Wednesday, December 17, 2008

December 16, 2008 Council Meeting

Dec 16 2008 meeting took about 40 minutes from start to finish. These are my comments on the meeting.

Gene spoke for Public works, and briefly talked about snow plowing. They have done a good job this year. I mentioned to Gene that a home owner on Seville told me that his power was low in his house. Normal is about 120 volts, and the home owner has been measuring as low as 102 volts. Gene said that they are aware of the problem and are working on it with the home owner.

Shari spoke for the Library Board, and said that the “Finest of Times” is out. There is a Christmas Oragami class December 17 at 4pm, the 28th annual Christmas Party is at the library December 20 at 2:15pm, and the library is showing movies at 2pm December 29, 30 and 31. All movies are rated PG. Also, the library has a new online book club that had over 500 visits last month.

The first order of business was a resolution in support of the Polymet Mining project. The resolution was approved 3-0, with Shari and myself abstaining. I own some stock in Polymet (apparently so does Shari), and I thought that it would be unethical to ask the State Legislature to support the project when I could get some (very small) financial gain.

Next was a resolution approving the results of the City of Buhl recount. The resolution passed 4-0, with an abstain vote from me. Since the recount was due to a very close vote involving me, I did not think it was right for me to vote on the resolution.

We had a brief discussion of the Sheriff’s contract for Buhl. The Mayor and City Clerk gave our issues to the representatives of the Sheriff, and he hasn’t gotten back to us yet.

Next we talked about future bonding projects for the City. The City Clerk (Mike) thought that it would be best to not go forward with any bonding projects right now. Mike told us that it is possible that the State of MN could cut our 2008 Local Government Aid (LGA) by $8000-50,000. Next year will be (most likely) a lot bigger cut. So, Mike thought that it would be best to hold off on any new bonding/spending until we get a good idea of how much money we will get in LGA. The council agreed.

We transferred $24,933.59 from the sewer savings account to the general checking account sewer fund to pay some sewer bills.

We reviewed the new Waste Management contract, and Buhl’s Attorney (Al) asked us to hold off on agreeing to the new contract. Al wants clarification of some of the language in the new contract. The council agreed to hold off on approving the contract.

We reviewed the new Mesabi Humane Society contract. Al again asked that we hold off approving the contract due to some issues that were unclear. The biggest issue Al has is with a “Release of Liability” statement in the contract that he believes would release Mesabi Humane Society from liability in their work and put their liability on the City of Buhl. Al will get this issued cleared up, and the council tabled it for now.

We paid a bill of $1154 to Gobel Excavating for work at the assisted living facility.

We paid $416.01 to RLK for services on the Buhl Stubler Pit Project.

We paid $632.32 to RLK for services on the State Street Area Utility Improvements.

We paid $168.75 to RLK for services on the Damiens Addition Drainage Improvements.

We paid $4705 to RLK for services on the East Monroe Street.

We then set up a special council meeting for December 29, 2008 at 5:30pm so that we can pay 2008 bills before 2009 gets here.

We agreed to send Gene P. to the MRWA Water/Wastewater Technical Conference in St Cloud. Gene needs this training to keep his license up to date.

We agreed to spend $34,897 from Mining Effects money for the Damian Addition Drainage Project. We had agreed to do this earlier in the year, but had not made the motion yet.

We agreed to spend the remaining 2008 Mining Effects money on the Water/Sewer Project that the City did in 2008. That remaining amount of money was $2709.

We agreed to have Sterle & Co. do the 2008 audit for the City of Buhl at a cost of $7150. Last year the cost was $6950.

After the meeting I spoke with Al (City Attorney) about the ambulance aid agreement with the City of Kinney. He is waiting (like the rest of us) for the City of Kinney to let our City Clerk know when we can have a meeting on this issue. The meeting should have every interested party involved so that we can finally hammer out the agreement.

That’s it for December 16, 2009.

2 comments:

JannaP said...

Chris,

A section of the walking trail around Stubler (near the rope) is still tore up. Is that going to be fixed in the spring sometime? ;)

Chris Primeau said...

The contractor is still owed money for the project. Before the contractor gets paid in full, the walking trail will be fixed and the rocks near the trail will be removed.