The township annual meeting began after a brief delay as the interim fire chief and township treasurer John Groth sped out of the room along with a few others to respond to a report of a fire alarm going off somewhere in Lutsen. The call was canceled, however, and the meeting commenced just a few minutes later than scheduled. Andrew Beavers was voted in as moderator.
The voting results came in towards the middle of the meeting. Rae Piepho was elected as the new town supervisor and Sharon Hexum-Platzer was voted into the clerk position.
The meeting progressed quickly as the first few items listed on the agenda, including the minutes from various meetings, the treasurer’s report, and the proposed 2017 township budget, were voted on and unanimously passed by around 30 voters from Lutsen who were present at the meeting.
There were a few questions on the proposed 2017 township budget that were addressed briefly prior to receiving voter approval.
Commissioner Ginny Storlie was absent from the meeting, and county administrator Jeff Cadwell came in her stead to give the commissioner’s report.
“Our agenda for the next several days is going to be down in St. Paul for the Minnesota Legislative Conference,” Cadwell said. “One of the primary reasons we go down there is to let the people in St. Paul know how important the state and federal funding we get up here is to sustaining the county budgets.”
Following discussion and approval of the budget, the township went over several donation requests. The first was for $11,000 to be donated to West End Connect, operated by the Birch Grove Foundation. There were some questions regarding whether or not it was necessary to supply so much funding to the organization since Lutsen residents’ participation and use of the resources there have been low.
“They have quite a few sources of revenue,” Rae Piepho observed. “I mentioned at the last county board meeting that when I participated in Connect, I have seen very little Lutsen participation.”
Piepho then made a motion to decrease the donation to $5,000. The motion passed with 17 in favor of the smaller amount, and 10 opposed.
A second donation request, this one for Tofte Township’s July 4 fireworks display, was briefly discussed and passed with 21 in favor of donating $1,500 and 6 opposed.
The final request for funding came from the Lutsen Junior Alpine Ski Team, who asked for $800.
“All of the coaching staff is entirely volunteer, and none of this money supports anything but equipment for racing,” Molly O’Neill Wickwire, one of the volunteer coaches, explained. “We have a lot of parents who purchase their own gear such as drill bits, batteries, and things, but it’s pretty tough to maintain.”
It was also noted that the request for funding this year was less than the previous year, when the ski team requested $1,500.
“They must be doing something right if they’re putting kids on the podium,” Larry McNeally added as he made a motion to support the team with the $800 donation.
The motion was passed unanimously.
Following the donations, the final item for discussion was use of the ball field.
“Supervisors and other citizens have made comments that the ball field has not been utilized to its extent,” Beavers explained. “We need to get ideas on what we can do to make that part of the community.”
It was suggested that a skating rink be added to the park. However, Judy Motschenbacher pointed out that there was a beautiful rink in Tofte, about nine miles away, with good lighting, a warming house, and other utilities. However, it is hardly ever used.
Another suggestion was to officially designate the area as a dog park.
“It works pretty effectively as a dog park because it’s a fenced in area,” McNeally observed. “And there’s people that have taken it upon themselves to take care of it.”
If the ballpark were designated a dog park, it would also allow the township to promote it as such and possibly enable them to bring more traffic to that area.
In the final minutes of the meeting, there were requests for a few topics to be added to the agenda for the next monthly meeting. The topics included revisiting the question of whether to put some lighting at the base of the Caribou Trail on Highway 61 and also ways to improve telecommunications in case of emergency.
Treasurer John Groth also pointed out that the township would need a new supervisor in April and asked that people would consider who would be good for the position.
The meeting adjourned shortly thereafter.
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