City Council Meeting 4-13-16

Yesterday the City Council got together yet again for our regularly scheduled meeting at the City Council Chambers at 6:30pm!


We were all present and accounted for except for Councilor Moody who was enjoying himself on vacation. Good for him and we will look forward to having him back for our next meeting!


Before we considered the Consent Agenda I opened the meeting for the Public Forum as usual and there was one member of the community that spoke asking a question about the City's stance on the relocation of the Farm and Craft Market and an update on that topic to which I responded that I have been in conversation with the board members of the Farm and Craft Market and will be attending their next member meeting to answer questions and see what we can work out.


The Consent Agenda was the typical three items, Approve the Meeting Agenda, Approve the Previous Meeting Minutes (and our worksession minutes this time), and Approve the Payment of Bills.

Councilor Mills brought up a few inconsistencies in the minutes for our worksession on the location of the City Hall/Liquor Store, etc which were changed to note the not unanimous support for the idea to keep the Liquor Store downtown and if the City will sell or retain property downtown. These changes were made to show the majority support rather than unanimous support.

After that conversation the Consent Agenda passed unanimously.


Our first item on the agenda was the update from Fire Chief Ben Silence who brought an update on our two newly hired firefighters, who have completed "98%" of their training and just need to get some live burn experience, so if YOU know of any building that the Fire Department could burn down... let us know!!

He went on to explain that there will be the annual Emergency Management Services (EMS) Conference at the end of the month where they will be having trainings, events, and car burns! Yes, they are going to burn a few cars on the 30th for training purposes, so if you want to watch, stay tuned!

On to the requests! Chief Silence seemed mostly satisfied with the Department's equipment, but asked the Council to approve the purchase of a few pieces of equipment that will help the Department respond more quickly and effectively.

One of these items included the sale of the Department's Chevy Tahoe response vehicle, which is a two door number that is all outfitted with response gear making it pretty heavy, and hard to get firefighters into the back seat when responding to a fire.
When they sell that vehicle they will also purchase a larger Chevy Suburban from the Tofte Fire Department to fill the gap created by the Tahoe's sale. The bill on the new vehicle is $2500, and the sale of the Tahoe is estimated to bring in somewhere in the neighborhood of $2000, so the Council didn't think that sounded too bad, especially because it will make response easier for our firefighters.

The other item was a new pump for the Department's "Jaws of Life;" the hydraulic scissors that can cut a car apart to extricate an injured person. The current pump was purchased in 2001, is very large and heavy (and thus difficult to move, requiring numerous people), and new pumps have more power.
A new pump will cost roughly $4500 and the Department will get about a $500 credit for the trade-in on the old pump.

The only other thing that the Chief brought up was that the Department is receiving a lot of false alarms and is considering charging the response fee for false alarms as the Department pays firefighters to respond even if it is a false alarm. No decision was made on this and it would have to be vetted by the Council before becoming ordinance. It didn't sound like that bad of an idea though!


The next item on the agenda was the approval of a few variances for residents who are looking to do improvements on their property that don't meet the current zoning ordinance. One of these was a request to build a garage on a property in town that needed a six foot variance on the back and three foot variances on the sides. Considering that the neighborhood is composed of sub-standard lots and that the house on the property is closer to the property line than the garage will be, the variance was granted.
The second variance was for the reconstruction of a set of stairs going down to the lake from a property right on Lake Superior. This variance garnered several questions about the rules that pertain to Lake Superior shoreline and the quality of the construction of the stairs, all of which were answered sufficiently and the DNR had the ability to comment, but did not, so we approved the variance for the reconstruction of the stairs.


After that conversation, we moved on to the Park Department Report, which had a few really great conversations present. At a previous meeting the Council voted to apply for "Regionally Significant Status" with the state to recognize the Grand Marais Recreation Area (The Rec. Park) and the Old Ski Hill Property (currently called Sawtooth Bluffs). Department Director Dave Tersteeg gave an update on this and said that he got great feedback from the first draft of the application for the Rec Park and will adjust/submit that application by the due date. The Sawtooth Bluffs area is likely to NOT get the recognition because we don't have a master plan around that property, but it could easily be identified as a strong candidate, which would be great and would give us direction in how to move ahead in planning a nature/rec area on that property. It is important to know that no decisions have been made about that property and the Council is taking suggestions/ideas to consider!

The other item the Park Department brought forward was a request to do some repairs and improvements on the Park Office Building, or the little blue house in the Rec Park. There were some questions from Councilor Benson regarding whether or not this is going to push off the Master Plan item that calls for a complete reconstruction of the office building and joining it with a newly constructed bath house for that section of the park. The bill looked like around $70,000 to redo all of the windows, doors, siding, insulation, etc so that the building will look good, be efficient, and better meet the needs of the Department. The conversation took some time and it eventually came to agreement that this is a good and necessary step to take to ensure that the office building will still be useful for the summer season. *It is important to know that the Park Department pursued local contractors heavily, but was unsuccessful in securing a bid from a local contractor for the work.


Moving right along, the Council moved on to the Public Utility Commission's request to approve a resolution in support of a Carbon Fee and Dividend  Program that identifies climate change as a threat and that fossil fuel burning is a leading cause of this change. George Wilkes, PUC Commissioner, presented the resolution as it had been passed by the PUC at their last meeting.

The Council read the language in the resolution and showed favorable leanings, but wanted some clarification on a few of the figures that were included in the resolution, so they asked Commissioner Wilkes to research this and get back to us at a future meeting. The Council also asked for feedback from the Southern Minnesota Municipal Power Association because they are the ones that we purchase our electricity from and we figured it would be useful to know their stance on the idea...


The Council prepared next for an update for the Public Works Facility as planned up on the purchased site at the top of the hill. The Council was presented with diagrams of the potential layout and location of the facility and all of the grading etc that would have to be done on the site, which, even though less than the plan at the Business Park, is still going to be significant. Administrator Roth acknowledged the requests made by the Council at its worksession and will move forward with getting the changes made on the design plans as well as pursuing bids from other vendors.

There were several questions from the Council about the designs including where the Animal Pound would be located, what buildings are located in the area presently, and how much of the land we would need to accommodate all of the City's equipment. These questions will be addressed in the next set of drawings, which the Council hopes to have in a few weeks.


Following the update about the Public Works Facility, the Council had to approve and sign the agreement with the IRRRB for the $100,000 grant they provided us to assist with the infrastructure for the new Public Works Facility. The Council passed the agreement unanimously.


In an exciting piece of news the Council was asked to approve the hiring of a part-time library clerk to begin the process of staffing up for the summer as well as in anticipation of summer schedule changes and upcoming leave for library clerks. The Council asked questions about how the Library was doing in increasing staffing according to the budget conversations that were had last year and the response was that this hire is not part of that increase, but really a necessary hire to keep the Library at a level of clerk service that is necessary to service our busy library. Future hires are still being considered by the Library Board and have not yet been pursued. Needless to say, the Council unanimously approved the hire of Kristin Blomberg for the position. We are glad to have you Kristin!


Moving right along as the night was getting longer, we moved to our Staff and Council Reports:

Councilor Benson had nothing to report, but asked for clarification regarding the Farm and Craft Market's request, to which the explanation was given that the Council issuing of a permit for the organization to use the lot next to the City Hall, but it comes down to the choice of the Farm and Craft Market as to whether or not they would like to accept that offer or remain in the Senior Center's parking area and not use the Municipal parking area. I will be attending their member's meeting at the end of this month to answer any of their questions and continue the conversation with them.

Councilor Mills reported that the Broadband Commission and Arrowhead Electric now have most of the broadband connections in the county completed and are starting to work on the second wave of connections and the Commission is ready to sign a lease with the City for the old visitor's Center area, which is to be used as a pilot space for a co-working/remote teleconferencing site. The problem they have run into is that they don't know who can or will sign the lease! Should it be the County Board? Can the Commission itself sign? These things will have to be looked at and figured out before a lease can be signed.
He also reported that the Park Board is currently starting to think about a succession plan for the Golf Course. The assistant manager of the course recently resigned and rehiring that position will be incredibly important to the proper running of the course, which starts us thinking about who will replace the current superintendent of the course when he decides to retire. It is good to start thinking about these things so that they don't sneak up on us and so that we can put down solid plans for the future.  The Golf Course is also looking to purchase a used mower for the course as the current one is so worn out (how worn out is it?) that it is getting hard to repair and still isn't mowing very well.  The course superintendent will be looking around for such a mower and will make sure that it is within his capital budget.
The last thing that Councilor Mills reported was that the YMCA Leadership Team has been speaking with some folks from the community about potentially creating a collaborative shooting range somewhere in the county. No decisions have been made, but it is an interesting conversation! There have also been ongoing conversations about how the locker rooms can be improved.

Councilor Kennedy reported that the County Board approved the Comprehensive Trails Plan for the County, which will provide guidance and direction for future development of trails and current management. He also attended a Safe Routes to School meeting where they spoke about the Bike Safety Rodeo and other bike trainings coming up on May 12th and 13th for which they are looking for volunteers (feel free to contact Tim or Maren up at the Clinic to volunteer). He also reported that the Active Living Steering Committee is creating a new proposal for a state bike route which would extend from St. Paul to Grand Portage through a network of county roads and existing/planned trails. It sounds like a great opportunity and something that should be looked into more! He also reported that there was some conversation about how to keep winter trails safe with the growing usage of snowmobiles, fat bikes, and snowshoes out in the woods.

Administrator Roth chimed in with a few updates of his own:
next Wednesday (the 20th) there will be a harbor cleanup happening to help get our precious beaches and water ready for the summer and to pick up the accumulated gunk from the winter. Olya Wright is coordinating and would love as many volunteers as she can get!
On his vacation he was lucky enough to visit Flagstaff, Arizona, a certified Dark Sky city and commented on the number of things that they had to do to get the certification, noting that some of those things would be difficult in our area due to... well, the nature of our area and the different jurisdictions that preside over our area. Not impossible, but difficult... Something to keep on the radar.
There are also going to be a few vacancies on City boards and commissions which will need to be filled in the upcoming weeks.

One of these is the position on the EDA being vacated by Mark Sandbo as he completes his move to be closer to his family. We thank Mark for all of his service over the years and wish him the best in the move (and remember to come and visit!). The EDA will begin accepting applications to fill the remainder of  his term. This is a City position on the EDA, so it has to be someone living in the City limits. We would love to hear suggestions or to receive your application!

Also, there will be an opening on the Park Board in the coming weeks. Our newly elected Board Chair, Reid Dusheck will be moving out of the City limits (but sticking around!) so we will need to find another person to fill the remainder of his term as well! I understand that there will be elections to decide who the Board Chair will be, so the position being sought is "Board Member" and not "Board Chair." We would love to hear from you if you are interested in this position as well!

Administrator Roth also asked the Council if we would like to make up any process for vetting applicants for these positions as was suggested at the beginning of this year when we received a number of qualified applicants for the open board positions. It seemed like this was something the Council was interested in, but needed some more information before moving ahead. This will return in the future for more conversation.


My report covered a lot of ground as well. I had a Moving Matters meeting to discuss potential ways that the City could partner with them to help promote and make the Comprehensive Planning process go more smoothly. There was a great deal of brainstorming and some very exciting ideas came up! Stay tuned!

I also listened in on the first Active Transportation Caucus meeting, which is a group of 39 mayors from around the state who are banding together to work to create legislative change around transportation (basically encouraging the funding of walking/biking/mass transit) and to pool ideas of what has worked so that it can be shared around communities state-wide. It was exciting to hear about the strides that the group has made already simply by making the suggestion at the state level that anywhere in legislation where it says "pedestrian" the term "biker" should be considered as well. This is for funding, not for example, sidewalks, where bikers shouldn't be riding unless it is marked so. This would encourage more development of biking infrastructure, which would encourage more people to get around via bikes. More to come on that as well!

I had quite a few conversations with folks about the Farm and Craft Market proposal and, as I reported above, will have more to report after I meet with the members at the end of the month.

I have also heard from many residents who are excited by the Minneapolis plastic bag ban and who would like to see something like this implemented in Grand Marais. My response to this is that I believe it could happen and that it is a good idea to get away from using plastic products whenever we can, but a change like this should and kind of has to be driven by the businesses who use the bags. I believe that we could create a system community wide that solves this situation. We can steal from the Minneapolis and Seattle models of eliminating the need of plastic bags and creating incentives for using other bags while offsetting any potential increases in expense for businesses. It can't hurt our businesses and I don't think that it has to. I will be continuing to look into this and would be willing to meet with any business owner who has a thought on this.

I also heard from about a half dozen folks about the ideas put forward in my last blog post about possibly moving City Hall up to the Tomteboda property with the Public Works Facility. There was a lot of support for the idea, but there was no clear agreement about what to do with the downtown area. Some said develop it and sell it, some said just sell it, some said develop it and then lease it out so that City can make some money on it... There were many ideas, which I believe reflects how complicated this decision will be... Keep the comments coming!

I was also approached by the Chamber to see if we would like to be a member of the Chamber, but our lawyer chimed in and said that there is a statute that prohibits the City from joining... I personally didn't see that coming, but we will have to get a little clarification on that and see why that is the rule!

I also met with members of Cook County Soil and Water to compile all of the engineering and study data that has been done on the Municipal Parking lot to see what can be done to mitigate the flooding situation there. We were able to find a study from 2001 and the associated response/suggestions from 2002/3, the study done before the parking lot was reconstructed, and the engineering information from the actual reconstruction of the parking lot. There was a suggestion when the parking lot was reconstructed that described an overflow outlet that could have been build on the beach, but it was deemed to most likely not have been effective due to the wave action and porous rock of the beach, so it was not constructed. Many other suggestions for how the parking lot can be "fixed" has been fielded, but a solution will be very difficult considering that the water table is literally inches below the parking lot and the capacity of the drainage pond has been greatly diminished by the rise in the lake's water level over the past few years. Soil and Water has an engineer in Duluth that we will be in conversation with to schedule some continued information gathering and to help create possible solutions.

I think that was it! As always, please let me know if you have any questions!

City Council Worksession April 5th Noon

The City Council, following a conversation at our meeting on the 30th of March, set the date of Tuesday the 5th at noon as an opportunity to have the conversation formally about whether or not the City Hall Building should continue its existence in the downtown area or if it should/could be relocated to the newly acquired Tomteboda property at the top of the hill.


We started the meeting with a short agenda of information and conversation. It went as follows:

1. Discussion of Council Priority Project Timeframe--Basically a summary of the projects that the Council has taken on in the past year, which came down to a pretty expansive list of things that we have laid down some great foundations for. Yes, there has been a lot of conversation and not a lot of action, but sometimes there is a lot that needs to be said. Topics that came up were: the evaluation of City Hall, Strategic Planning with Department Heads, Public Restroom design review and information gathering (how many people actually use the public restrooms?), reviewed the Public Works Facility (PWF) designs for the Business Development Park and its budget of $3.7 million, conducted a needs assessment for the City Hall offices, conducted a needs assessment for the Liquor Store, identified and purchased a site for the PWF complete with environmental assessments, worked with the DNR to get our new boat launch plan into legislative bonding process, identified over $25,000 in funding for the City to do its Comprehensive Planning Process and organizations that will assist us, created plans for site prep on the Tomteboda property, began designing the PWF and considered other ideas for construction (other than architectural design), received a $100,000 grant from IRRRB for our PWF, continued gathering information about our Liquor Store needs and the benefits from improvements, continued to lay down Comprehensive Planning process groundwork, and a number of other things that I have abbreviated out of the list.

*This was mentioned for perspective and to rehash what has already been decided so that we didn't have to spend a lot of time going over things that we already took care of...


2. PWF Planning Update-- We were given a few designs that were worked up with our architect, LHB Inc. We also had our Streets Department Head present to talk through the design and point out the flaws and less than ideal parts to the designs. It was very helpful and we decided to take a look at making the building slightly bigger with a simpler design to try and cut costs, but be able to house all of the City's assets comfortably and safely. One of the examples of possible cost cutting measures included pricing out a potential industrial Morton-style building for the facility that would potentially be significantly cheaper than a concrete slab building as is being designed. There are pros and cons to each of course, and the Council will be considering those things when bids are received back from both the architects and the companies we will contact for estimates for such a building.


3. Discussion of Pros and Cons of future location of City Hall, Liquor Store, and Public Restrooms
This was the meat of the conversation. We started by looking at each of the topics separately:

a.) bathrooms: should they be downtown? The answer was a resounding yes, with the addition that there should probably be a few locations of public restrooms around.

b.) Liquor Store: Should it be downtown? The majority vocally spoke yes, but there was a little conversation by a few Councilors that said that the City should keep everything together to save costs, and that could mean relocating the Liquor Store as well... After going around and around for a few minutes it became clear that the majority of the Council felt strongly that the Liquor Store needs to remain in its prime downtown location, which came to nearly unanimous agreement.

Well, that went well! Now let's get to the tricky one!

c.) City Hall: Should it be downtown? There was significant conversation about the social value of having the City Hall downtown, but there was also conversation about the financial value of the location of City Hall and the fact that the business that City Hall does can be done anywhere as long as it is accessible to the citizens of our community. It was pointed out that moving the location out of downtown would free up more prime taxable property for much needed business and office space as well as increase the accessibility in the summer for people who don't like to go into the downtown hub-bub to pay their bills. A Con was the fact that the Senior Center is right downtown as well and that it has been a great service to our community to have those two institutions very close to each other.

A Pro for the downtown location was that it makes sense for the City to control that land so that it can direct development in that location for the Liquor Store and potential storefronts and office space that the City could draw rental monies from, in essence subsidizing the construction of new space and creating more income for the City (leased properties, even if they are owned by the City, are still applicable to property taxes).

A Pro for building up the hill is that it would doubtlessly be cheaper and less disruptive than a complete City Hall renovation happening in the downtown area. The City could construct an office complex to house the City's Administration, the offices for Department Heads (because it would be close to the PWF), and potentially offices and meeting spaces for the other semi-governmental organizations that currently use City Hall space (EDA, AEOA, SBDA, Chamber, and formerly VCC).

The conversation pertaining to the downtown location being easier for people to pay their bills at was an interesting one as well because the Public Utilities are working on automatic meter reading and the automating of charges/payments for PUC services, so that would decrease significantly the need to drop off checks etc at City Hall. That service STILL needs to be available though, but it was observed that the Arrowhead Transit buses could drop people off at City Hall just as it does at the Senior Center.

The Property Tax conversation came up several times and is one that the City is taking very seriously. Upon purchasing the Tomteboda property there was some criticism of the Council's decision to take another property off of the tax rolls and I want to be clear that it isn't the City's design to do this. It is to create financially prudent strategies for the City. The Tomteboda property will only be partly utilized by the Public Works Facility (PWF), so the original conversation was to stump in services to locations on the highway and then potentially sell those off to encourage business development on the top of the hill, which would create a much less expensive situation for that property and would effectively put the remaining part of the property on the tax rolls more quickly than the entire parcel would have been (of course this is speculation, but it is the view of most of the Council that selling a few smaller, affordable lots for development would happen faster than trying to sell the entire parcel).

In the instance that the Council decides that City Hall should move up the hill, then there would be less developable land on that parcel to sell, but the Council thinks that there would still be surplus land that could be sold and developed into retail space, or developed into a trail-side park for people enjoying the Gitchi-Gammi Trail.

If City Hall were to move, then the City would likely renovate the Liquor Store to take up the space it should to be most successful downtown and then sell the remaining part of that lot with the understanding that there would remain parking accessible to the public and that public restrooms would be provided.

*It is important to note that these details have NOT been set and that this is ONLY CONVERSATION that has been taking place at present.

No matter the decision, the Council will only move forward within the accepted debt load the City has been operating under (which means that we will retain our great credit rating and thus keep our debt payments low) and decisions that make sound financial sense for the City, either producing income for the City through the sale of property back to private hands and the resultant property tax income, or through lease agreements and the associated property tax income.


As the conversation quieted down a straw poll was taken to see how many people were interested in either option for City Hall.
As I stated before, everyone agreed that restrooms need to be downtown and that they should be well marked and advertised, everyone eventually agreed that the Liquor Store should remain downtown in order to guarantee its successful operation, and 3.5 thought that City Hall should move up to the top of the hill with 1.5 saying it should stay downtown...

Who is the half person then?  Well, I am. I am torn because although I can't disagree with the fact that it would be cheaper and easier to get what we want for office space up at the Tomteboba property, I believe that there is a great deal of value of having the City Hall in the City Center, but I also identify that the downtown area is the best place for private business and shouldn't we be encouraging that kind of development by making more property available? Although I can see that a city-leased property downtown would be a likely more effective means of making affordable leased space available downtown...

See what I mean??? It is a hard conversation.

The decision is NOT made at this point although the straw poll indicated that we need to gather information for relocating the City Hall offices and then see what the comparisons may be for the different options.

YOU are important in this conversation. What do YOU think? Where should the City Hall be?

Please let me know so that we can have a sense of what the community thinks.