Council and Library

Our regular meeting on Feb 7, 2012 went quickly and was pretty smooth. We had a presentation from a company that wants to create a Buhl website. Councilor White thought that was a great idea and the board agreed. We handed that over to the economic development authority (BEDA).

We had a brief discussion concerning a current employee in regards to the number of total hours the employee has earned toward retirement. That issue was turned over to the personnel committee and then to the city attorney. So far there has not been a decision.

We condemned a building that had mostly burned down. Our goal is to remove the building, but we need to follow the proper laws first.

A company sold us wireless utility meter readers two years ago for $14,000. We no longer need these meter readers and that same company has graciously offered to buy them back for $1500. Guess what we told them.

We did not approve a new ordinance requiring address numbers on houses. We didn't want to "big brother" the tax payers of Buhl, but if you have a home and don't have an address number, it makes it tough for the 911 caller to find you.

That was the highlights from the meeting. In Buhl, you can watch the meeting on local public cable.

I am also a member of the Library Board, and we had a meeting Feb 9, 2012. The library has two new librarians and they are doing a great job cleaning up and operating the library. So the Library Board doesn't have to worry about a lot of the day to day decisions. We still need another board member, so don't all volunteer at once.

That's about it. Let me know what ya think.

Library Director

Last night the Buhl library board hired a new library director and a library assistant. The two new employees will be trained by an Arrowhead Library System employee on the overall library system and will get a lot of assistance from the library board on the specifics of the Buhl Library.

Our library will be open 35 hours a week, but the specific hours have not been set yet. Our hope is that the new employees will open the library November 28, but that is pending due to a couple of new employee requirements that must be met first.

So next week you can run to the library and get your fix of books, magazines, online research and general socializing with other Buhl residents and our new librarians.

Mining Effects Dollars

Like most Iron Range cities, Buhl receives money from mining that is labeled "Mining Effects" money. This year that amounts to $30k that must be spent within Buhl on things that helps Buhl and other communities. During the October 27 2011 meeting, the council voted to spend $14,779 rehabbing Well #1. This well provides water to the city and needs maintenance.

The other $15,221 was designated to the recreation department. There are many things the rec department would like to accomplish including repair of the baseball fields, making a winter sledding hill, buying more playground equipment. I attended a rec board meeting last night (Nov 2) and there were lots of ideas on how to best spend some of that money for the kids. If you have ideas, post them here.

On to the Library

Been awhile since there was a new post, but I am going to try to get this going again. I am on the library board now, and we are looking for a new Library Director. The board spent a couple of meetings discussing many aspects of the library like the number of hours of operation, the budget, types of employee/employees, job descriptions and a lot of other things. We came to a few decisions and left some others open.

First the new Library Director. We are looking for a part time 20-30 hour per week person that can run the library under the not so direct supervision of the library board. The Director should have a lot of energy, be outgoing, and have some experience in a library setting. Our thoughts are that the new Director will assist us in hiring another employee, a roughly 15 hour per week library assistant. Using two employees will help with library hours and continuity if one of the employees decides to take another job at some time in the future.

One of the things we didn't discuss but an idea that another bright person had was to integrate the library and recreation department on some level. Moving that idea forward, it might be possible to have our second employee also work for the recreation department part time and be a Buhl recreation director. We have great volunteers in Buhl that handle our recreation department now, but it's a lot of work and we seem to burn the volunteers out quick. A paid recreation director could take a lot of the pressure off the volunteers.

The library board has initially decided to continue the 35 hour per week library schedule, but we are going to strictly monitor the usage and try to find the best days and times to serve the residents. It won't be easy.

We aren't sure if we can stay in the Arrowhead Library System in 2012 since we will not meet the MN State mandated maintenance of effort. The maintenance of effort is the amount of money that the City of Buhl must give the library, based on the amount the City gave the library the previous year. We will be short about $7000, and the Arrowhead Library System could kick our library out of their group of libraries. Time will tell.

I think my old posts were too long, which made it tough for me to write. So I am going to make shorter posts from now on. Let me know what you think.

Chris

September 1, 2009 Council Meeting

It's been few meetings since I last wrote about one. Summer life is busy, and I'm kind of lazy. But here's my account of the latest council meeting.

The mayor started off by reading a nice letter from parents of a Buhl baseball player. The parents thanked Buhl, but mostly the baseball coach Jessie W. for the fun positive season.

Next, George from Northland Securities talked to the council about refinancing two of our bonds. The terms would stay the same on the bonds, but the interest rate would lower enough that the City would save @ $27,000 over the next decade. The council approved moving forward with a more detailed study, and if all is as George said I suspect the council will approve the refinancing of the bonds.

We approved a change order for the Frantz St improvements. The contractor needed to replace a culvert that goes under Presidents Ave. The cost for the change was $1827.00.

Then we paid a partial payment for the road and improvements projects going on in Buhl for a total partial payment of $147,160.01.

Next we discussed the fiscal 2010 budget and tried to set a preliminary levy. In the end we did not set the levy because the request was for a 21% increase from last year. The preliminary levy setting is strange to start with. A proposed levy is set to meet a State of MN deadline (Sept 15 this year). Then we go through each and every dollar of the budget to try to trim wherever we can. This year, with a preliminary request 21% higher than last year, our two new council members decided that they would not vote for the levy. Good. I have tried every year since I have been on the council to set a more realistic preliminary request, and I have failed every year to get more than 2 votes. I am glad to see that Jessie and Colin want the same thing.

We will get together 1 hour before the next council meeting and try to work out a better, more realistic preliminary levy request. Believe it or not, the council has done a good job of keeping spending down. We spent less last year than we did in 2006 or 2008. The request this year is for less than either of those years or 2009. But our revenue goes down every year, so we need to continue to find ways to cut.

One very interesting thing is, if you go to this web site http://www.lmc.org/page/1/property-tax-calc-iframe.jsp and select Buhl, every year available, and put in $100,000 (or any home price), you can see that the taxes in Buhl are MUCH lower now than they were in 1997. Still, we need to keep taxes low so we can continue to being new homeowners to Buhl.

Next we passed a Resolution to give $165,000 in loan money to St Louis County. The reason we did this is a bit complicated. Buhl gets $893.83 per month from Kids Peace, and in turn Buhl must loan that money out to private companies for things like infrastructure, loan guarantees, interest buy downs and other things a private company may need. The problem is that with only two people working for the City in administrative positions, we just don't have the staffing and knowledge to make these loans. So, we gave the money to the county, and they will make the loans. We couldn't use the money ourselves (I asked), so it was best to let the county run the program.

The water tower needs work, so we worked out a way to use some Mining Effects funds to get the inside of the water tower fixed. Then next year we will pay to have the outside of the tower painted. The total is $41,000 for inside and out.

Next, we okayed a new City warehouse for $33,900 that will be located just west of the #2 pump house. It might seem crazy to spend money on a new building now, but with many thousands of dollars of equipment and parts sitting outside in the weather, we need another storage building. If we can increase the life cycle of our equipment and make each of them last one or two years longer, then the new building will be well worth it.

We approved $1008.00 for new rubber mats on the skateboard ramps at the park. The old mats are worn out through use, not abuse. It's good to see the kids using the park.

We paid $33,014.00 to the League of MN Cities for our insurance.

We talked about starting a new program for administrative traffic citations. This would allow the Sheriff to give citations of $60 to speeders, stop sign runners etc instead of tickets. Then the City would collect $40 of that. The council took no action. After hearing the discussion and reading the materials provided, I am not all that positive on this program.

Next we briefly talked about a curfew ordinance, but it was tabled do to lack of support.

We approved a grant proposal for the senior center for automatic doors. The bid for the doors is $1950, and a grant should pay for that.

We reviewed the Long Range Planning minutes and made a recommendation to have the City Attorney pursue lien forfeiture by the lien holders of the old nursing home. If they will forfeit their liens, then we can tear the old building down. It needs to be torn down because it has quickly become a hazard.

We approved the receipt of a $100,000 grant from the Central Iron Range Sanitary Sewer District. We will use that money and another $100,000 CDBG grant to fix sanitary sewer lines in Buhl. The council approved going out for bids on those sewer lines.

Finally, we approved a $15,870 contribution to the Buhl Fire Relief Association to be paid next year. This is the first time I can remember approving the payment of a bill for the next year, but we did.

That was it. Come to the meeting on September 15, 2009 at 5:30 and let us know what you think about next years levy.

Council Meeting June 2, 2009

The meeting started 30 minutes early so that we could review the 2008 Fianancial Audit. Sterle and Company did our audit as they have every year since I have been on the council. The audit is available to anyone at City Hall, so I am not going to review it here. However, the audit was positive for 2008 without any real concerns. Buhl still has a fairly substantial amount of cash reserves and the auditor did not find any real problems.

Gene P spoke for Public Works to start the regular meeting. He told us that the boat landing was in, the camp ground is open, and alley cleanup was going well. He also let us know that he hired 4 people for summer help at $7.50/hour.

Mike L. spoke for the Fire/Ambulance and let us know that hydrant flushing would take place the week of June 7. Mike explained that there are 60 hydrants and it takes a lot of time and effort. So, two individuals would be paid the regular hourly rate for this work. Mike also asked for an additional $921 for the new fire truck for chassis wiring, radio install and wheel protectors. The council approved this spending and the new fire truck should be delivered this month. The final cost is @$120,000. I did not write down the exact cost but you can phone City Hall to find out.

Next up….the Rec Board asked to spend $1100 on new swings for the playground equipment. This amount was in the Rec Departments budget request for the year, so the board approved this purchase.

The meeting then went into a series of resolutions for improvements to East Monroe Drive, Frantz Street, President's Avenue and South Memorial Drive. Each project had three resolutions, and they were:

A resolution approving plans and specifications and ordering advertisement for bids.
A resolution declaring cost to be assessed and ordering preparation of proposed assessment.
A resolution for hearing on the proposed assessment.

Each project’s resolutions were passed, with the hearings to be held June 30 at the Senior Center starting at 5pm.

The total costs of the projects are estimated to be:

East Monroe Drive - $130,765
Frantz Street - $324,000
President’s Avenue – 120,000
South Memorial Drive - $75,000

The total cost estimate is $649,765, with $480,000 filled by various grants.

Next was final payment for the Stubler Pit project of $18,922.76. I asked the city engineer about the large rocks still in a pile down at Stubler and I told him that the walking trail had still not been repaired. Early on in the project, we had assurances that the “trail” would be repaired after the project was complete. There was some misunderstanding on this, as the engineer thought we were talking about the Mesabi Bike Trail, not the walking trail. An agreement was reached that will have the City Crew repair the walking trail using funds withheld from the final payment. The rocks were left, as the engineer did not believe that the contract enforced moving the rocks from the site.

I walked the trail last week, and the repairs have been completed.

Next up the council approved the purchase of a new lawnmower for $5628.52. The old lawnmower finally gave up, so the purchase was needed.

During the summer months there will be only one meeting a month….so next up the council had to approve the payments of certain regular bills for the months of June, July and August. These bills are telephone, waste, energy etc….normal monthly bills. The council approved this.

Last on the agenda was the City’s membership dues for the Minnesota Association of Small Cities. The total for the year is $562.35, which the council approved. This association lobbies the State Legislature on behalf of small cities, which gives us a larger voice in Minneapolis.

That was it, let me know what you think.

April 21, 2009 Council Meeting

This council meeting was highlighted by the new Animal Ordinance, which I will review later in the post. The meeting started with the reports from the department heads. The Long Range Planning committee accepted Gene Mathews as a member as nominated by Mayor Pulford.



The Sheriff reported that it is time to get busy on blight enforcement again. Also, the Sheriff Department wants to rent the BEDA room for $150/month. The council voted to except that proposal.



The first order of business was Mr Troutwine from C&B Warehouse. Mr Troutwine has purchased the property at the corner of HWY 169 and Forest from the City. The term of the purchase was that Mr Troutwine would have until the end of 2009 to build a new Short Stop on the site, or the City would get the property back. Also, the cost of the site to Mr Troutwine ($14000) would be kept by the City even if the new Short Stop was not built. Mr Troutwine informed the Council that he did not think that he would be able to meet the timeline for the new Short Stop due to the current economic issues. Mr Troutwine will keep his option until the end of 2009, but he said that if the City were to find another buyer for the property, he would give up his option. So.... no new Short Stop for now.



Next up was a new Animal Control Ordinance. Buhl has a current ordinance that I think is not well written or specific enough to enforce. We need a better ordinance. However, the current ordinance is 2 1/4 pages, and the new ordinance is 11 1/2 pages. I think that the new ordinance is too long, too intrusive and I don't think it can be enforced. Some of the things in the new ordinance that I don't like are

• The penalty for a violation is $300 + prosecution costs + a separate offense for each day. This is the same as the current ordinance, but it could be a huge cost to a Buhl taxpayer if they violate the ordinance for a couple of days.


• If an animal is running at large, impounded and the owner is not found, the animal will be sold or disposed of (destroyed) after 5 days. This is almost the same language as the current ordinance but should be changed to give more time to find the owner and to allow for adoption of the pet.


• Any police or Animal Control Officer may enter upon private property and seize any animal provided certain things exist....one of the things is that the seizure will not involve the forced entry into a private residence. I guess my problem with that is, the animal can be seized if the front door is unlocked, or a youth answers the door... I can think of a couple of other problems with that. Seizing dangerous animals needs to happen, but seizing barking dogs or animals at large (off the leash) is going too far.


• The owner of a dangerous animal must have a hearing before the City Council. It would be better if the hearing were before a judge. After all, the person is guilty of a misdemeanor as an act of the City Council. They should not have to have a hearing before the same body.
• Any animal is subject to seizing if it is considered a nuisance. A nuisance can be habitual barking, a dog urinating on the lawn, a dog or cat in any way harming property. I'm not sure we should go that far.

There are other problems I have with the ordinance, and I will propose a separate ordinance or a re-written ordinance at the next council meeting.

The vote on the new animal control ordinance was 3-2 for passage, with Councilor Swanson and myself voting against. However, later in the meeting the Council agreed to rescind that vote and wait until the next meeting to discuss the ordinance in greater detail.

Next up was the posting of the ordinance in the newspaper. By law, all new ordinances must be posted in full, or they can be posted in summary if 4 out of 5 council members agree to the summary. Both Councilor Swanson and myself voted against a summary appearing in the newspaper, forcing all 12 pages of the animal ordinance to be printed in the newspaper. Since none of the council members wanted to spend that much money on posting the ordinance, we all agreed to wait until the next council meeting for both the passage and posting of the new ordinance. It was generous of Councilors White and Gramm to rescind the ordinance vote and agree to delay the vote until the next meeting.

So....at 6:00pm on May 5, the Council will discuss the new Animal Control Ordinance in an open meeting. Hopefully a representative of the St Louis County Sheriff Dept will be able to attend. Get your copies of the ordinance at City Hall.

Next up was the confirmation of an RLK work order for Frantz, East Monroe, Presidents Ave and South Memorial. The total cost of engineering for these four projects would be $43,100 if all four are approved. The public hearing on these projects is scheduled for April 28 at 5:00pm at the senior center.

The next agenda item was a donation request for the St Louis County Fair. The council agreed with a 4-1 vote to donate $100.00 to the fair for 2009.

An announcement of Pay Equity training was next. It was decided that any council member that wanted to attend the training May 15 in Duluth could go. The cost is $29/attendee.

That's it. I'm looking for some feedback.

April 7, 2009 Council Meeting

The meeting started with Public Works Gene P. telling about the summer help application process. The summer help workers will be able to submit applications to the City of Buhl by May 15 for summer work at $7.50/hour. The City will also be accepting bids on a white pickup for a minimum of $6500. Also, Spring Cleanup is June 1-4 with more details at City Hall.

In the Citizen's Forum, Thad H. from Buhl talked about a proposal for a new Disc Golf Course in Buhl. The course would be 18 holes, designed and paid for by the Hibbing Disc Golf Association (HDGA). This organization is a non-profit that receives grants to build courses. The course would be owned by Buhl, but mainly maintained by the Association, with Buhl responsible for mowing only. The HDGA would like to build the course around Judson Pit, but they are open to other areas for the course.

HDGA believes that the course would be of a large benefit to Buhl, and could be a potential money maker in the long term for the City. I have not made up my mind on this, and I have a lot of questions about the course and the long term ability of the City to maintain the course. I could use some feedback from you, so let me know what you think.

The first order of business was a Resolution supporting bills in the State of MN Legislature establishing the Central Iron Range Sanitary Sewer District. These bills really just re-established the district with new rules and guidelines. If there ever is a sanitary sewer district, Buhl will be part of it so that we don't have to build and maintain our own sewer plant. The resolution passed unanimously.

Next, the Buhl/Kinney Ambulance and First Responder Contract was approved. It provides guidance on how Kinney residents and Kinney City employees will work on the Buhl ambulance.

The next piece of business was a request from a Buhl citizen to purchase all 18 lots available in the Stubler development. The individual offered $161,000 for all 18 lots or $8900 each. To break even on the project, the City needs $325,000, or $18,000 per lot. The council invited the individual to the next meeting to discuss the issue.

Next up we talked about 2009 projects and which ones might be feasible. The City decided to move ahead with public hearings on each project. The projects are Frantz Street, East Monroe Drive, Presidents Avenue and South Memorial Drive. Each project will be completed if funding assistance is available from alternative resources such as the Federal Gov, State Gov, IRRRB etc.

There was also a discussion on assessments for the Presidents Avenue project, and it was decided that assessments of $2,000 were already completed on the homes on the south side of Presidents Ave. Those funds are in an account previously set aside for the paving of Presidents Avenue.

So we hade resolutions calling for public hearings on the improvements I mentioned above.

There was another resolution approving a community development block grant with St Louis County that gives Buhl $100,000 that will be used for sewer and water projects.

The City Clerk and City Finance Director were given raises equal to that of the City Contract employees. The raise was $.70/hour.

We paid two invoices to RLK. One for the East Monroe Street project for $262.50 and one for the Stubler Pit Project for $241.25.

We tabled a discussion on Quest high speed Internet. The person that had made the request rescinded the request.

There is an Economic Stimulus Resource Workshop on April 17, 2009 that the is being put on by IRR. This is open to all City workers and council members.

Before the meeting the personnel committee met some of the city workers and talked about the new Personnel Policy and the new Pay Plan. It has been and will continue to be a long process in getting these new policies in place. But the meeting went well and I hope to continue with the process in the next month or so.

Your feedback would be greatly appreciated.

March 17, 2009 Council Meeting

I am almost too late on this post, but here it is.

John M. started the meeting by telling us why State St is dark at night. The underground electric cable is damaged/broken and needs replacement. Johnny is working on a temp fix to get the lights on, then he will finish with a permanent fix.

The City Attorney (Al) let us know that the League of MN Cities did not find a problem with the ambulance contract between Kinney and Buhl. That should be finalized (finally) in April.

The agenda started with a discussion on the 2009 budget and the loss of $40,000 in LGA for Buhl. We decided to restrict spending as much as possible this year, and if there is a budget shortfall at the end of the year then we will transfer money from Buhl's savings to cover the shortfall.

Mayor Pulford gave us a copy of a Bill (HF 17) that will cover the Central Iron Range Sanitary Sewer District if it is passed. This District will provide sewer service to Hibbing, Chisholm, Buhl and Kinney. The cost of the sewer lines and work on the Hibbing sewer plant will be paid for by State, Federal and local dollars. Both Buhl and Chisholm need new plants, and this District will allow our sewer lines to be connected to Hibbing's plant. A new plant just for Buhl is @$2 million. So, either we use Hibbing's plant or build our own.

John M. gave us bids for electrical work in the City for the summer. This work is spread out mostly over the north side of Buhl. The total cost of the project is $103,726 and will be completed by Minnesota Power, with the money coming out of the Electric Fund.

Buhl's Clerk Mike then asked if we wanted him to put in for more CDBG grants for 2010. The discussion was centered around the fact that Buhl will lose another $40,000 in LGA next year and may not be able to match the CDBG grants as required. We decided that Mike should request additional CDBG grants for 2010, and we will see what we get. Then we will try to find the additional money within the City to match the grants. These grants are for community development, and we use them to fix our infrastructure problems.

The next discussion was on the Stubler Pit project and whether or not to pay the final payment of the contract. The final payment is $18,922, and we did not make the final payment yet. During our initial discussions on Stubler we were assured that the walking trail around Stubler would be repaired after all of the construction and as of now it has not been fixed. Also, there are dozens of very large rocks that should be removed from the site. This payment was tabled.

We paid an invoice for Frantz St improvements for engineering for a total of $806.

We talked about sending employees to water license training. The discussion was whether or not we should use training that is free, or use training that we need to pay for. We decided that the free training provided by Minnesota Rural Water Association was just as good as the fee for service training. Buhl employees will use the free training.

We paid the invoice for the new defibrillators that was purchased for the Fire/Ambulance Department. The Fire Department received a FEMA grant for $11,875 for this purchase. The entire purchase was $12,239.25, so the total cost to Buhl was $364.25.

Last was the resignation of a rec board member.

That was the entire meeting, let me know what you think.

March 3, 2009 Council Meeting

The last meeting took about 20 min, without any real hard issues. I quickly followed that up with the meat raffle at Billy's. Here goes.

The Buhl Fire Chief (Mike L) told us about a possible grant from the MN Board of Fire Fighters to help supplement the training of our fire fighters. He will let us know if we get any money from that grant.

The Sheriff report included praise for Buhl's Deputy Brock K. for his time spent at the Buhl skating rink during the recent winter fling. There was also a report on the Buhl squad car, and that it had to be repaired twice last month. Both times were electrical problems.

The first agenda issue as a handout that shows the cuts for LGA that Buhl will be facing in 2009 and 2010. For 2009 the cut will be @$40,000. In 2010 we expect a $90,000 cut. We will have to make some changes to the budget due to those cuts. The handout was for the council to look over and form some ideas.

Next we talked about changing the council meetings to just one day a month for June, July and August. We decided that we will do that if we can, and we will wait until May or so to make that decision.

We approved the Local Board of Appeal and Equalization meeting for May 5, 2009 at City Hall from 10-11 am.

We tabled an invoice from RLK for the Frantz Street improvement project. There was not enough information to determine what the invoice included.

That was it. Let me know what you think.

February 3, 2009 Council Meeting

Gene P. spoke for Public Works, and told us that the City is still working with MP&L on the electric service for a home in Buhl. The home owner has found that the power is typically low by about 13 or 14 volts.

The Recreation Board asked for $750 for a winter party called the Winter Frolic. The Council approved this.

The Sheriff told us that the Buhl Squad car is deteriorating, and we will need to purchase a new vehicle soon, most likely before next winter. The cost should be around $27,000. The current vehicle is a 2005 and has nearly 96,000 miles on it.

The Mayor informed everyone that Northland Village is open and taking new residents. Northland Village is an assisted living center located on the south side of Buhl near Hwy 169.

The agenda started with Shari informing the council that she spoke to the Police Chief for Chisholm concerning police protection. Shari had a few discussions with the Police Chief concerning service with their department and what the cost would be. The Chief told Shari that the total cost per year would be about $90,000, although he would need to know exactly what the Sheriff contract consisted of before he could give a specific bid. The Chisholm Chief of Police attended the meeting, but before he came to our meeting, he asked permission from the Chisholm City Council to attend and to come up with a bid package if the City of Buhl requested one.

This was the only real discussion of the meeting, and it ended with a vote to keep the Sheriff Department as the sole provider of Police protection for Buhl. The vote was 3-2 to keep the Sheriff and not accept a bid from Chisholm. Voting for Sheriff only protection was the mayor, Colin G. and Jesse W. Voting against was Shari S. and myself.

My issue was.... lets get as many bids as we can and take the lowest/best bid. In my opinion, nothing could be lost by asking Chisholm to bid on police protection. The Chisholm Chief said that it would be 24/7 service for $90,000/year. We currently pay the Sheriff Department $85,000/year for 40 hours of service. Additionally, we purchase a $25,000 vehicle every 4 years for the Sheriff, and the City of Buhl provides computer and other expensive ancillary equipment for the Sheriff that we would not have to provide to the Chisholm Police.

My point is this.... it is always in the best interest of the public to investigate competitive bids. We should not always accept the lowest bid, be we should always accept the best bid. The Mayor and other two council members decided that Buhl should not accept other bids.

As to the reasons for the vote. Colin G. did state his reasons for his vote, I disagreed with him, but that's ok. At least he told the public his reason for not wanting another bid. Jesse W. had a conflict over what he wanted to say, and what he wanted to state in public. He explained his vote to me in private after the meeting. I still think that we should have accepted a bid, however Jesse's reasons are valid and would have seriously influenced my decision to accept Chisholm as our police provider. The mayor though gave no reason for his vote.

I have been a Union Representative for 15 years. In that time, I have learned that you should never enter negotiations with a position on the subject. You should only have issues that need to be resolved. Our mayor always has a position, but rarely is open to discuss the issues. I'll continue to work on him.

Next we reviewed the 2008 budget and found that there was $12,404 left over at the end of 2008. Thanks to Mary, Mike and the whole City of Buhl crew, we once again ended the year with some money left over. If you see any of the crew, thank them for not over spending taxpayer money.

We briefly talked about the 2009 budget, and I have no reason to think that we will over spend in 2009.

We next talked about SWOP, the Summer Work Outreach Project. In the past, Buhl has given SWOP $500/year to do work around Buhl. For 2009, due to the current budget issues, we voted against giving money to SWOP.

Next we voted against giving money to the Chisholm, Buhl, Balken Summer Recreation program. Previously, we gave $1200/year to this program. A few years ago 8 or more Buhl children would attend this program. But last year only two attended daily. We decided that the money would be better spent on Buhl's summer rec program, if it is spent at all.

We did get some comments on the police issue from a concerned citizen, but the comments were after the vote, so there was no impact to the vote from this citizen.

Let me know what you think.

Buhl Personnel Policy and Salary Structure

I am currently working on the Buhl Personnel Policy and Salary Structure. Three years ago the Council decided that Buhl needed a written personnel policy, and Shari and I volunteered to work on it. The draft of that policy, along with a new salary structure and pay plan has been given to the City Council. It is available to anyone that wants to see it at Buhl City Hall, or email me and I'll send you a soft copy of the current draft versions.

The personnel policy is needed to protect the employees and their benefits, along with protecting the City from potential litigation. After working on the policy for some time, we found that we couldn't complete it without incorporating a more formal structured pay policy. This structure will allow the City to place a new employee within a salary area, and will allow the employee the chance to move to a higher pay area after the employee meets certain conditions. This salary structure/pay plan will give the City a greater degree of flexibility when dealing with employee's salary.

Please give me any comments that you may have.

January 20, 2009 Council Meeting

John Markas started the meeting with a list of five requests. First was a change in the sewer rates from $.0158/cubic foot over 100 cubic feet to $.0250/cubic foot over 100 cubic feet. The sewer fund lost money last year, so a rate increase was needed. The City of Buhl needs to keep the sewer fund making some money so that we can continue to maintain the sewer treatment plant. The Council approved this request.

The next thing John asked for was a new lawn mower to replace the 2003 mower Buhl owns now. The expected cost is $9000 with the trade in of the old mower worth about $4500 for a total of $4500 to the City. The Council approved this request.

John’s third request was for to put out a bid for rebuilding 7 blocks of power lines in Buhl. He expects the cost to be @$200,000. This money will come from the electric fund that currently has a balance of @$800,000. The Council approved the bidding process.

The forth request was for a sewer line jetter, with an estimated cost of $10,000. The Council approved this request.

Finally, John wanted to spend $2400 for auto dialers for the three sewer lift stations in Buhl. If a station fails, the auto dialer will call a pre-programmed number to let the City know that the station is broken. Last year, the lift station on East Monroe St failed due to a lightning storm, and some flooding occurred. These auto dialers should prevent another flooding from happening. The Council approved this purchase.

Buhl Fire Chief Mike L asked that the City join the North East Co-op for emergency equipment (I made up the emergency equipment part, Mike couldn't remember the entire Co-op name) for $75/year. This allows the Fire Department to purchase emergency gear for a reduced price. The Council approved this request.

The Sheriff asked for @$300 for a back lit keyboard for the Buhl squad car. This will keep the deputy from having to turn on the interior light to find the correct keys on the laptop in the squad. The Council approved this request.

The City Attorney Al gave a brief update on a couple of issues. The Waste Management contract was completed. The Kinney/Buhl ambulance service meeting is scheduled for Jan 29 at 4:30pm at the Buhl City Hall. Al reminded the Council about the proposed agreement/meeting with the boy scouts concerning Lake Leander. We need to schedule a meeting for that issue.

First on the agenda, Buhl’s fire chief Mike L asked for money for a new defibulator. The City of Buhl will initially pay $12,239.25 for the defibulator, and will be reimbursed for all but $612. So the total cost will be $612, and Buhl will receive a small portable defibulator to go along with the normal one. The Council approved this request.

Next was a discussion of an ambulance training policy. After some confusion (on my part) concerning the title of the policy “Ambulance Training Reimbursement Policy”, I made the motion to approve the policy, but to leave out the Reimbursement part in the title. Basically, the policy allows the ambulance employee that goes to the training to receive the cost of the training as payment. The policy calls for the payment to be treated as payroll by the City. For instance, if the cost of the training is $450, then the City pays for the training, is reimbursed by Minnesota’s Emergency Medical Services Board, then passes that $450 on to the employee as pay for their time. The cost for this comes out of the ambulance fund.

Next up was the City of Buhl Personnel Policy. When Contract negotiations took place last, the Council appointed Shari and myself to be the personnel committee for those negotiations. The Council also tasked the personnel committee to come up with a Personnel Policy for all City of Buhl employees. Not an easy task. Shari and I have worked with the City Attorney and the City Clerk to come up with the Personnel Policy and also a Pay Plan for City employees. These two documents were presented to the Council at the meeting.

Jesse White wants a more formal structure to what the personnel committee does. For instance, how long does the committee serve, how many council members are on the committee? So he and I will sit down and try to come up with a more structured plan for the committee. In the past, the committee was appointed by the Mayor to negotiate the City Contract with the Union. A new committee was appointed each time the contract negotiations took place.

The Council approved the new Waste Management contract, which provides garbage pickup for Buhl until Dec 14, 2014.

The Council agreed to an easement with Ziegler on the haul road near Whiteside. Ziegler will pay Buhl $4000 for 10 years of easement. This is a significant increase over the $100 for 10 years we received last time. The City Clerk and Mayor did a good job getting a large increase in this contract.

The Council approved the contracting of RLK as Buhl’s contract engineering company for 2009. The terms are the same as they were in 2008.

St Louis county asked Buhl if we wanted a voting machine to own for future elections. After I teased the City Clerk about the last election (all in fun), the Council approved the voting machine. The annual maintenance charge for the voting machine will be $40-50.

The Council transferred some money from a City capital fund for payment of the East Monroe Drive sewer improvements. The total transfer was $1926.07.

Finally, the Council approved a Knights of Columbus Bingo request for two dates in 2009.

Lots of typing, but the meeting was only 1 hour. Try to catch it on TV and let me know what you think.

January 6, 2009 Council Meeting

Well, not much happened at the last meeting. Jessie White wrote it up at his blog here http://buhlcouncilorjessewhite.blogspot.com/2009/01/jan-6-2009-city-council-meeting.html

The thing at the meeting that was not just bills and housekeeping was the snowblower for the rec department. Early in the meeting Gene P. spoke about the current snowblower that the rec department has for the hockey rinks. That snowblower was broken (not the first time), and Gene told us that the sewer plant had an extra one that the rec department could use while the regular snowblower was fixed. In the end , we voted to buy a new snowblower from Sears, a 33 inch Craftsman Professional for $1799.99. A lot of money spent at a time when we are trying to cut back.

Initially, I was not going to vote for a new blower. The more that I thought about it, and the more Jill from the rec department talked about the old blower, the more I changed my mind. My thought on this was the old "right tool for the right job". The old blower did not get the job done, and it takes a lot of man power to shovel out all that snow. Extra man power means extra people working at $7.00-$8.00/ hour. Two or three extra people 7-8 times a year and that turns into real money. Plus, the old snowblower just isn't made for cleaning that much snow. That was my thought process during the discussion. More staffing = more money in wages.

Besides the snowblower, the only other thing that I am really looking for input on is the Buhl Economic Development Agency (BEDA) that Jesse, Tom H. and myself were named to. I have been on BEDA for 4 years now, and I find it a difficult board to be on. Really, every person on the board tries hard, but we are all amateurs at economic development. The question is.... what is the best way to get some new businesses into Buhl? We have some land to sell, we have the South Industrial Park to fill up and the Whiteside Industrial Park too. We also have some commercial property in the City, but finding businesses to come to Buhl is not easy.

I thought that BEDA could offer financial incentives to people to find businesses that would come (and stay) in Buhl, sort of a "finder's fee". Say you were to find a business that would move to Buhl, that business came to BEDA and we were able to find them a building or building site, and the business stayed in Buhl for 1 year. Maybe BEDA could pay a finder's fee to the person that brought the business to BEDA. What, maybe $1000.00? It couldn't be a home business, and it would have to stay open in Buhl for some specified amount of time (no finder's fees to members of the City Council).

I could use some ideas here. What do you think?

December 29, 2008 Council Meeting

We had a short council meeting on Monday that had two issues on the agenda. The first issue was approval of end of year bills. The second issue was approval of the contract with the Humane Society for 2009. Buhl’s attorney wanted to clear up a few items in the contract with the Humane Society from the Dec 16 meeting. The Humane Society agreed to the changes, so we approved the contract for 2009.

One thing that I did talk to Buhl’s Clerk about was the Local Government Aid (LGA) that we received from the State of MN on December 26. Buhl’s total aid was not decreased in 2008 like some other cities were. We did not receive a decrease because we are considered a small city (under 1000 people), and the State did not reduce small city’s aid for 2008. Most likely, our aid for 2009 will be reduced.

How will we reduce our spending in 2009, based on the reduction of LGA we receive? It is hard to say at this point, because we don’t know what the reduced amount will be. We now receive $346,139 a year from the State in LGA. That amount will most likely decrease next year, and we will need to find some things to cut, or raise the local levy, or both.

A few people have made suggestions on possible ways to balance the City budget for 2009. The suggestions were…. Cut the law enforcement…..close the library……cut one employee from the City Crew…..cut the recreation department out. These were suggestions made to me (interesting that no one said “raise the local levy”). Let me know what your suggestions are on possible ways to balance the City budget for next year.

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.

Stubler mistake

The Stubler Pit project is the biggest mistake the City Council made in my first 4 ½ years on the council and is the worst waste of money that I have ever been involved with. The project was the Mayor’s idea, and in my opinion was a bad idea from the start. In my post on the South Industrial Park, I wrote about public –vs- private developments. Stubler would have been a great private development project. As a public development, it is a disaster.

The project was set up as the choice between four different public development scenarios. Really, the choice was between two different projects. One that had an initial cost of $459,000, and one with an initial cost of $192,000.

Project #1 had an initial cost of $459,000 and was 19 lots on the north and east side of Stubler. The project included water, sewer, electric and roads. This is the project that the city council voted for. Now that the project is done, we can add the additional costs and subtract all of the grant money that we have received. The total cost of the project came to $595,193. Discounting the grants that Buhl received for this project ($250,000), the project cost Buhl taxpayers $345,193 up front. That is out of the Buhl’s taxpayers pockets.

Project #2 had an initial cost of $192,000 and was 15 lots on the north side of Stubler. This project would have included water, sewer, electric and roads. If we would have selected this project, we would now have 15 lots ready for development. The total cost of the project would have been @$290,000. Discounting the grants that Buhl received for this project ($250,000), the project would have cost Buhl taxpayers $40,000 up front.

Simple math. We built 4 extra lots (nice lots fairly near the water) for an additional $305,000. That was your money. If the houses stand for 100 years, we will not recoup the tax dollars spent on those 4 extra lots. That is IF we can sell the lots. Let’s talk about that.

Using public money for new development is a risk, one I am usually not ready to take. The risk in this project was (and is), can we sell the lots? We have so far sold 1 of the 19. There are good real estate markets, and there are bad ones. Then there is the real estate market we are in now, which is the worst in 70 years. That was part of the risk, and we lost on that one.

The argument I get for doing the 19 lots is “when we sell all the lots, the project will be paid for”. The estimate is we will make a “profit” of $93,000 when we sell the 19 lots. Using the same cost basis, I estimate that we would have made a profit of $185,000 if we would have only built 15 lots.

When will we sell those lots? Will we get enough from them to offset the project? What about the projects we can’t do now because we spent $345,193 on Stubler when we really needed to do infrastructure projects in the older parts of Buhl? Now we don’t have the money to do those projects. The answer from the council members that supported Stubler is “lets bond for infrastructure”.

UGHHHH! The Stubler Pit Project is a near calamity for Buhl. Buhl doesn’t have a big tax base, and we don’t have a big budget. We must do small projects that we can afford, not take huge bites and gorge ourselves on projects that we will be paying on for years to come.

The State of Minnesota now says that there is a $5.2 billion budget deficit for the next two years. I think that they will cut our local government aid because of the deficit, and I think the cut could be up to $100,000. If we need another $100,000 from Buhl taxpayers in 2010, how will we get it? Maybe we will have to cut at least one fulltime employee. Or maybe we just close the library. There will some kinds of major cuts if our local government aid gets a big cut. And forget about any new infrastructure projects.

What if we still had that $345,193 in the bank? At 3.5% interest, that’s $12,000 a year in interest we have lost.

I hate the stock market right now because I have lost some money in it. But putting money in the stock market was my risk to take. The Stubler Pit project was a risk the City Council took with your money. We should not have done it, and now you will pay the cost out of your pocket.

$595,193 for 19 lots, $290,000 for 15 lots. A profit of $93,000 for 19 lots, or $185,000 for 15 lots. $345,193 up front for 19 lots, or $40,000 up front for 15 lots.

This post has a lot of information, and a lot of dollar values for you to swallow. It took me a while to put it together, so read it a couple of times, and please let me know what you think.

Chris

If the December 2 meeting seemed long to you watching on local cable, you should have been there. We had only one real long discussion, and one other short contentious issue. During these council meeting posts, I’ll try to review the whole meeting.


John Markas began the meeting speaking for Public Works. He mentioned that there will be a sewer rate increase proposal, but it was not ready for this meeting (John spoke again at the end of the meeting).


There was another discussion on the ambulance joint powers/mutual aid agreement with Kinney. Concerned Taxpayer commented on this in my Nov 18 meeting post. It was decided that the Buhl Clerk would set up a meeting with the Buhl lawyer, Kinney lawyer and the other concerned parties (hopefully the ambulance crew), and this issue will get hammered out. The major sticking points are hazy to me, but seem to be all about insurance and possible litigation if there is an accident or incident involving the ambulance crew. This will get finalized.


The Recreation Board decided on the holiday lighting contest, which will be held one night during the week of December 15. The council also okayed the skating crew for the winter, along with their wages. This year there will be a supervisor for the skating crew, other than just a member of the Recreation Board. There was a discussion on who the supervisor would be, with Councilor Swanson voting nay on the hiring of the supervisor.


The first order of business was a longggg discussion on a change to the Buhl code of ordinances. The new ordinance requires all utility billings to be in the name of the property owner. The previous ordinance allowed renters to have the utilities in their names. Two Buhl property owners spoke (one a current landlord, one a past landlord), and both spoke out against the new ordinance. Their main point of contention was that they should not be responsible for a bill that renters create. They argued that the renters used Buhl services, and therefore should be billed for those services. Initially it sounds like a valid point. However, there have been numerous times that renters run up a utility bill, and then leave town without paying that bill. At this time, past renters owe the City of Buhl over $3800.


This is where it gets tough. The State of Minnesota has a law forbidding cities from collecting past due electrical payments from landlords. That means we cannot collect on past due bills, and have to eat the loss. If the State did not tie our hands, then we would not have had to pass a new ordinance. We would just collect from landlords. Instead, we will now treat all property owners the same, and utility bills will be in the property owner’s name.


This will take the burden of collecting delinquent utility bills off of Buhl, and put in on the landlords where I think it belongs. Really, Buhl should not be at risk of loosing money simply because someone rents a home or apartment. The risk should be with the business, not the City. The landlord owns the business, and should own the risk.


Councilor Swanson and Mayor Pulford voted against the new ordinance. Both thought that we could have tried a less extreme step, like increasing deposits for utilities. That is a reasonable step, but would still leave open the possibility that a renter could leave town and leave an unpaid bill for Buhl taxpayers. I believe that we chose the correct solution. What do you think?
Next we adopted a budget for fiscal 2009 of $850,803, an increase of $3000 from last year (about 1/2 %)


Then we set the levy for fiscal 2009 at $256,000. This is an increase of about 4.5%. Since the total value of properties in Buhl increased by about 8%, the Buhl portion of property taxes should remain very stable. However, Buhl does not control the County levy, or the School District portion. We also cannot do anything about a homeowners property value, which the County controls. We can only set the City levy, and it will be very near the same in 2009 as it was in 2008.


We approved a grant that the fire department received from the DNR for $1500. This grant will be used for new radios.


We received the latest financial report for the Stubler Pit project. My next post will go into this in detail.


We transferred 2008 leftover money to Capital funds. This is a normal end of year transfer that takes any money that wasn’t spent in the previous year and puts it towards future capital expenditures. For instance, if the City needs a new dump truck, we would get part (or all) of that money from the capital funds that we set aside.


We paid a change order on the Stubler Pit project of $43.05.


We paid Hammerlund Construction $3680.30 for work completed on the Stubler Pit project.


We paid Jola and Sopp $3952 for work completed on East Monroe Drive.


We approved costs for new City Council members to go to a leadership conference in Nisswa. This conference is put on by the League of Minnesota Cities, and is only for newly elected officials.


We approved a one month note for the Northland Village. This is basically an extension of the previous note to the American Bank of the North that we had already made. The construction is about a month behind, so the Bank required an extension of the interest only note. This is at no cost to Buhl, and Northland Village will open in January instead of December.


Then John Markas talked about getting phone lines to our lift stations in Buhl, so that if a lift station failed there would be an automatic callout of the City Crew to fix it. He also said that we needed some power line upgrades, and MPL would be giving us an estimate soon.


Finally, John told us about the power lines at Stubler that the City recently purchased. I voted no on the purchase of these lines (a couple of meetings ago), because they cost the City $11,000. In my opinion, we paid to own power lines that we didn’t want or need. John came this time to explain that the lines were installed by MPL at a cost of $35,000, but MPL was willing to waive that cost if we purchased the lines for $11,000. Easy figuring there. If I had understood that at the previous meeting, I would have voted to buy the lines.


That was a lot of typing for me. I hope you could follow it. Let me know what you think.


Chris

Not so good way to develop in Buhl. The South Industrial Park

Since I’ve been on the city council, we have completed two large and one small public financed developments. There are many reasons that I did not support those projects. It wasn’t the idea of new development in Buhl that I was against, it was how the projects were executed that I did not support. I want to be clear….it is only on the rare occasion that the City of Buhl should ever do public financed development projects for new developments. In my opinion, development is best done by private individuals. Buhl should support, encourage and even assist in these developments, but we should not risk taxpayers dollars in new development projects. Let private individuals risk their money. That is what private developers do. If they lose their money, that is their risk. When they make money, that is the reward. I am not saying that we should never do new development projects, just rarely.

Let’s start with the first project. The Buhl south industrial park was the Mayor’s idea, and it is a good one. Having a place outside of Buhl, right off of HWY 169 that allows for industrial and light industrial development is good for Buhl. The problem was that the tenant that the project was built around is a non-profit business. The space for the industrial park that the City owns south of HWY 169 is limited, and the best spot in the industrial park is @14 acres on the west side of the park. The project called for selling those 14 acres to the non-profit for $14,000, and then spending @$125,000 of Buhl taxpayers money (not to mention the $180,000 of grant money) to put in infrastructure. All of that spending for a company that will NEVER pay taxes.

Buhl gets money in two ways. We receive money from outside sources such as the State of MN, Federal grants and loans, IRRB grants and loans….etc. Outside sources. Or we can tax the citizens of Buhl for money, our local levy. We received about $200,000 from the local levy the year we put in the South Industrial Park. It was ridiculous to use Buhl taxpayer dollars to pay $125,000 in infrastructure for a company that will never pay taxes.

Now, I would have supported the project if was handled in a different way. It could have been a private development, which I would most likely have supported. It could have been a public (Buhl financed) project that had a large tenant that would pay taxes right away, and I would most likely have supported that. But to use public money and basically give away prime property to a company that will never repay that money in tax revenue is a blunder.

I have no problems with non-profit companies. They do the good things for all of us that most businesses won’t do. However, we need to grow our tax base and non-profit companies do not help with that. Let me know what you think.

Good way to develop in Buhl

An example of a good development for Buhl is the new assisted living facility, Northland Village, located on East Monroe Drive. Northland Foundation asked the City of Buhl to help them with the project. We helped with the grants, we made sure that the city’s engineers were used for oversight on the project, we even backed Northland Foundation's request for a loan from the bank.

Now the project is nearing completion and it is a huge success for Buhl. First, it did not cost the local taxpayers any money. Second, we have a large new assisted living facility in Buhl for our residents. Third, Northland Village will pay taxes, which increases the tax base of the city and helps to hold down the taxes of everyone in the city. This is a great example of how to do new development projects in Buhl.

Let me know what you think of the new assisted living facility in Buhl.