Early reservations are up for the Grand Marais Municipal Campground, Park Manager Dave Tersteeg told the park board at its Tuesday, February 4 meeting, the first meeting of the New Year.
The January meeting was cancelled due to bad weather.
“There was a surprising amount of people [25] that braved the 20 below F and showed up in person on January 2 to reserve RV spots for the Fisherman’s Picnic,” said Tersteeg.
Tersteeg also said the phone has been ringing steadily, and it looks like the start of a good year. There were 330 reservations made the first day this year versus 280 for the same day last year, he said.
He also noted that there was a 20 percent gain in reservation deposits over last year, which is another good sign.
Some heavy ice in the harbor is causing some of the docks to move as much as 12 feet, “But they are okay, just moving a bit,” Tersteeg told the board. He also informed them that 85 percent of Lake Superior is now frozen over. The last time the lake was completely frozen over was in 1996 or 1997, Tersteeg said.
A cruise line company from New York is inquiring to see if it can dock a 257-foot triple decker cruise ship (the Yorkton) along the harbor wall for June 29 and one day at the end of August.
“It’s not a luxury cruise vessel. The Yorkton fits 130 people and is more of a travel/adventure ship,” Tersteeg said.
The ship’s owners will have to work with the U.S. Corps of Engineers to see if they can use the inner or outer break wall to use as a spot to dock. The ship only has a nine-foot draw so depth isn’t a problem, Tersteeg said.
“I hope it works out so they can come here,”Tersteeg said, adding that he will continue to work with the cruise line.
With the Grand Marais pool now closed, Tersteeg said that, “We have some stuff that needs repurposing.”
Sealed bids are being taken on a variety of items like pumps, motors, flo-valves and other items the city no longer has use for now that the pool is closed.
Board member Walt Mianowski asked if Tersteeg had offered the YMCA items from the pool that the city no longer has use for, and Tersteeg said that he had.
“They have taken the climbing wall, a lot of lockers, all of the safety gear, deck chairs, a lot of the signs, all of the water fitness gear and the mural from Great Expectations School,” Tersteeg said.
“We had two big thermal blankets that I thought they might want, but they can’t cover the pool because it wasn’t designed to be covered,” Tersteeg said.
“Won’t that cause a lot of heat loss?” Mianowski asked.
“You would think so, said Tersteeg.
“And what about the humidity? By not covering the pool I would think it would be very humid in there,” said Board Member Bill Lenz.
Nineteen pool members will be given reimbursements totaling $788, said Tersteeg. Others who had left over punch passes or other tickets will not receive reimbursements, said Tersteeg, because they were sold at different times and at different rates. It would be impossible to know how much money to give back, he added.
“We did get a request from East Bay Suites for reimbursement of 44 passes they have left over,” Tersteeg said.
“I don’t think we should give them money back,” said Lenz. “They knew when the pool was going to be closed so they could have given them away or not bought so many. I think we would be opening a big can of worms if we give them back their money. We might be setting a bad precedent because we said no to other private parties who couldn’t get their money back,” Lenz said.
Mianowski agreed, saying everyone knew when the pool was closing and the passes could have been used before the closing.
There was a brief discussion about the request from East Bay Suites with Tersteeg noting that East Bay had been a great customer, purchasing over 1,000 passes last year, but in the end Tersteeg was told to inform them that the park board would not reimburse them for the left over passes.
Demolition bids for the pool building will go out this month. “We would like to have it (the building) taken down before our busy season begins, before June,” Tersteeg said.
Two new computers with new credit card processors have been added to the park office, said Tersteeg. The computers run credit cards about 45 seconds faster than the old ones, which will be a big help on busy summer days.
The board welcomed James Reid Dusheck as its newest member. The park board will now meet with five members instead of seven members. The decision was made because it has been too hard to get all seven members to a meeting and it was decided it is easier to come to a consensus with five people.
“But whatever works. I’m happy with whatever we decide to do,” Mianowski said.
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