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Calling to order pursuant >> to do notice and call thereof of a regular meeting of the grand rapids city council held monday, september 14th, 2026 at 5:00 pm here in city hall council chambers let a colorado reflect that all council members are present this afternoon.

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first up under positive happenings I'm going to start with the completed years of service acknowledgment or recognition for the month of august so the city canopies would like to recognize our employees who have recently completed the following additional years of service with the city of grand rapids are will be completing those years of service are already did in the month of august 1st year of service

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evan wimmer five years of service shawn graber with grand rapids fire department and building safety. Lance cookoff with grand rapids fire department and building safety seven years of service. Dominic de giuseppe with engineering nine years of service. Diane holcomb card with grand rapids area library ten years of service.

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bruce baird with public works and matt worth of public works engineering 12 years of service joshua saunders at yanmar arena and became a golf course 20 years of service. Brian mattson with grand rapids police department and 31 years of service. Steve anderson with public works. We honor our employees at the second city council meeting of each >> month.

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next up under a positive happening is I want to acknowledge a couple really wonderful things regarding the library presently our library, their fundraising efforts. Thank you councilmember mcgregor and the larger garner community has raised over $273,000 from area donations. It is hoped that we will be open six days a week including some saturdays beginning in january.

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and then this comes on the heels of a $50,000 donation from greg I believe it is a wait or wait wait who who was a patron of the graham three library and love the grant up his library and his family donated $50,000 to the library upon his passing and so I've said this multiple times but the community really

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has showed up for the library and just we thank greg and his family and all the patrons who have donated to the community foundation >> any other positive happenings in the city. All right. Moving on public forum a public forum is a time to address the council.

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we just asked if you have a comment or issue or concern you come to the podium. Please state your name, your address and your issue. We will give you five more five minutes scuse me on the clock. It's your time to come and comment or share a concern.

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it is not a dialog back and forth so anybody wishing to address the council okay >> see none moving on council reports there any council reports this afternoon I have a couple last week I did I saw the agenda in advance so I went to the western moussavi mountain planning board because there were two things on there that I think are really important.

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one was an update of the mesabi metallics project ben jan and peter miller from srb metallics were there talked about there any day it's days away production at that facility so that's a great great news for grand rapids itasca county and the surrounding area. He also mentioned that mesabi metallics is looking for looking forward to perhaps an expansion at $2.

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5 million right now it next to me it's the largest investment in minnesota I think that's about okay that's it for that but then also another reason I went was because of the school trust amendment that's proposed and I did bring some information about that.

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it's it was actually sponsored by not the grand rapids representative but just north of grand rapids spencer I go with sponsored the legislation to bring this proposal and it'll be on the ballot it's a way to support schools without raising taxes by modernizing the way that the school trust fund distributes money to local school districts and in grand rapids and grand rapids on the back of this it talks

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about be $129,320 for grand rapids. But you know, it's one way to support the schools without raising taxes. The only caveat is that it's on the amendment and it sometimes down ballot people may or may not pay attention to those things.

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so but if if you don't vote it's it's a no vote so I think it there'll be lots of information about this from other sources I know before the election so and if anybody has any questions about the kinds of things that I bring up like this feel free to call me the other thing I did do is I went to the I triple our state of the range

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presentation last week and peter corvino was with the commissioner was there talked rob farnsworth was there as the advisory board chair of the I triple r there were regional updates from kristen barkey from the iron mining association.

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john arbogast talked about the steelworkers and they're running out of unemployment now so that and they're also in the midst of negotiations. He did mention that cliff came from mining minnesota was there the new leader of minnesota and north college jessalyn sabin was there.

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kevin mckinnon from the from deed the department of employment and economic development and then whitney ridlon and ryan melich also present presented and had a presentation for a triple hour and then then either closed it out but it was worthwhile I think in spite of all the problems and layoffs and I think there's positive things happening and it's always good to hear that. So that's it. Thank you, rick.

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the other council reports I got a couple have the indigenous people's day is october 12th and I believe it's going to be over the lunch hour that minnesota north and it's a woman who's done a curriculum on native populations in the area plus a professor from bemidji state and we don't meet again until well, we meet again in september, right. That's before the meeting.

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so there's that's coming up and it and the human rights commission is the sponsor of that and stolen from the human rights commission has been in charge of organizing it has really done an amazing job.

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and the second thing that I wanted to talk about was some the library may become a special >> source of funding or opportunity for funding at the women's unconference oh which is coming up in october.

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so I'm not sure I've been dealing with emails from them and I didn't know about the 50,000 until we got another email so that was very exciting to hear that that is almost at the goal of 300,000 that we had set originally. It will and the thunder will end in december at the end of this year and people are advised if they want to make a donation to the operations of the library they should do that. There is a fund that is run by the library foundation. Oh okay.

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so they will be one so thank you. That's it. Okay. Yeah. There are health reports. I just have one I just want to pull up here. So tomorrow there is a meeting regarding block 19 parking lot reconstruction and so that is happening at rapids green from 4 to 7.

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it is an open house I believe will be going through what that reconstruction looks like. So it's the parking lot behind rapids brewing company and I believe maybe tom is that timeline and kind of what the plan is >> moving forward is that my understanding that correct is administrator pagel oh okay.

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and >> what about block 19 is that it's an open house, right? And people will be they can come and comment. Absolutely. Okay. Okay. That's okay. It's okay. So just if people are interested in know about that parking lot reconstruction starting this next year please come out and share your input. All right.

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moving on to approval of minutes I look for motion to approve the council minutes for monday, august 24th, 2026 words work session and regular medium >> above approval of minutes from the work session and the regular meeting of august 24th. I'll second motion a second all those in favor signify by I I all right minutes are approved.

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next up verified claims look for motion to approve the verified claims for the period of august 18th 2026 to september 8th, 2026 and I told him on a $1,395,467.53 a move to approve the verified claims for the period of august 18th 2026 tuesday, september 8th 2026 in the amount of $1,395,467.53 I'll second motion thing roll call please. Spencer blake yes. Sutherland yes. That's for mcgregor. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. All right.

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next up under consent >> three was pulled and I'll go through that now. Item four consider adopting a resolution authorizing the 2026 budgeted operating transfers. Item five consider adopting a resolution to authorize closing debt service fund taxable go improvement bonds 2009 see I am six consider adopting a resolution to authorize closing capital projects funds 2020 for infrastructure fund

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item seven consider hiring seasonal hires meals salary switek and garin schlick became a golf course and benjamin olson at yama arena. Item eight consider resignation from nicole broberg employee ag group acf item nine consider authorizing the mayor to sign mpca >> forms for grand rapids public utilities item ten consider accepting a quote from t.a.

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construction group for the first avenue northwest rain garden inlets in item 11 adopting a resolution accepting an faa grant and the total amount of hundred and $51,974 for the tax and an extension of the grand rapids itasca county airport and authorize the mayor and city clerk to execute or move adoption of the consent agenda

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as read a motion a second hour roll call please >> welcome service yes or mcgregor yes. Yes. Blake yes. Mark connelly? Yes. I need a motion to set the regular agenda.

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we have 12 and then 12 b I'll move to set the regular agenda for items 12 and 12 a second motion second all those in favor signify by I I all right. Agenda set first up under civic center and parks 12 consider accepting a bid from range cornice and roofing company for improvement in the minors pavilion mr. Anderson >> good evening.

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in recent years the pigeons have become an increasing problem that minors pavilion their around the first couple of years but just in the past two years they've really become a problem. They've destroyed the middle row of insulation on the ceiling along with a few other smaller areas. The problem grew so bad this past winter that gracia actually paid for a pest control company to come in and exterminate many of them.

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we'll continue working with that company to limit the number of birds in the future once these improvements are made, the attached bed that I had in your council packet for $9,358 from range cornice includes removal of the bird infested insulation which I don't envy the person doing that job install new bat insulation and then they're going to cover the middle to

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perlman's the entire length of the ceiling with basically sheet metal to in an effort to keep them out of there in addition to that bed they also had a bed of $2,908 to include reconfiguring a downspout that's on the north end of the arena that comes off a flat roof.

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so when we get it's really not a problem with small rains but when we get large rains it dumps that water right into the pavilion. So if we have an event then we're out there, you know, with shop backs and our floor machines and stuff to get rid of the water.

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so it's kind of a safety concern as well for slip and falls. I >> did contact another insulating company to obtain a bed and I never had my call returned and I did reach out to a couple other local contractors and they just recommended going straight to range cornice. Oh okay. All right. Look for a motion.

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>> make a motion except a quote from range cornice and roofing company for $12,266 for improvements in miner's pavilion second motion >> a second roll call please. Customer >> yes. Yes sir. Macgregor yes. Mr. Blake yes. Sutherland yes. Connelly >> yes. All right. Thank you. Thank you.

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and lastly item 12 a consider adopting a resolution approving termination of the city of grand rapids point 5% local option sales and use tax effective december 31st 2026 prepared by carl but it's going to be talked about by administrator pagel perhaps mayor >> connelly and council this really is an exciting action item back in the fall of 22 the voters within the city of grand rapids approved

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the local option sales tax for 5.5 million 980,000 for improvements at the civic center. Now when they approved that, they also approved that it would end at the earlier of either collecting enough to pay for the bonds and interest or seven years.

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and what's exciting is at about three years and nine months this tax is actually going to end and I know we heard from the public when we were asking the voters to approve it that this tax would never end well by state law it would end and I'm just excited to let the public know that it is going to end at the end of this calendar year and really appreciative

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of the voters of this community recognizing the value of the civic center when they did approve it. So >> in a fair to say ahead of schedule. Ahead of schedule, yes. Yeah. Yeah. So we had you know we're way ahead almost >> like half this fast this I think it shows how strong our local community is.

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yeah the grand rapids yeah and also I'm glad we pulled it from consent to just because to make the point it is ending so it's not that we don't have other things we need but when I was running for this position in 2022 and I'd go to someone's door and they'd say that tax will never go away

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and I said well it's supposed to go away and so now here we are. Yeah. Yep, >> yep. Wonderful. All right. Well that's good news. All right, we need a motion to adopt a resolution. Thank you, tom. So moved. So I'll second >> motion a second. Is this a roll call, >> councilor macgregor? Yes. Yes, yes, sir.

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blake yes. >> yes. All right. So our next regular meeting is scheduled for september 28th, 2026 at 5:00 pm the city council will be entering a closed meeting here following this meeting so we will see everybody on september 28th. Thank you >>