by Carrie Moritz, Gazette
The February meeting of the Garretson City Council was held on Monday, February 3 at the Legion. The main item on the agenda was a request to move forward with Requests for Proposals for the new Garretson Community Center that had been explored at January’s meeting.
The meeting began with a request from Mitch Coburn of Palisades Oil for the replacement of one 30,000-gallon propane storage tank with two 90,000-gallon storage tanks. A letter of approval from the City was required by the Fire Marshall in order for the project to go ahead. Since Palisades Oil is not located near a residential area, the council was amenable to the request; however, councilmember Bill Hoskins wondered if the Garretson Fire Department was okay with the project. The fire department had been contacted, but had not yet given their approval, so Hoskins asked that the council move forward with the letter but not until GFD approval was received. Councilmember Tom Godbey made the motion to approve the letter, and the council voted in favor of the project.
The council then heard from Dean Koehn regarding an amended conditional use permit for the storage lot. He had in hand plans for Phases One through Four with regards to building the lot, then enclosed storage. At the prior meeting, the council had refused to approve what they described as a “blank check” for more than the open lot, requesting that Koehn make conditional use requests in the future once he had plans and was able to move forward with the closed storage options. When councilmember Greg Franka inquired as to why further conditional use permits were being pursued now, instead of after the purchase and prior to moving ahead with Phase Two, realtor Terry Johnson explained that having purchase contingents were common in large commercial real estate deals, as it’s a lot of risk to buy land at an upcharge and not be able to make it back in profits with the business planned for it. After some discussion regarding setbacks, the council voted to approve the conditional use permit with storage facilities to be installed in the phases described by Koehn.
The council then made the unusual request to move into Executive Session to discuss an agenda item named Clayton Energy presented by Bill Lindley. No action was taken upon re-adjourning of the regular session, and no further information was available at press time as to the meaning of this item.
They then moved on to Requests for Proposal (RFP) for the new community center. The discussion for a community center had been moved forward in earnest at January’s meeting after a request by Marcia Gnadt of the Jesse James Players to pursue the project. Councilmembers had wanted the full council in attendance prior to making recommendations, as both Richelle Hofer and Dave Bonte were not in attendance at January’s meeting.
A main driver for the community center is the need for a new City Hall, which would be attached.
In explaining their rationale to councilmember Dave Bonte, who was unable to make the January meeting, the Mayor and the Council brought up many good points.
“So what we thought is, I think that we should get some professional help,” said councilmember Hoskins. “Go through an RFP process, get a designer to help us, essentially, go down that road and do some planning. And the way to get that is to put together an RFP and get some proposals.”
“The discussion with City Hall is from my part,” said Mayor Beaner. “Our City Hall- we’ve outgrown it. It’s too old, too small, and it needs some significant repairs.”
“The community obviously has a number of different needs,” said councilmember Hoskins, who brings some expertise to this project from his work with the City of Sioux Falls. “This would just be a process of moving forward.”
A Request for Proposals would help “to find what would be a good fit for our community,” said City Finance Officer Anna Uhl. “What everyone is looking for, and not go above and beyond.”
Ideas for the new community center would allow it to have the ability to hold dances, reception places, and meeting rooms, as well as office space. An architecture firm would identify the uses of the center and City Hall, as well as help with the design. It would be the responsibility of the architect to prioritize the wants and needs and be able to stay within the budget. First, the City needs to see what firms would be interested in such a process, hence the need for an RFP.
Once the RFP’s are received by the City, the council will then be able to interview the different interested firms to see who would work best, and accepting the requests doesn’t lock the City into any contracts until they decide to move further in the process.
The council opted to move forward with having Uhl send out sample RFP’s for the council to review, so one could be drawn up and sent out.
The council then moved on to committee reports. Natural gas prices had not been released yet, but Uhl noted they had stayed pretty steady over the past few months, and the council voted to approve pricing as recommended.
The Parks Advisory Committee then presented on the on-line campground management system, RoverPass, that they were recommending. Parks Board member Carrie Moritz presented on the two options the system had. The first option followed most closely the desires of the council, which was a full management system that required all reservations to move through the on-line system. However, there were costs and fees associated with that option, and Moritz and Bruce and Karen Rekstad had also explored a second option, which allowed for on-line reservations to be taken but for most reservations to be kept off-line. This option was preferred by the Rekstad’s, as it would allow them to start with the system as a stepping stone and allow them to keep working with their preferred paper version. This option only had a fee associated with on-line reservations that would be passed on to the camper and not the campground. Reservations made by phone and paid for with check or cash would have no fees associated. However, this option would not provide the needed transparency that was required for grants as to park use.
After some discussion regarding whether the City should absorb the fees or pass them on to the camper, they opted to move ahead with the full management system and asked the Park Board to make recommendations for campground pricing with the City absorbing some of the cost.
Next on the agenda were Ordinances 652 and 653, which amended load limits and snow removal requirements.
Ordinance 652 revised load limits for all city streets and limited any vehicles over 10,000 pounds to the truck route. The only exceptions are when it’s absolutely necessary for loading and unloading of commodities or to tow another vehicle. This is to help protect our current city streets, as heavier loads break down the asphalt more quickly and shorten their lifespan. The truck route is specially designed to withstand heavier loads, and is not as impacted.
Ordinance 653 was brought forth at the recommendation of the code enforcement officer, Scott Dubbe, who had studied other local communities to create a snow removal policy that was more clearly outlined. It also defined where snow should be deposited (specifically, to keep snow off public areas, alleyways, and sidewalks) and provides a clarification to clearing hydrants, mailboxes, and icy sidewalks.
“This will be a culture change for community members,” councilmember Hoskins said. However, the council unanimously approved the ordinance.
The council then went back into executive session. At the end of the session, they voted to increase Uhl’s salary as budgeted, and adjourned.
The next meeting of the City Council will be on Monday, March 2 at 6:30 p.m. at the Legion.
