Grand Marais Recreation Park manager Dave Tersteeg had some good news for the park board at its March 1 meeting.
“Wow,” said Tersteeg. “We don’t say this very often looking at February revenue reports because usually it’s a lean month. However, it’s a big indicator month for summer bookings and this February we are up 46 percent versus 2015, a good indicator of the season to come.”
No campground-wide Internet?
After meeting with Boreal Access and True North last month, Tersteeg said based on costs it looks like the park board will have to rethink its options to provide Wi Fi throughout the park.
Tersteeg said in February he and Grand Marais City Administrator Mike Roth met with representatives of Arrowhead Cooperative and True North broadband to discuss pricing.
“It was suggested that True North might suspend their standard 12 months of service terms for business accounts if the campground were to subscribe at the $10 per site per month price from May through October,” said Tersteeg, noting that True North had not offered resorts or the golf courses the same deal even though they have been asked to do so.
Still, he said, charging customers who didn’t want Wi Fi $10 per month wouldn’t be right, and the cost to purchase, install and configure a local wireless network throughout the park was estimated to cost from $20,000-$50,000, plus there would have to be antennas in close proximity to each to ensure good signals. The antennas, which would be numerous, said Tersteeg, would also have to be placed in high locations so people wouldn’t mess with them, but would be very visible throughout the park, which would be another negative.
After the meeting with True North and Arrowhead Cooperative, Tersteeg said Roth commented, “It sounds like they don’t want to sell and we don’t want to buy.”
A simpler but not as broad a solution, said Tersteeg, would be to expand the “hotspot” Wi-Fi capability around the office, so nearby campers could access it. The park board told him that sounded like a good solution for now, and agreed that the costs outlined were too high to recoup the park’s money if the entire park was set up to receive the wireless service.
Updating the park office
Four construction companies, three local and one from Duluth, have expressed interest in bidding to replace the park office siding, roof, doors, insulation, and windows, said Tersteeg, adding that several companies were also bidding on repairing and replacing the tile in two bathhouses. This was good news considering that previously little interest had been shown by builders to do either of the jobs.
Music in the park
The board approved a special event application for the Splintertones music group to play in the Grand Marais Harbor Park for five weekend dates this summer. While the board approved the application, there was a long discussion about whether or not the park should set up the blue tent awning as requested by the band. Because it takes three people one hour to set up and one hour to take the tent down, questions arose as to how much—if any—money should be charged to people or groups staging events in Harbor Park that want the tent set up. Tersteeg said he would get back to the board with suggestions on potential charges for the service, but said because the Grand Marais Lions Club had helped to purchase the tent, no charge should be assigned to them when they wanted the tent set up for activities like the Fisherman’s Picnic, which the board agreed was only fair.
Newly elected Park Board Chair Reid Dusheck said he would have to leave the park board because he was moving out of city limits to Devil Track Lake. Tersteeg asked Dusheck if he could stay on the board until a replacement was found, and he agreed to do so.
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