Nine stately elm trees growing alongside Highway 61 in downtown Grand Marais slated to be removed for the 2020- 2021 Highway 61 renovation will be taken down soon.
Following a lengthy discussion about the trees, city councilors didn’t take any action to delay cutting the trees at their Wednesday, October 30 meeting.
At a public meeting held late summer, opponents of the tree removal asked the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) to wait a year until the Highway 61 road project through Grand Marais was taking place in town. At that meeting, a MnDOT official told the crowd that MnDOT had already let the contract for the trees to be taken down this November 2019.
Following meetings with Grand Marais Mayor Jay Arrowsmith DeCoux and MnDOT to see what the city’s options were concerning delaying the tree removal, it was determined that the contractor would need to be paid $4,600 as a penalty to move the contract forward to next year. Acting mayor Anton Moody noted that that amount was about the same cost as planting new trees.
The trees will be removed so MnDOT can conduct a complete renovation and upgrade of Highway 61, city sidewalks, a bike path, new street lights, etc. through Grand Marais in 2021.
The elms are located between Third Avenue and First Avenue West along the highway.
In other action:
• Council listened as the LHB design team presented further design concepts for the proposed city hall liquor store project. LHB has been working with the city to come up with ideas for a new city hall/liquor store building. Costs to repair the current city hall facility have been deemed too high, so the city is planning for the eventuality of building a new city government complex.
• Council approved two change orders for the Second Street storm project that is part of the city’s plan to lessen the stormwater run-off in the downtown area across from city hall.
The original contract price was $171,000, but there was an additional $32,040 in expenses added to the job.
The first change order of $23,000 paid for the relocation of the utility service lines that were found to conflict with the proposed work.
Rock had to be blasted by Lamb Construction at the cost of $4,500. The pre-condition survey was $3,000, and a pipe iron grate cost, $1,500.
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