these big projects happening around the community, but that they can't bid on them because of certain requirements built into the bidding process. It was clarified that anyone can bid on a project, but only contractors that can meet the financial obligations of bonding for such big projects are really the only ones that are qualified to do the work... I am not completely clear on this right now, but I think I understand it...
Anyway, Councilor Mills went on to report on a YMCA meeting where they reported that 85% of the lockers in the women's locker room are rented out on a monthly basis compared to 50% of the men's lockers and 40% of the family lockers. The Broadband Commission meeting also reported that they were working on 911 redundancy and TrueNorth is looking for cable options for its customers.

Higher Education is looking for Board Members as well. If you are interested, contact them here.

After that I asked for any further business, of which there was none, so we adjourned for the night.

If you have any comments or questions about this meeting, please let me know!