City Council Meeting 9-27-16

Due to scheduling (Administrator Roth and I will be gone tomorrow at a planning conference in St. Cloud where we will hope to bring back some useful information to help in our Community Planning Process) the City Council rescheduled its regular Wednesday evening meeting to Tuesday morning.

*When the meetings are rescheduled it is posted at City Hall and online. If you would like to know more about when meetings are rescheduled, let me know and I will try to get the info out!

The meeting was called to order at 9am with all of the Councilors present.

We opened up the Public Forum as an opportunity for community members to address the Council and one community member spoke.
Todd Sylvester, a local resident, cited a section in the Planning Ordinance that states that any business is allowed one temporary sign and pointed out that my B&B business has a sign on the corner and one in my yard, using this information as an accusation that the Council is not following its own ordinances. This was followed up with the re-iteration of a claim made at a previous meeting stating that Councilor Kennedy informed the applicant of a re-zoning request that they should break ordinance. An accusation was then leveled back at me that I did not report that information in my blog. Immediately following these comments, Mr. Sylvester excused himself and thus was not present for any follow-up conversations in regard to his comments.

To follow up briefly:
This is what we know about the Planning and Zoning meeting in question:
1. The meeting was not recorded as there is no legal requirement for them to be recorded. The Council made the recommendation to not only the Planning and Zoning Commission, but to all Commissions and committees that their meetings should be recorded from now on to prevent misunderstandings in communications made during those meetings.
2. The claims that Mr. Sylvester have not been corroborated by other members of the Planning and Zoning Commission and others present at the meeting. *I have not had the opportunity to speak with all members of the P&Z, but even with that, I have not had a single conversation corroborating this claim.
3. The P&Z and the City Council voted to deny the re-zoning request as it was not in line with the ordinance language.

In regards to my own signs, I have removed one of the signs while I investigate the nature of the accusation even though, in conversation with the Sheriff there was no issue cited.


**For the record, I would like to clarify that the Council has no enforcement jurisdiction of City ordinance. The City Council is a policy making body and responds to concerns brought by City and community residents that impact them by adjusting policy or directing residents and/or the Sheriff in a manner that will best lead to a resolution for the betterment of the community. There is a lot in that statement that should be unpacked and I will try to do so briefly:

1. The Sheriff enforces City ordinance. The Council can direct the Sheriff to areas where we believe there is a violation, but we do not have the mechanism in place to issue administrative tickets or penalties. In situations where a resident refuses to heed City requests to come into compliance with ordinance, the situation is then turned over to the County Court system, who prosecutes the case.

2. The betterment of the community is determined by the community. We have a long list of ordinances that were created and have been updated several times throughout the life of the City. If the ordinances no longer serve for the betterment of the residents of the City, it is the responsibility of the Council to respond to that. This is another reason why it is so crucial that we have as many residents take part in the Community Visioning/Comprehensive Planning Process as that will be the major tool used to re-do City ordinance over the next few years.

Moving on...

Following the public comment period there was a conversation at the Council level regarding if there should be some guidelines put into the Public Forum to prevent the slandering of Council members and impacting the public record. Having the Council meetings recorded was done in the good faith of the Council that it would provide greater transparency to the public about what is happening in their local government and the risk that was stated was that unverifiable allegations could distort the public record concerning the facts of an issue.

This was taken up for several minutes by the Council, but in the end it was decided that the Council will encourage all City Commissions and committees to record all of their meetings for the express purpose of being able to respond to allegations of wrongdoing and/or to respond to questions regarding the meeting content. In addition, the Council felt that it was important to allow the Public Forum to continue unfettered with the Mayor and Council working to assist the commenter in finding resolution to their comment.


Following that discussion we moved on to the Consent Agenda, which contained the usual three items (paying of bills, approval of meeting agenda, and approval of previous meeting minutes) and two additional items: a permit for Visit Cook County's Moose Mosey on October 22nd and a permit for a block party on 7th Ave W. There was no conversation opposing any of these items, so the Consent Agenda passed unanimously.

Following that we moved on to the sole item on the agenda, which was an amendment to our agreement for energy purchasing with the Southern Minnesota Municipal Power Agency, which is a group of 18 MN cities that pool their resources together to get purchasing and providing power for electric utilities. We are a part of SMMPA and have a contract with them that extends out to 2050. Other cities have decided not to continue with SMMPA and thus an amendment to the original agency agreement needed to be passed to create a category for those municipalities that chose not to renew their membership in SMMPA. This changes nothing in OUR agreement with SMMPA, but creates the language necessary to categorize those non-renewing cities and to structure payments differently for them since they will be benefiting from SMMPA projects during the remainder of their membership, but won't be members throughout the remainder of the debt service on the projects.
For example: Let's say that City A didn't renew their membership with SMMPA, but Grand Marais did. So, Grand Marais is part of SMMPA through 2050 and City A is only a member until 2030. SMMPA builds a bunch of renewable energy in 2018 and has a bond to pay off, that will come due in 2038... well City A has benefited from that project while it was a member, but isn't going to be paying its part for the next 8 years, even though the infrastructure is still there and being paid for.

This amendment is basically to make sure that City A pays their part. It won't impact Grand Marais' electricity prices or relationship with SMMPA; it actually protects us a great deal.

That was the bulk of the work that we had on the agenda. Here are the Council Reports that we had:

Councilor Mills met with the Northwoods Food Project who are hoping to have a Community Garden up at the Community Center by 2019.
He also met with the Broadband Commission who asked if the City had additional plans for the Office Outpost area, perhaps to ask for more time using the space. He reported that usage has been steady, but numbers are low probably because it is the first year.

Councilor Kennedy attended the Pro-Walk/Bike/Place Conference with Jan Sivertson and brought back some great ideas for how we can expand walking/biking/placemaking in our community. Some of his examples from the City of Vancouver will be useful in showing us some ways that we can incorporate healthy living into our planning process to encourage residents to be more active.
He, and all of the rest of the Councilors, attended the Affordable Housing Workshop that was put on by the MN Housing Finance Agency last week as well. It was very useful to have almost all of the housing agency heads in one place where they could hear our concerns, challenges, and plans and gain a larger appreciation for the work that we have been doing.

Councilor Benson asked what the update was with the Comprehensive Planning Process, which I addressed in my update.

I explained that the Steering Committee for the Community Visioning process has met two times and has already started the work of the engagement process by vetting the engagement plan, proofing and revising the community survey, giving advice and gathering information that will be on the planning website (http://www.grandmaraisvisioning.org/), and will be having a meeting in October with the Community Design Group to actually get out in the community and gather some information! So, things are starting to pick up speed! Hurray for that!

I met, with several other local representatives, with the Lt. Governor, Tina Smith, to discuss some of the projects that we are working on in and around Grand Marais. We showed her some of the Great Place Race projects, including the Table Tennis table outside of the library, and spoke to her about housing, job creation, and our boat launch project. She was a very good listener and I hope comes back to visit us again.

I attended a Superior Hiking Trail Association meeting where they commented that they are going to be completing the construction of the trail this year and thus shifting toward maintenance and improving the trail. This could include improving the connection to Grand Marais, which should be considered when the Sawtooth Bluffs project is started to be formulated. Councilor Mills added that the school should be a part of that process as well, to which I agreed.

There was a non-traditional lender's meeting at Higher Ed this week and I was surprised to see how many programs there are in our area for people with business ideas to find gap financing and/or other resources for their startup business. If you are looking for information on this, let me know and I will try to direct you as best I can!

A group of people in town have been asking me if it would be possible to install a disc golf course in and around the Municipal Golf Course. They cited numerous studies that show that disc golf improves the round numbers of existing golf courses and is very good for exposure. The group will be putting together a proposal for the Park Board.

The National Wildlife Federation is encouraging people in our area to plant milkweed and other plants that encourage Monarch Butterflies. If you would like free seeds and more information, please visit their website.

This past week there were two League of MN Cities Policy Group meetings, one for the Improving Local Economies and on for Improving Fiscal Futures. The Fiscal Futures meeting was full of policy suggestions to promote the effective and efficient running of government, most of which isn't applicable to us because of our size, but very interesting none-the-less.
The Improving Local Economies conversation was more interesting because there was a resolution to be voted on that suggested a revision to the Local Government Aid distributions in the state that would put rural MN cities at a disadvantage. This was discussed at length, but no action was taken, so I will keep you in the loop on that.

Finally, the Library Board met last night and was pleased to report that there have been at least 3 applicants for the Assistant Director position and that the Library has been switching out a number of its computers and technology to make sure that we are offering quality equipment to our guests and employees.

That is all for this meeting. Please let me know if you have any questions.