Grand Marais city councilors moved forward with a project to add more public restrooms to City Hall when they approved a design and budget proposal at their Oct. 8 meeting.
The proposal from Pederson Design & Consulting of Grand Marais will “create preliminary plans, specifications and a cost projection for the purpose of future construction of public bathrooms in the old information building” at a cost not to exceed $1,250. The area targeted for the new restrooms is that space being vacated by the Visitors Bureau as it relocates to a building off Highway 61.
City Administrator Mike Roth said he was satisfied with the proposal, which he called reasonable and said the scope seems clear. Once the estimates are completed, council will decide if the project merits inclusion in next year’s budget or placement on the city’s long-term priority list.
Mayor Larry Carlson cautioned that the plan to renovate City Hall was just a stopgap measure because there have also been talks of re-arranging the layout to make better use of the office space and that occupied by the liquor store, or perhaps even moving the city offices to a different location. “We wouldn’t want to spend too much on this,” Carlson said.
Roth agreed and noted that the action to authorize a budget proposal was not a commitment to move forward with the project, but just a means to gather more information on which to base a decision.
The shortage of public restrooms is an issue which council has been struggling to address in recent years, mostly with attempts to identify a centralized location on which to site a free-standing building.
The matter was most recently brought up last month by the Cook County Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau. Councilors acknowledged that they have a unique opportunity to make use of the vacated space in the city’s building, but without having a projected cost, were reluctant to move ahead. Councilor Bill Lenz summed up the situation at council’s prior meeting when he said the cost to renovate may be such that council can’t afford to do it, but that won’t be known until an estimate is prepared.
Roth also expressed concern about both the cost and the suitability of the building to accommodate the restrooms. That, too, will be addressed in the project design proposal.
In other news, Jay Arrowsmith DeCoux of the library board asked if council would allow a sculpture to be placed on the edge of the library’s lawn. He said the proposal for a 15- to 20-foot-tall aluminum tree is one of two finalists the library arts committee is considering for award of a Legacy Grant. But without having permission from council to locate the outdoor sculpture, DeCoux said a choice couldn’t be made.
There was some discussion of the matter, but councilors had no objections to the design and location of the sculpture as described, and gave Arrowsmith DeCoux the go-ahead to keep the tree sculpture in the running for the award. Arrowsmith DeCoux said the other finalist is also “incredibly good,” and there is one more stage remaining in the selection process. In all, there are 14 applicants competing for the $10,000 grant award.
In other business
• Council voted to retain Walker, Giroux and Hahne of Edina as the city’s financial auditors for the next two years.
• Council voted to renew the city’s membership in the North Shore Management Board for another year at a cost of $750.
• Councilor and park board member Bill Lenz asked for council’s input on a request to place a granite memorial bench in Harbor Park. Roth said the memorials program for Harbor Park was done, and only special cases will be considered from here on. (The memorial benches were included in the park’s design as a way to help pay for the project.) Councilor Jan Sivertson, who was on the original Harbor Park planning committee, said a lot of work went into designing the park, and a review process needs to be put in place before anything else is done. Lenz said he would convey those thoughts to the park board, and the donation request will remain in limbo.
• Councilors took no action on a request from the ISD 166 school board to consider a name change from Columbus Day to Indigenous People’s Day. Sivertson made a motion to support the name change, but it died for lack of a second.
• Roth reported that he was contacted by County Attorney Molly Hicken, who wants to discuss the city’s cooperating agreements with the county, particularly the maintenance agreement with the highway department. Roth said a review of all of the contracts and documents will be a “daunting task” that will take some time to complete, and will eventually require council’s involvement.
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