After hearing from residents who received notifications on their vehicles by law enforcement stating they hadn’t followed the new calendar-parking directive, Grand Marais Mayor Jay Arrowsmith DeCoux brought the topic back to the council for discussion at the November 26 city council meeting.
Council passed a resolution to allow calendar parking, which calls for people to alternate their vehicles parked on city streets or highways from November 15 through April 15 of each winter season.
In the case of an early or late snowstorm, a snow emergency can be called by the city before November 15 and after April 15, which will call for calendar parking.
The city will use odd-even days. On the days of the month that are odd-numbered, vehicles must be parked on the side of the street where residences have odd-numbered street addresses.
During public comments, Alyssa Hedstrom, dentist, said her dental office has handicapped parking on the side of the street nearest her office. She asked if those patients needed to park on the other side of the road to follow the new ordinance, or if the ordinance could be amended to allow handicap parking. She also said she had older clients who appreciated parking closer to the sidewalk, and she wondered if, during her business hours, those patients could park closest to her office door.
Hedstrom also inquired about the snow plowing on her dental office street.
She said she would appreciate having her street plowed before her office opened at 8 a.m. Her husband now comes down and plows if the county doesn’t have a chance to get there before she opens, which is often. Although she doesn’t live in town, Alyssa said she pays taxes for her business, adding, “I would really love to be plowed before my business opens.”
The mayor said he had heard from members of the public who wondered if calendar parking applied to the downtown area. Some folks also asked if they needed to park on the opposite side of the street if it wasn’t snowing, noting there would be no snowplows on the road. Flyers put on vehicles by the police on snowless days suggested vehicles could be towed if the ordinance wasn’t followed.
On the issue of towing vehicles, Mayor Jay said, “There is a reason why we said ‘may be towed’ instead of ‘will be towed.’ We just want to make sure people can be snowplowed.”
Mayor Jay said he would be interested in seeing if there could be an exemption in the ordinance for handicap parking.
Councilor Tim Kennedy said he would like to exempt the ordinance from covering downtown below Highway 61. “Can we also talk to the sheriff department, so they aren’t putting warnings on downtown cars? We should direct them to stop if we are going to change the ordinance.”
Councilor Craig Schulte wondered why vehicles were getting flagged when streets were clear, it wasn’t snowing, and there was no way any snowplowing would take place.
Arrowsmith-Decoux responded by saying local deputies “are taking some initiative to get the word out.” After coming out of a recent meeting, the mayor said he had a slip on his automobile, telling him he had parked on the wrong side of the street. He called it a teachable moment.
Councilor Kelly Swearingen said she was frustrated. “We worked on this for six months and got the information out there, and now we hear from the public.”
Swearingen said the goal of the ordinance was to make sure the roads were cleared and open for the public and the emergency workers. Her husband used to plow streets in Grand Marais, she said, and he would come to areas where he couldn’t get his plow through because of vehicles parked on the streets. At that point, he would call the city and ask city crews to take care of opening those roads. “This [ordinance] is really about being good neighbors,” she said.
Kennedy asked about getting feedback from the county maintenance staff and sheriff ’s department about how the calendar parking was working for them. City administrator Mike Roth said he would ask Krysten Foster, the county highway engineer, to come before council at an upcoming meeting to talk about the issue.
Meanwhile, the council will discuss making changes to the calendar parking ordinance at their next meeting, said Roth.
Budget summary
Mike Roth, the city administrator, presented an updated budget summary, draft capital improvement plan, and multi-year budget analysis for discussion.
Some changes from the September budget summary, said Roth, include a slightly higher insurance increase, a wage adjustment in the property maintenance department and an increase in debt payment contributions from utilities, and an increase in a council priority item.
Council approved a final pay request for the Second Street Storm Water Improvement project to Edwin E. Thoreson. The job was $32,040 over budget due, in large part, to running into more rock than expected.
Audit report
Councilors received the city 2018 audit report from Devin Ceglar from the firm of Walker, Giroux, Hahne.
Ceglar said he had performed the audit for Grand Marais for the last 5-6 years.
The audit showed the city was in a good financial position, but two areas needed improvement. They were in “segregation of duties and responsibilities” and “lack of control of financials.”
“This is typical of small governments because you don’t have massive budgets to hire enough people to segregate duties properly,” said Ceglar.
Budget
Roth said, based on the city’s current financial state, the council could set the 2020 levy at 1.48 percent over the 2019 tax. The board set an initial 2020 levy of 2.9 percent, which can’t be raised higher but can be lowered before it is turned in to the state by the end of December.
The most significant change to the budget, said Roth, was the recent financial report from the rec park showing a higher than expected increase in revenues.
There was some discussion about saving for a rainy day, but Mayor Jay said, “The audit speaks to our reserve funds. The idea of holding back when times are good for when times aren’t so good.”
“We’ve consistently had levies under 4 percent for a long time. We’ve done a good job,” said Kennedy.
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