Thursday, December 29, 2016

The Final Council Meeting of 2016: 12/28/16

Last night the City Council met again to complete the work of the year. The meeting was called to order at 6:30pm with myself, Councilor Moody, Councilor Benson, and Finance Director Dunsmoor in attendance, which is enough for a quorum and for getting work done.

I opened the Public Forum, but no one was in attendance, so I closed the forum and we moved on to the Consent Agenda.

The Consent Agenda had the usual three items on it (Approve the Agenda, approve the previous meeting minutes, and approving the bills). It passed without any further discussion.

Then we moved on to the approval of the final City tax levy, which was reduced slightly from the previous number that was proposed due to a deduction in the cost of heating fuel for City Hall.

The final City levy was set at $700,560.00 for the General Operations of the City and an additional $209,433.88 for Debt Service payments on past City projects, for a grand total of $909,993.88, an increase in the general levy of 4.38%.

The Council saw these numbers as sound and proceeded to approve the budget as proposed. It passed unanimously.


The next item on the agenda was the the adjustment of the salaries for our Non-Union employees. The City negotiates with the AFSCME Union (American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees) roughly every two years to negotiate the wages and benefits of all Union City employees, but not all of our City employees are Union workers. Our department heads are not Union workers because of the nature of their job supervising other Union workers. Therefore, when we negotiate the wage increases for our Union employees that has no effect on the pay for our Department Heads. It is common practice, though to offer the same increases to Department Heads. The suggestion was made to offer this same increase of 2% to all Department Heads. Councilor Benson asked a very good question, which was, "What does the City perform for performance evaluations?" This is a question that has been asked several times since I was elected in 2014 and it is just as valid today as it was then. It is very important for the City to be able to commend the good work that has been done by its employees and also to suggest ways to improve or streamline the performance of each of the Departments. With this conversation, the motion was made to approve the 2% increase of the non-union employees with the expectation that in 2017 the Council will investigate and work to incorporate a means of performance evaluation for our Department Heads, and eventually all City employees.

Next on the agenda was the second reading of Ordinance 2016-15, which is the revision to the City's ordinance governing non-conforming uses of properties. Since Councilor Benson was not able to be at our last meeting where we had the first reading, she asked for a summary of the changes to make sure that her reading of the new language was accurate. The summary provided was basically that the new language was written to apply generally and theoretically to as many non-conforming situations as possible, whereas the previous ordinance language seemed to identify and deal with specific concerns that were raised and was not effective in giving clear direction to either the Planning and Zoning Commission or to community members with non-conforming uses on their properties.
The new ordinance language passed unanimously and thus was adopted.

There was no addtional business at this meeting, so we moved on to Council/Staff Updates:

It has been a few quiet weeks and Councilors Moody and Benson stated that their meetings were either rescheduled or simply not scheduled over the holiday season.

I reported on a few meetings that I attended: The Active Living Group had a meeting where they took a look at a model for assisting in directing policy making to be more effective. It is called Health and Equity in All Policies and it is nicknamed HEAP. This method is used to make sure that all policy changes or additions are in line with some guidelines approved by the community to ensure that they promote improvements in the general health of the community, promote equity among all residents, and is uniformly across all policy decisions. The concept of equity is roughly and very generally explained via the image to the right... This isn't exactly how it would play out in our City policy work, but it is a useful illustration.

I also attended a meeting of the Cook County Local Energy Project, who are continuing to work on Residential Energy Efficiency Project (REEP) energy audits for people in the community even though the funding for that project has been fully used. They are hoping to secure continuing funding to be able to offer those energy audits at a discounted price again next year. The audits provide homeowners with concrete suggestions, based on the observed and tested performance of their homes, of ways that they could improve the efficiency of their homes. It is a very useful tool to decrease your heating and cooling expenses as well as other utility expenses. CCLEP will also be offering the builder's workshop in February again, which will focus on Thermal Heat Pump Technology, Passive Building Techniques, and Thermal Enclosures & Airtightness, all information that is very useful to builders in our area. It also counts toward continuing education requirements for contractors... so sign up soon!

The final meeting that I reported on was a set of meetings actually that had to do with how we can create a more walkable environment in Grand Marais. This is especially poignant now after all of the terrible weather we have had. There were 2 meetings that each had about 30 people in attendance to brainstorm ideas that we can hopefully have implemented here in town to improve the safety and general experience of walking around Grand Marais. This was seen as a priority due to the fact that Hwy 61 will be all torn up in 2019! The clips for the meetings are included below.
https://youtu.be/mekVEtkU1Qo

The final update was on the Comprehensive Planning/Visioning Process. The Steering Committee has had several very good meetings and have gotten the word out to groups that we normally don't hear from and I have been pursuing getting out to the Senior Center to hear the thoughts of those folks as well as connecting with Harbor View residents. If you can think of any other interesting ways to get the word out, please let me know and I will do what I can to make it happen if possible!

That was all for last night! I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and please be safe New Year's Eve! Let's start 2017 out strong and positive!

*As always, if you have any concerns or questions, please let me know.

Friday, December 16, 2016

Truth in Taxation/City Council Meeting 12-14-16

Last night the City Council held its usual meeting with the addition of the Truth in Taxation hearing at the beginning.


The meeting was called to order at 6:30 with all Councilors present except for Councilor Benson.


The Council opened up the Public Comment Period with the clarification that this Public Comment Period was the Truth in Taxation hearing with the direct purpose of giving residents the opportunity to speak directly to the Council specifically in regards to their views of the 5.49% increase in the tax levy proposed for 2017.


Three residents spoke during the comment period.


The first resident, Bob Mattson, who has been a community resident since 1969 and a city employee for a good chunk of that time acknowledged that the City's levy was not overboard, but that when all of the increases get lumped together it becomes brutal to residents in the area. He mentioned that the cost of living is staying consistently ahead of inflation. He acknowledged that many of the services that the City provides are getting pricey to provide, but he encouraged the City to prioritize necessities and luxuries and to tighten the belt on all of those items that are not mandated.


The second resident, Joyce Heiskari, mentioned that her City and County tax portion on her tax document were almost identical, which she saw as surprising. She again acknowledged that the City has been pretty conservative over the years, but asked the Council some of the details of the City healthcare plan, i.e. what's the share that the City pays? What's the share that the employee pays? What is the deductible for individuals and for families? What are the premiums?

Financial Director Dunsmoor was able to answer most of these questions and said that she would find the answers that she did not have readily available.

The answers were as such: The City contributes about $200/individual and $500/family for healthcare costs and offers a plan with a $1200 deductible for individuals and $2400 deductible for families. The premium information is something that I am waiting on and will share that when I get it.

She also asked us how much, out of the revenues of the Rec. Park and the Liquor Store, goes into the General Fund each year. The answers to that are that the Council has not concluded the amount for the Rec. Park for this year, but the Liquor Store contributes a set $200,000 each year to the General Fund.

She also noticed the saturation of tourism in the town and asked if the City has been forced to hire more people for seasonal work due to this saturation. The quick answer to that is that seasonal staffing has stayed pretty steady, so not particularly. Her suggestion was to see if there was some way to get some of the 1% lodging tax to offset those expenses if the City experienced them... I'm not sure that would be possible, but I am looking into the details of the 1% lodging tax language...

Her final question was about Library staffing, pointing out that the full-time expense for Library staff went up dramatically for 2017. I explained that this was due to decreases in full time staff expenses in 2016 due to some employees requesting to be taken off of full-time work and due to a struggle to keep enough part-time work on hand to perform the work of the Library. The jump in full-time employee costs was due to the hiring of an assistant director for the Library, which was identified by the Library Board as a priority to allow the Library to begin to actualize its goals of providing top-notch services within the Library walls in addition to beginning to offer library services to the edges of the County. *We told Joyce that we would get in touch with her and provide those details that we were unable to give initially.


The final resident, Evelyn Larson, echoed the sentiment that when you add up all of the taxes from the different tax districts it gets burdensome and encouraged the Council to look at any possible spots where we can cut expenses.

She also asked why the Council voted to purchase the Tomteboda property for the Public Works facility instead of sticking with the plan to develop the facility in the Business Park. Councilor Kennedy explained that the concern with the Business Park idea was that in order to get as large a spot as we needed in that area we would have to purchase 3-4 lots and face a grade and fill expense of nearly a million dollars in addition to wetland mitigation expenses, so the flat property located at the Tomteboda property would save us most of these expenses, thus taking that expense off of the project and saving the City money. In addition, Kennedy pointed out that the City will only be utilizing 3.5 acres of the Tomteboda property, so there will likely be one or two lots with Hwy 61 frontage that will come back up for sale on the private market. *That decision hasn't been made, so I mention that as a possibility.

Her final question was about affordable housing, asking why it wasn't considered to locate the current EDA housing project in the Business Park. Councilor Moody explained that the EDA started considerations for the project based on the feedback received from the housing study that was completed and considered 100+ properties for the proposed location and decided on the current location due to the location of infrastructure, the availability of land, the expense of development, etc... I offered to sit down with Ms. Larson to continue these conversations and she told me that her kettle is always on, so I will be taking her up on that!


Following that I closed the comment period, which was also closing the Truth in Taxation hearing for the City.


The Council then moved along to the Consent Agenda, which had the usual three items on it (Approve the Agenda, Approve the Previous Meeting's Minutes, and Approve the Bills). There were no concerns for the Consent Agenda so it was passed unanimously.


The next item on the agenda was the annual report from North House Folk School and Greg Wright (NHFS Director) was present to walk us through North House's year.

He reported that all numbers for class registration have been up consistently showing roughly a 10% increase over the previous year, which was a 12% increase over the previous year. North House has been providing programs for homeschool children in our area, elementary students throughout the community, has a youth deckhand program, and other school programming. September 2016 was the highest month for registration in the near 20 year life of the school. On that note, Greg pointed out that North House is going to have some significant 20th birthday celebrations including a few, which he wanted to share with the Council.

For the 10th birthday of North House the school offered and built a number of timbered benches that were scattered about town and that are still there serving the community. He was interested in starting the conversation with the Council to identify a project or two that North House could work with the City on to celebrate the 20 year relationship between the two. The Council thought this was a great idea and said that we would identify someone to work with Greg on brainstorming some projects that would assist the City in accomplishing some of its goals while celebrating the 20 year relationship with North House.

The other conversation that Mr. Wright brought up was to sit down and have a further conversation regarding the current lease with North House. North House is partially located on City land and has paid a set lease amount based on a 25 year lease, of which about 15 years remains. When this 25 year lease was created, North House was given a number of goals to aim for and accomplish. Considering that North House has achieved or exceeded most of these items, and that North House is looking to invest again into their campus, there is interest in revisiting the lease and seeing if there is possibility for re-working that arrangement to guarantee North House's presence in Grand Marais and to give the City reassurance that this arrangement is beneficial for it as well. I volunteered to be on that conversation with Administrator Roth, Mr. Wright, and a Board member from North House.


Following that conversation it was time for the Planning Commission Report:


The first item on the Planning Commission Report was a request for a variance to allow the Curtis's to redesign and reconstruct the front of their home. The reconstruction will not extend beyond the existing footprint, but it will modify the roofline of the building, and will improve the liveability of the property, which are all reasons for approval of the variance. The Commission voted 5-0 to approve the variance and the Council agreed, so the vote was taken and the variance was approved unanimously.


The second item on the Report was some proposed improvements for the zoning ordinance in regards to non-conforming uses Citywide.  This was a pretty significant change as the Commission pretty much scratched all of the existing language and took the ordinance away from governing case studies of non-conformities to addressing the basics of what non-conformities are and how we want to have them function and how to we want them to be preserved or forfeited. I have the language for this new ordinance and will attempt to attach it to another blog post here in a few days... I feel that it is pretty important that residents can see this proposed ordinance change if their property has a non-conformity. *This was the first reading, so the Council will be taking this up again at our next meeting, so please get comments in as soon as you can!


The final item on the agenda was a Resolution that identified that the City will be borrowing some money in order to finance the Public Works facility. We have to identify that we are going to be borrowing money and that we intend to use that money for a project, or else we can't use it for that project! This is one more of the protections put in place to make sure that public money is used for projects that are appropriate. This was merely a formality and passed unanimously. The only question that was asked was the amount identified that the City may borrow, which was $4 million. This seemed a little high, but Administrator Roth said that this was merely a cautious number to make sure that the City wouldn't be stuck with money that we borrowed, but couldn't use on the project.


There was one more item added to the agenda at this point. It was a conversation regarding the Community Visioning process and part of the reason that the City took this on, which is the moratorium on commercial construction in the C/I Zone. This moratorium will expire in February of 2017 and because the City is in the middle of the community engagement process and has not gotten to a point of resolving the problems with that zoning ordinance. The team that we have been working with on this situation provided us with three options that we can do to address this.

They are:
a.) Continue as we are, get through the community engagement process, continue gathering information and drafting ordinance language as we get to it and perhaps finish the project in June 2017. The pros for this option are that it will not interfere with the larger Comprehensive Plan goal that the City has and it will allow for more conversation about the C/I Zone. The cons for this option are that the moratorium will expire in February without any change in the ordinance, which wasn't the purpose that we put the moratorium in place for, and thus, without any changes to the ordinance there will be no changes to what types of development is allowed in that zone.

b.) We can draft new language for the C/I Zone now and adopt it before the moratorium expires. The pros of this is that we can pass changes that roughly reflect the City's desires for the C/I Zone and we can get some ideas in place that allow for development in the C/I Zone that is felt is consistent with the City's characteristics. These could always be changed at a later date, but the goal here would be to get things almost completely done. The cons for this one is that there would be literally no community comment on these ordinance changes, which I don't think is a very good idea at all... Another con is that Councilor Kennedy stated that reworking the C/I Zone would take a LOT of work and likely would not be done in a quality way by the time it would need to be adopted.

c.) The final option was to draft some language to update the ordinance, or adopt the interim ordinance as permanent with the expectation that this is a stop-gap measure to offer basic protections until the community has an opportunity to weigh in on how the C/I Zone should function. Pros of this approach would be that the community would still get to weigh in and ultimately have the decision of what happens in the C/I Zone and there would be basic protections against "unwanted" developments in the meantime. The cons for this is that we will be stuck with inadequate ordinance language for a time. Councilor Kennedy also mentioned that he thought it would be hard to even get this done unless we adopted the interim ordinance as a permanent ordinance, which I don't believe everyone wants.
*It seems that a.) and c.) are the only real options here. We will continue this conversation and will make a decision on this early in 2017.

Also, the Council appointed Councilor Mills to be considered for the County's new Parks and Trails Commission. He was concerned about the time investment, but was very interested in being a part of it. His qualification would be that he is the City Park Department representative and having that uniformity would be really valuable.


On to updates:

Councilor Mills reported that there was a Park Board meeting where they talked about the Greater Minnesota Parks and Trails application for funding. They are working on the Park Master Plan to make sure that it is appropriate for the application for funding to accomplish some of the major goals of this plan.
Mills acknowledged that Park Director Tersteeg does incredible work there and has been incredibly important to the visioning process for the park. Big kudos to him.

Mills also went to a Northwoods Food Project meeting where they were looking at how agricultural land is assessed in the County. There is state language that oversees this, but that language doesn't address most of the unique characteristics of our land up here and that should be looked at to see if there are other ways to categorize agricultural land to better meet what that looks like up here.


Councilor Moody reported on the EDA meeting where they discussed their budget concerns and was wondering how joint agreements between the City and the County would be affected in the instance that the County cuts its funding to joint entities... There isn't really any answer to that question, but my response was that it is in the interest of the City to budget for expected expenses. If the County cuts funding for something, the agreements that we have would have to be looked at to see if we are expected to commit less as well.


Councilor Kennedy reported that he will be going to a walkable community presentation on Friday to see how we can improve walkability in Grand Marais as a part of the Hwy 61 process and on a policy level for the City. There is also a bikeable community workshop that the City can apply to have brought to town. There was interest in this, so I believe that the City will apply for this.


Administrator Roth had a update on the Community Visioning process, which has identified a great number of events at which the City can do some information gathering. I went to the snowmobile club rally (great raffle prizes by the way!), we went to Ruby's Pantry, I am looking for an opportunity to go to the Senior Center for lunch to gather information... and many others! If you have any ideas for ways the City can engage with residents, PLEASE LET ME KNOW!


My update had a number of items:
-The Nordic Nature Group, a group of young homeschooled students, approached the City to take part in a survey to get a "grade" based on our sustainability and environmental awareness as a city. I have done this survey and we will be getting our grade early in 2017, which will have suggestions for ways the City can improve these elements of the City.

-I attended a CrimeNet Meeting, which is the state policy board that oversees how the state works on improving information systems for law enforcement. They are having many conversations about what the end game is for that group and who is going to pay for it. They have made incredible steps forward in getting the correct information to the correct people as fast as possible so that law enforcement becomes more accurate, more efficient, and safer.

-I have had a number of conversations about stormwater stuff concerning the City and have gotten a lot of ideas pertaining to how we could improve the overall stormwater situation. Thank you for that input!

-There is a grant available for the City for sustainable development. This could be used to assist with the renewable energy aspects being considered for City buildings.

-CCLEP has also said that they are interested in helping gather information with regard to these sustainability efforts.

-I may be doing a proclamation to celebrate School Choice Week in January. It is supposed to be a day that celebrates the choices we have for education in our community.

That was it for that meeting! As always, please let me know if you have any questions or comments.

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Conversations About Stormwater Solutions

After this particularly wet fall there has been a lot of conversation happening about the downtown flooding concentrated in the municipal parking lot. 
Downtown flood 1960

I wanted to take a moment and bring everyone up to speed on where we are with this and the conversation / planning that has been taking place in regard to the situation. 

*I want to make it clear that this is a summary. There is a great deal more information in the form of engineering reports and past project planning that I will mention, but don't have the space here or the training to be able to do much more than that... I will do my best though.

Historically the area where the Municipal Parking Lot is located was a pond. There are several photos at the historical society that show young people skating on what is now the parking lot. The photo below may give some idea of the historical condition of that area. These ponds were (and still are) the low points for the downtown and functioned as the water collection point for the downtown. There was also a canal that ran across town in order to assist the draining of the area. Eventually the pond was filled in and the resulting gravel lot was often used as an overflow parking place and a venue for large trucks to get dirty. The area still served the same purpose though: collecting stormwater.
Bally in center, parking lot right, City Hall left

In 2001 the City performed a comprehensive stormwater management plan that provided description/analysis of the hydrology in the area, the watersheds and their boundaries, locations of concern, and roughly 20 pages of proposed actions that could be taken to mitigate the problems that were happening with stormwater. 

These included actions that would improve the efficiency of the creek and stream system around town, that would direct the continued development of the City's stormwater sewer system, proposals to assist the City in not exasperating the problems when there is future development, the need for retention ponds throughout town (which transformed into rain gardens...), and a number of ordinance and best practices for the City Council to adopt to make the plan effective. 

As a result of this stormwater plan the City invested significant resources and sought grant funding to actualize some of these recommendations, which helped fulfill the goal of improving the water quality of Lake Superior around the City.

Also as a result of this plan the City did a complimentary drainage analysis in 2002 with the intent of:
-Reviewing the capacity of the existing storm drainage system that conveys water from the east downtown area to Lake Superior.
-Determine what improvements could be made to increase the drainage system capacity and reduce the periodic flooding that occurs within the downtown areas.
-Provide preliminary construction cost estimates for potential drainage improvements. 

This analysis showed that the first floor of City Hall is at 606' above sea level, the low point of the parking lot is at 604', and the storage pond (behind the Coop and Stone Harbor) is at 602 feet. In 2002 the average water level of Lake Superior was around between 600' and 601'. That means that when the pond fully drains out, it would have about 3-4 feet worth of water storage in the pond, or about 8,215 sq. ft. of storage... Now, that doesn't mean a lot to me, but it certainly doesn't seem like a lot to handle the draining of that area... It worked decently well though. With the paving complete and with an improved storm drainage system in place, that area was no longer the swampy, muddy, gravel lot that it was previously and suffered with only occasional flooding that would quickly drain. 

In 2007 the City performed another, not quite as complex Stormwater Management Plan based on identifying projects that the City could perform to continue improving the stormwater situation. This list of projects included a lot of culvert replacement, ditching, dredging, and berming that would slow down the stormwater before it hit the downtown area and the lake. Even though our rain events were becoming more severe even in 2007, the lake level in 2007 set the record for the lowest water level ever in February at 599.7'. This low lake level increased the storage volume of the downtown storage pond. 

Since 2007 the lake level has rebounded to near, or above the 602' level, the highest in a seventeen year period, which reduces the storage in that pond. Likewise, there has been more paving happening in the downtown area, which decreases infiltration and increases runoff. In addition, our rain events have become more extreme. All of these things correlate with and explain the increased occasion of flooding in the parking lot. 

In 2009 the City revisited and reassessed the Stormwater Management Plan, but mainly to check off things that had been done. 

At our last City Council meeting Cook County Soil and Water approached the City Council to encourage the City to weigh in on potentially getting some funding from the State to refresh our stormwater plan with the changed reality of higher lake levels and more severe weather events (we have had three "50+ year" weather events in the past 10 years...).  The Council identified this as a prudent action because our problems will likely only get worse unless we identify real solutions for the struggles that we are having right now. As a result, the City will be working with the County Soil and Water Department to pursue funding to do this study. 

Within the scope of Comprehensive Planning and Community Visioning, the Council feels pretty comfortable that it is a priority of the City's residents and business owners to manage our stormwater more effectively either to maintain our drinking water source, or to prevent property damage. (The Council has already heard from several residents and business owners that stormwater infrastructure is a major concern of theirs).


So, that is the history, where do we go RIGHT NOW with this problem?

I have been discussing this issue with several engineers across the state and have received several ideas both anecdotally and actually. This is a brief summary of the most viable of these ideas:


Hwy 61 Redesign-- The idea of using the Hwy 61 Redesign as a tool to effectively cut off all stormwater coming down the hill from ending up in the parking lot is a great idea and will definitely be included in the 2019 project. There are a few problems with this proposal though: a.) 2019 is a long time away and b.) where are we going to send that water? 
I believe that we cannot wait until 2019 to find a solution to this problem, but we can definitely still put elements of a solution into the redesign. When it gets included, how are we going to get all of that run-off into the lake without dumping a huge amount of sediment and other pollutants from our streets directly into our drinking water source? It would likely require a large (or larger than currently exists) culvert to run under the downtown area with some kind of filtration... As you can see, this is an element of the solution, but not the solution itself...


One of our local business owners, an engineer himself, proposed a solution that included connecting the storm drainage pipe that empties into the pond to a pump that would, when triggered by a flooding parking lot water level, would pump the water into the pond, thus artificially elevating the pond until infiltration brings the level back down. This would require some pretty significant engineering and equipment, as well as maintenance on said equipment, but I do definitely see that this would be a way to solve the situation... if we can pump enough water into that pond to not flood the back sides of the businesses there...


Another engineer advised me more on the theory of the situation than an actual plan. He stated that there are three things at work here:
1. Too much area draining to the parking lot
2. Too much water entering the drainfield too quickly
3. Infiltration happening too slowly
As for the area draining to the parking lot... well, I believe that we addressed that in the Hwy 61 Redesign idea. As far as the speed of the water is concerned, we could dig ditches... but we live on a hill. It can be hard to beat gravity... As for infiltration happening too slowly, well, we want slower infiltration because fast infiltration doesn't catch all of the pollutants... These are the ideas we have to work with though. It is good to have them identified.


Yet another engineer that I spoke with sought to find a more cost effective solution with minimal compromises. 

We talked about three concepts: 
1)      Dredge the pond in the hopes of improving its ability to release water
2)      Increase the amount of live storage by enlarging the pond, using the land to the northeast
3)      Create a spillway to release water at a certain elevation
We agreed that the most attractive approach seemed to be to do both 1 and 3. Increasing the size of the pond would likely not give us the increased storage we need and would change the nature of that area to a point that it may create other issues. 

I do not believe that the pond has been dredged in many years though, and it may very well be clogged up with silt and sediment, thus hampering its ability to drain properly. Removing the accumulated sediment would be a good idea anyway as that sediment probably contains most of the pollutants from the parking lot all of these years. Removing it wouldn't have a significant impact on the pond's ability to filter either as the pond was designed without the soil in there...

The spillway. An interesting idea and one that was included in the stormwater analysis in 2002. However the 2002 plan wanted to put a massive concrete structure on the beach and a Tideflex valve to drain the pond in cases of overflow. This wasn't a popular idea because it wasn't beautiful (as you can see from the photo) and it was extremely expensive. The Council at the time was not convinced that the lake wouldn't just pummel that thing and break it within a few years either, so nothing was built. 

This engineer believes that the City can, for not a lot of money, landscape a spillway (a low spot armored with an articulated revetment mattress like on the Gunflint Trail ditches) into the east wall of the pond at a height of about 605' so there would be maximum water retention in the pond for normal weather events and an overflow that would stem the flooding in the parking lot.

But what about the pollution in the overflow water? Well, that is the compromise on this plan, but it may be as bad as you may think. This is how it was explained to me:

When you get a rain event the first flush of the rain will succeed in washing off most of the junk from the roads. After that there is very little left on the roads to be problematic. The pond has already proven itself able to handle most of our rain events up here, but is increasingly unable to handle the massive weather that we have been seeing. In the cases of these floods in the parking lot there is either a tremendous amount of water in a short time, in which case most of that water is going to pour directly into the lake without being treated because of its velocity OR there is a long, continuous rain, in which case most of the pollutants will be washed out and filtered as the pond does its work. It would likely be relatively clean water that would be overflowing because of the pond's ability to allow the pollutants to settle...

I understand that this may be a rose-colored-glasses approach to this and there haven't been any formal plans written up for any of these suggestions (other than the Hwy 61 project... MN DOT knows we want to do stormwater there...) nor has the Council voted on any of these ideas, and there would likely need to be some kind of engineering done on this project so we can be sure that it will function like we want it to and so it won't be a waste of time and money. 

The proposal of the dredging and the spillway would be, by far, the cheapest option here, aside from doing nothing. 

We need to ask ourselves a few questions about this situation:
1. How much money is it worth to have the parking lot not  flood even though it was designed to be additional stormwater storage space?

2. How much water are we ok with in that parking lot?

The correlation between these two questions is important. If we are ok with the occasional 2 feet of water in the parking lot, then we don't have to spend any money and we leave it as it is. We already know that this isn't how a lot of people feel.

If we are ok with the occasional 1 foot of water in the center of the parking lot, then we can pursue mitigation efforts that are aimed at slowing down the water coming down the hill for a minimal investment and not focus on a redesign of the pond.

If we don't want any water in the parking lot at any time (this seems to be the leading perspective), then we are likely looking at a redesign of the pond of some sort and efforts to slow/divert the water from the downtown area at a larger expense. 


I think that is about it. I hope that wasn't too boring. If you made it all of the way through... wow. You are dedicated! I would love to hear your thoughts on potential solutions for the stormwater situation if you have any that differ greatly from the ones proposed here.