City Council Meeting 11-30-17

We had another City Council meeting tonight... It is the third to the last meeting that we will have this year.

We started with the Roll Call where everyone was present except for Councilor Benson, who was out of town.

I then opened up the Public Comment period, but no one spoke so we moved right along.

The Consent Agenda was composed of the usual three items, approving the meeting agenda, the previous meeting's minutes, and the City's bills. There were no concerns about the Consent Agenda, so there was a motion and it was approved unanimously.


The first thing on the agenda was Cook County Soil and Water.  They had two presentations for us.

The first was that they have been testing water quality for three years at strategic locations along the shore so they can have some baseline numbers for water quality. They are the first group on Lake Superior that is formally taking these measurements! There are 5 spots, East Bay, right off shore of the water plant, the marina, the harbor in front of the Trading Post, and in front of the rec park boat launch.

What are they gathering? E. Coli numbers, temperature, clarity, Chlorophyll, phosphorus, chloride, Nitrogens, different solids in the water, dissolved oxygen, conductivity, PH

The site by the East Bay sewer plant had the lowest E. Coli number, which means the treatment plant is doing its job. The marina had the highest pollution numbers, which isn't a big surprise. They will continue doing these monitoring activities for another 2 years so that they can have a solid baseline.

Their second presentation was a historical trip through the City's stormwater management plans and other associated information. There was a plan in 2001, another plan in 2007, and an update in 2009.

Most of these plans addressed the perceived stormwater concerns at each time. Soil and Water brought up the new concerns and future concerns for the City:
The Municipal Parking Lot's issues,
how development changes our area's hydrology (i.e. more paved area causes more run-off, more infrastructure limits the lakeward flow of water, etc),
a changing understanding of what is acceptable with stormwater runoff,
etc...

They proposed that it is time for a new stormwater management plan and there is some funding available.

This management plan would have:
modeling of precipitation events,
a stormwater inventory which would include checking culvert size and placement,
answer the question of "Where is the water coming from and where is it going?"
identify necessary projects to mitigate stormwater problems,
costs of these projects and scheduling,
and assessment of projects' effectiveness.

Our watershed is not typical, instead of having a steep slope and a nice flat plain before the lake we have a water break at the top of the hill and then a steep hill leading right down to the lake... This makes the development of our stormwater management plan more difficult, but necessary.

They shared with us that there is a lot of grant monies that are available for such a plan: we can likely leverage $25,000 of City resources in order to get $188,000 in total grant funding. We are a Tier 1 Priority area, which moves us up the queue of grant funding...

They want to know if the City would like to commit to up to $25,000 so that we can capitalize on this opportunity. Since the City has had this conversation several times at this point over several years and the stormwater issues faced by the City are coming to the forefront we committed to investing $25,000 in the instance that we would be able to apply for and secure the additional funds, which would allow us to complete the study and to complete a few of the projects that the plan calls for. This was concluded as a situation where the City can actually be money ahead by ending up with both an up to date plan and with a good start on the projects that were identified by the plan. In the end we voted to commit the funds in the instance that we can secure the other funding.


Next, we had Dave Tersteeg of the Parks Department come and give us an update on the performance of the Rec. Park in order to give us some perspective on our budgeting process for 2017, mainly to make sure that we were writing somewhat accurate numbers into the budget and that we would be able to distribute the monies into the appropriate locations. Tersteeg's report basically showed the facts that the Rec. Park has consistently, over the past 10 years, increased its revenues in spite of the recession and the Park Board has adopted new, more innovative approaches to increasing revenues. This all was to help the Council understand what to expect next year. Part of the reason for this conversation was to support the next item on the agenda, which was...

The Financial Report provided by the City's Kim Dunsmoor had a number of different items, one of which related to the Rec. Park. It was the Finance Director's suggestion that the City officially create an assigned fund for the Park Department and to fund that account at an amount that is roughly equivalent to half of the year's operational expenses. The Council had been talking about this action for several years and was really pleased to see the suggestion supported by the Finance Director.

The next item on the Finance Report was concerning the Golf Course. The Golf Course hasn't made money for the last 12 years. It has been something that the City has financed consistently with General Fund monies for the past 12 years. This raises certain issues with the Golf Course itself, but the request from the Finance Director was to have the Council move the Golf Course account from an enterprise fund for the City to the General Fund. This move would more accurately reflect the nature of the Golf Course since enterprise funds are supposed to make money. The City also moved all of the City's other enterprises into the General Fund several years ago, so it made sense to consolidate them in the same place. The Council thought that this made sense, so the vote was taken and it was done.

The final item on the Finance Report was concerning the Library's restricted accounts. The Library has two restricted accounts, one that is composed of several gifts made to the Library and the other that is composed of a generous bequest by the Hazel Matthews estate that happened quite some time ago. The request was that the Council move to combine these accounts into one restricted account since the covenants that govern both of these accounts are exactly the same. I asked several questions about whether the Library Director was asked about this and whether this would change the way that the Library was able to use this money. The answers to these questions did not pose any concerns and the Council voted to combine the accounts.

Following that, the Council heard the second reading of the ordinance that we would like to opt out of the state restrictions on "Granny Pods" imposed by the state earlier this year. This passed unanimously.

The final thing that the Council heard was the recommendation from the City Personnel Committee to hire the new Assistant Library Director who will start around the beginning of the year. I have to confirm the name, but the selection has been made from a pool of very well qualified applicants. There were 5 interviews and three very good candidates. The Committee felt very lucky to have to make this very difficult decision.

Then on to Councilor Updates:

Councilor Moody had a question about whether sledding at the golf course is going to be allowed this year on the golf course. There has been some confusion about whether or not that is allowed.

Councilor Kennedy reported on the County's efforts to establish a Parks and Trails commission which is calling for one City representative either Council or staff on the commission. We need to have a conversation about who that person should be. Just about all of the Councilors present showed interest, but there was some discussion about Councilor Mills since he is on the Park Board here in the City.

The PUC's rate increases were approved. 2% for electric fund, 2% for water fund, 3% for sewer fund to reflect increases in purchase rates etc.

Greater MN Parks and Trails Commission is up for renewal in membership in this group to continue advocating for development of trail infrastructure in greater MN, including the Gitchi Gammi Trail.


My report was composed of a summary of my experience at the latest meeting in Beaver Bay concerning the sexual exploitation of young people in MN. We heard a presentation from a young woman who was actually exploited and trafficked within the State and her experience being exploited. She made it really clear that the people that are doing the exploiting most of the time study and know human psychology and are able to identify those that are vulnerable almost immediately...
The conversation will certainly continue, but will focus on trying to find ways that we can meet the needs of the young people in our community and thus remove the access or appeal of the exploiters.  There is a lot of stuff here and it isn't easy to tap into.

The other meeting was a North House Board meeting where they discussed the continued growth of the organization, future planning, the 20th anniversary, accommodating the new (but now postponed) overtime and labor rules, a new staff handbook, etc. It was overall a very positive meeting with a great deal of good information.

I couldn't remember the last item on my list during the meeting, but I remember it now... I will share it in another post because I think that it warrants its own post...

That was it! We were done and adjourned the meeting a little after 8.

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