Tower City council holds second meeting in October
OCTOBER 29, 2018 — A full Tower City Council met on Monday of this week in its second meeting of the month. The first item of business the council completed was accepting a bid totaling $679,284.25 from Nordic Group, Inc., a Service-Disabled, Veteran-Owned Small (construction) Business located in Hermantown, MN. The project is funded by a grant of $680,000 from the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources.
The project will establish a new trail connecting the city’s East Two River harbor to the existing hiking and biking trail to Hoodoo Point and Soudan. When completed the project will connect the Harbor, trails, new boardwalk on the East Two River and install attractive lighting around and provide historical and geological interpretive signs to create a unique recreational and educational attraction for the community and visitors.
The city council again visited the issue of the balance of Dave Rose’s deposit for planning and zoning and engineering fees incurred over the last three years. When it became obvious that the city would be expending a significant amount of time and money as Rose attempted to develop a East Two River campground the city council required that he make a deposit from which payments to SEH Engineering could be made. During the meeting Rose requested that the balance of his planning and zoning escrow account be returned to him as he does not intend to develop his property at this time. Reviewing its expenses for the Rose project the city determining that the current escrow account balance is now at $3,163.75. The city was ready to refund the balance but Rose said that he should not have to pay any amount claiming that his was the first project where the city required any engineering deposit and then simultaneously spent thousands to assist development along the harbor. Rose changed his mind, and said that he believed a new council might be easier to work with and asked the city to leave his escrow account intact. The city tabled making any decision on the issue.
Alderman Kevin Fitton made it known that he favored cutting a check to Rose for the balance. “I sit on Planning and Zoning and we have spent hours and hours and hours and hours and hours on the project,” Fitton said, justifying the engineering costs being charged to Rose.
City Clerk-Treasurer Linda Keith reported that the fees charged to the escrow were only for work that SEH engineering spent working directly on the campground project, its Environmental Assessment Worksheet, and that she also spent over $6,000 in city time assisting Rose ready his proposal for review.
Mayor Josh Carlson said that agreed with Fitton. “This (engineering fee) is exactly why we asked for the escrow in the first place,” Carlson said.
The city council then unanimously voted to return the balance of the Rose Campground escrow account to Rose.
The city has utilized the Tower Harbor Committee to handle much of the planning and negotiations on the Tower Harbor Condominium Project then, sometime over the past summer, the city council began the practice of negotiating with Tower Vision 2025 during the regular, open city council meeting as a reaction to near chronic open meeting violation complaints from Marshall Helmberger. This new policy found the city council working through a telephone conference call discussion with its Fryberger Law Firm attorneys during this meeting. The city wanted legal council to solidify language the city wants to use in completing a new development agreement with Tower Vision 2025. Mayoral candidate Orlyn Kringstad spoke on “behalf of his partners” at Tower Vision 2025. Last week, at a candidates forum held on the upcoming city election, Kringstad made the announcement that he had divested himself from Tower Vision 2025. Five days later, the Monday city council meeting, however, found him still representing Tower Vision 2025.
Concluding a lengthy conversation with its attorneys, the city council established a development timeline which will commence in April 2019 and see phase one of the project completed by July 2020. The city also decided that it would recommend that St. Louis county forgive 100 percent of the property taxes on the condominiums for 10 years and the city will abate 65 percent of its taxes, over the first 10 year period of the completed project. It should be noted that the city’s attorneys were clearly not optimistic about receiving a 100 percent tax abatement from St. Louis County. Tax abatements are being considered to allow the developer to install its own infrastructure, rather than having the city install infrastructure, because the developer(s) have been reluctant to provide the city with their financial information. Without St. Louis County’s willingness to participate in full tax abatement the project might well face an insurmountable obstacle.
In other action, The Tower City Council:
• Determined that it would move forward towards demolition of two residential structures by authorizing the expenditure of $2,250 to conduct asbestos testing on the properties. Should the city move forward with demolition it expects it will cost the city $10,000, or more, if asbestos is found. Once the asbestos status is determined the city can determine accurate demolition costs
• Accepted a State of Minnesota grant of $1,725 on behalf of the Howard Wagoner Trails Club for grooming the Howard Wagoner Ski Trail over the 2018-2019 winter season
• Approved the resignations of Jason Picard and Tera Kultala from the Tower Fire Department because each firefighter has now moved away from the department’s service area
• Approved the application of Steve Syverson as a new Tower Fire Department firefighter
• Reviewed and approved the new list of authorized users and the new list of those officers authorized to manage the Fire Department’s petty cash account
• Reviewed correspondence from the United States 2020 Census officials. The city council learned that the city needs to be diligent in assuring that every citizen of Tower is counted as Local Government Aid is proportioned based on population.