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Minutes of the Grand Forks City Council/Finance/
Development Standby Comm. - August 15, 2007 - 12:00 Noon.

The city council of the city of Grand Forks sitting as the Finance/Development Standby Committee met in City Hall in Room A101 on Wednesday, August 15, 2007 at 12:00 noon. Present at roll call were Council Members Christensen, Glassheim, Gershman.

Also present were Meredith Richards, Mark Aubol, Brad Hilldebrand.

1. Holiday decorations.
Meredith Richards, Urban Development, reported that last fall $37,900 was allocated from Beautification and a small amount of that was for last Christmas but actually too late in the year and gearing up to get that money spent for holiday lights for this holiday season.

After discussion and comments by the committee the following is the direction of the committee:

For this year:
Downtown -- Buy and install white LED lights for the buildings and Kittson trees. Buy 2 types of banners (BE5 and BE4 with red/green reversed). Buy 1 type of banner light (BE1). For installation, aim for one type banner along DeMers, another along 3rd Street. Budget: Brad will go as far as he can with $42,719.00 ($37,900 - $2681 + $7500).

DeMers overpass tree -- Mark will look into the work needed to wrap the lights rather than drop them. Would it be worth it to try to return the lights that were already purchased and instead buy LED?

Elsewhere -- Ask S. Forks Merchants to only use their best decorations and concentrate them on S. Washington rather than spread them out. Mark will look into the electrical situation in terms of lighting trees on Washington.

Long-term:
Convene an appropriate group and create a city-wide plan to be implemented over time. Mark & Meredith will work on identifying the people and setting up the first meeting. Mark will have sample decorations for show-and-tell but it seems like the trend is to go to for a cluster-type approach, especially lighting trees, rather than lining corridors with decorations mounted on street lights.

Adjourn

The meeting adjourned at 1:10 p.m.

Alice Fontaine, City Clerk