With the January meeting cancelled due to possible low attendance by park board members, Grand Marais Park and Recreation board members met for the first time this year, February 3.
New members Dave Mills and Kaye Tavernier were introduced to current board members Walt Mianowski, Reid Dusheck, and Sally Berg.
Mills, a newly elected Grand Marais city councilor, replaces former Grand Marais city councilor Bill Lenz who was the city’s representative on the board. Tavernier, a retired school teacher who has worked five summers at the park, takes the place of Robin DuChien, who had served out her two terms.
Current board chair Walt Mianowski was re-nominated to once again chair the board while Dusheck was voted to serve as vice chair, replacing Bill Lenz.
Grand Marais Park Manager Dave Tersteeg gave a review of the Recreation Park master plan and current, upcoming projects.
Tersteeg said the master plan, which projects a vision for the park land for 25 years and beyond, hasn’t been updated since 2009. He advised new park board members to go over the plan. Mills said new Grand Marais Mayor Jay Arrowsmith DeCoux was in the process of reviewing all master plans that related to the city, including this one.
Tersteeg said the master plan attempts to answer several questions, such as: How much and what part of the site should be for camping and facilities, land side marina support, trails, roads, parking, playgrounds and open space? How can we continue to keep community connection once the pool and ball field are relocated? What are the goals and policies for the recreation park?
The board will review and discuss the master plan over the next couple of months.
Although there are many projects left over from last year, Tersteeg outlined several large projects the new board needs to consider. They include improving upgrades to high value camper sites; plans for construction of a new office and bath house; pave roads that need upgrading and plan to build a new, larger, fish cleaning station. These were capital improvement projects considered during a July 2014 prioritization meeting, he said.
Tersteeg said park staff was working on ideas for a new fish cleaning station, and will have to identify sites that need upgrading as well as establish monthly and overnight rates for those sites.
Pool demolition report
“Thoreson’s crew started work on December 1 and took about 10 days to complete the project,” said Tersteeg. “Some of the beams were salvaged from the old pool building for possible use in building a new fish cleaning station.
“Two of the sections from the entrance ramp were also saved and will be used for new bridges in the park. Pictures of the demolition were posted on the Park’s Facebook page and are attracting a lot of views,” he said.
The area where the pool was will now be used to ease congestion around the office.
Stand-Up Paddle event proposed for July
Jack Stone of Stone Harbor Wilderness Supply requested a special event permit to host a Stand-Up Paddle Board demonstration July 17-19, 2015. The event is free to the public, said Stone, and was being held to help promote the town and his business. But, said Stone, “I don’t want to have a conflict with anyone this year like I did last year.”
It turned out the site okayed was on a portion of private property. The board agreed to work with Stone to find a suitable site, passing a motion of support for the event, and asked him to seek further approval from the city council.
“I’ll do whatever you want me to do. I was in a location last year that was approved but turned out to cause trouble. I’m not here to cause trouble for anyone. I’m here to host a fun event that hopefully will bring more people into town,” Stone said.
Park office still busy
It might be mid winter, but people are already thinking of summer, with reservations up 20 percent this January over last, said Tersteeg. “Website traffic for January was also up 32 percent,” he added.
“Opening day on January 5, there were 30 people lined up at the door and two phone lines ringing relentlessly from 8 a.m. on,” said Tersteeg.
People were standing outside in 20 below weather in a 20 mile per hour wind for several hours, he said. The crowd at the door comes mostly from Duluth and Thunder Bay, he said, and the reason for them being there on the first day the office opens for the new year is so they can reserve spots for the Fisherman’s Picnic weekend.
Some standing in line, said Tersteeg, watched as the two park employees who answered phones in the office put the phones down at the end of a call. They would time their cell phone calls from their positions in line and call into the office. This resulted in early mix-ups because people in line had been given numbers. “Confusion resulted from people in line calling through on cell phones and skipping their places in line,” said Tersteeg.
Next year a curtain will be put up to end that bit of trickery, said Tersteeg, adding that at the end of the day everything was sorted out and people who called on time or stood in line mostly got the reservations and spots they had hoped for.
Tersteeg said the campground had heard from about 95 percent of folks who rent monthly sites. He said the park expects to have at least five monthly sites available to offer to the waiting list. Currently there are over 120 people on the waiting list.
Tersteeg said, “It would be prudent to re-visit our strategy and policy for monthly guests in the near future because there are some gray areas there.”
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