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Tyson Smith came before the Grand Marais City Council during a Zoom meeting as a representative of the Lions Club and asked for input about the club’s intention to hold a Fisherman’s Picnic this summer. Smith said the club was receiving a lot of excitement and encouragement from the public to have the four-day event, especially after cancellation last year.
The Lions are proposing to hold the Picnic from August 5-August 8. The club submitted two plans. The first plan asked for permission to close Wisconsin Street from Highway 61 to the lakeshore to allow through traffic on Broadway Avenue and 1st Avenue West from Highway 61 to Wisconsin Street and 2nd Avenue West from Highway 61 to the lakeshore. The plan is to hold fewer activities and allow more space for social distancing.
The second plan calls for Wisconsin Street to be open during the Picnic allowing traffic on Broadway Avenue, 1st Avenue West from Highway 61 to Wisconsin Street and 2nd Avenue West from Highway 61 to the lakeshore. As noted in the proposal, the Lions feel Plan B is less safe than Plan A because of people crossing Wisconsin Street, and there would probably need to be intersection control.
Smith cited two unknowns that could halt any attempt to host a 2021 Fisherman’s Picnic. The first dealt with whether or not Wisconsin Street, which will be a detour during Highway 61 reconstruction this summer, will be freed so it could be closed for vendors and activities in Harbor Park. Wisconsin Street will be the alternative route into town during the ongoing Highway 61 reconstruction this coming summer. The Minnesota Department of Transportation has said their intention is to have Wisconsin Street open so Fisherman’s Picnic could take place in early August, but as Mayor Decoux stated, “it doesn’t take much to set a road construction project back a couple of weeks.”
Next, Tyson said no one could know what the status of the COVID-19 pandemic will be or what the status of the rules laid out by the governor will be. If the current regulations remain, there is no way the Lions could hold a Fisherman’s Picnic this summer, Tyson said.
With that, Tyson asked if the club could submit a contingent plan and a COVID-19 mitigation plan several weeks before the four-day event will be held.
Mayor Jay Decoux expressed some caution, asking how the club could book vendors and other activities if they didn’t know if the event could be pulled off? But Councilor Anton Moody noted that the city had been helping for over 90 years with the Picnic, so he didn’t think a short notice would be any trouble.
Councilor Kelly Swearingen said she was in favor of helping the Lions as much as the city could lend a hand, and she praised the club for their dedication to holding this summer festival. Smith promised to keep the council informed as the Lions work to lay out a schedule and agenda and COVID-19 plan.
*After holding a lengthy conversation with Jeremy Kershaw, event organizer for the Le Grand du Nord Gravel grinding bike races, the council granted the special event permit.
Riders, six hundred in all, will leave in waves to compete in either the 20, 50, or 100-mile rides. The race(s) will be held on May 29, Saturday, on Memorial Day weekend, the same day as the high school graduation. The race(s) will start at the YMCA in the morning and finish at the bottom of West 3rd Street at the Voyageur Brewery, with the last rider(s) in about 5 p.m.
*Councilor Kelly Swearingen agreed to represent the city council on the Passion Pit Committee. The committee will spend up to 12 months assessing whether the county should purchase the Passion Pit property from MnDOT and then give their recommendation to the county board, who asked for the formation of the committee.
*CJ. Fernandez of ALA and David Polson, a civil engineer, came before the council to update the plans to build a new Community Connection into the Grand Marais Rec Park. CJ said the original drawings were done before any assessments were made about moving public utilities that were in the ground. When it was learned that it would cost $120,000 to move electric and water lines, CJ said different alternatives were explored to keep the budget in balance without hurting the project.
The first alternative made the entrance skinnier by a couple of feet but could be done without spending an additional $120,000. Both Fernandez and Polson said they received good input from city Wastewater/ Water Superintendent Tom Nelson, who laid out his reasons for picking Alternate One.
In a memo to the city, Nelson said replacement of the water main between highway 61 and into the campground property in the current location of the existing water main could use open trenching methods and other less obtrusive replacement methods when the pipe needs to be replaced or repaired. The Community Connection will be completed next spring. Council picked Alternative One.
*Katie Usem was granted a variance from the 40-foot minimum setback from the vegetation line of Lake Superior to make improvements on an existing fish shed.
*Council will hold off on having Flaherty/Hood P.A. perform a job analysis and performance evaluation for City Administrator Mike Roth until the mayor and Councilor Kelly Swearingen can meet and work together to bring the administrator’s job description, as Kelly stated, into 2021 and out of the 1990s. The cost to have the job evaluation is $2,500 and will be done by Brandon Fitzsimmons, a shareholder attorney who works with the firm. That is the same firm that city attorney Chris Hood works for, and Hood said there would be no problem for the job description to be brought up to speed before his firm did any job analysis.
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