The Grand Marais City Council met on Jan. 25 and approved the 2017 IRS reimbursement schedule for mileage at 53.5 cents per mile.
Council approved John Books to a three-year position on the Grand Marais Library Board and also appointed Judie Johnson to a two-year term on the board.
Lisa Gergets was the lone applicant for the opening on the planning commission, and council approved her to fill that board position.
Zoning ordinance amended
Upon the recommendation of the planning commission, the council approved Ordinance No. 2017-01, which amends Grand Marais zoning limiting the maximum square footage of allowed retail development in the C/I zone. This amendment was put in place after Dollar General tried to locate a store in Grand Marais last year.
The ordinance states “Retail businesses with a building floor area not exceeding 5,000 gross square feet” are not permitted to be built in the C/I zone.
Following Dollar General’s interest in locating a store on the west end of Grand Marais, council adopted a 12-month moratorium on certain retail uses in the C/I zone to provide time to make changes to the zoning ordinance. Mayor Jay Arrowsmith- DeCoux said the city embarked on a broad visioning and comprehensive plan update and had hoped to have certain portions of the visioning project completed in time to put into an updated C/I zoning language before the moratorium expired.
At the Dec. 14 city council meeting the council set the ordinance in the process to allow for its possible adoption. On Jan. 4, the planning commission held a public hearing, and no comments were received. Arrowsmith-DeCoux said the planning commission expressed reservations about letting the moratorium expire before the visioning process was finished, and recommended to the city council by a 4-0 vote to approve the amendment to the ordinance.
Pay Equity Act
City Administrator Mike Roth gave a brief summary of the Pay Equity Act, which demonstrates that female dominated job positions are not underpaid in comparison with male dominated positions. The city is required to submit documentation every three years to the state to show that is in compliance.
“The state uses a very complicated regression analysis and a series of tests to determine whether the city is in compliance with the act or not,” Roth said.
The withholding of state payments may penalize noncompliance, he added.
Council approved the report, and it will be sent to the state to show that the city is in compliance with the Pay Equity Act. The city has never been penalized since the act began in 1984, said Roth.
Leave a Reply