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Minutes of Grand Forks City Council/Committee of the Whole
Monday, January 11, 2009 - 5:30 p.m._________________ __

The City Council met as the Committee of the Whole on Monday, January 11, 2009 at 5:30 p.m. in the Council Chambers in City Hall with Mayor Brown presiding. Present at roll call were Council Members Bjerke, McNamara, Glassheim, Gershman, Christensen, Kreun - 6; absent: Council Member Bakken - 1.

Mayor Brown commented on various items during the past week and upcoming events:
City Hall will be closed next Monday, January 18, for Martin Luther King's Day and the council meeting will be held on Tuesday, January 19.

PRESENTATION BY NATIONAL LEAGUE OF CITIES

A brief presentation was made by the National League of Cities re. municipal action for immigrant integration program; Ricardo Gambetta, manager of the Program and communications consultant Roberto Ponce. Following the presentation Mr. Gambetta stated that immigration integration process happens at local level, try to promote exchange of ideas, try to promote immigrants to become citizens. During focus groups found that immigrants would like to see in a naturalization campaign, what are motivators, values, and what is perception of becoming a citizen of the United States, that becoming a citizen you can fully participate in the civic and political lives in the United States, and as a citizen will have a voice in the decisions that affect the future of the family. Through surveys distributed, found out that what immigrants want is what the rest of us want, to better themselves and better future for their children. It was noted that every year select by invitation few cities from all over the country, at no cost to them. He stated they want to improve communication and relationship between City Hall and local immigrants.

Mayor Brown stated that we are a land of immigrants and want our community to be strong and want immigration process to be positive, both for the immigrants and for the community.

Council Member Gershman stated that there is a number of secondary immigrants moving to Grand Forks that have passed through immigration process and some new immigrants but that population appears to be growing as ND has jobs, this is a friendly community. He stated he was interested in pursuing the idea of forming a committee that would work and become one of the pilot programs, one of three pilot cities in America for this program and could learn a lot from other cities that have gone through this program, and important that we pursue this with approval by the council, and looking for communication between all the agencies and communication through this committee. He suggested that the council as this is the first time they have seen this municipal action for immigrant integration, that we take some time to review this, received material tonight and that there is a memorandum of understanding that they would like to be distributed to the full council, take several weeks to review and bring it back at a future committee of the whole meeting in 2 weeks for further review and make final decision the following week. This is not an additional expense to the City, would not be appropriating any funds towards this effort, would be a volunteer committee that would work with the Knight Foundation, who is funding this. There were no further comments.

2.1 Request for extension of alcoholic beverage license by Suite 49, LLC, 2950 10th Avenue North._______________________________________________________
There were no comments.

2.2 Greenway Boat Dock for Lincoln Boat Ramp.
Council Member McNamara stated that the first ramp is going to be donated and that the
cost for the second one would be $2300, and questioned why wait. Melanie Parvey stated that was working well in the area before going ahead with two of the same to make sure it was what they wanted. Council Member Christensen stated he agree with Mr. McNamara as this was proposed a couple years ago and had postponed it for a year and thinks that we should do it, that we have enough money to fund this. Council Member Gershman asked if there is any engineering we have to do there because of the riprap and stability of the bank but should do both of them; Ms. Parvey stated concern they had of how to implement that one on the north end because of the bank stability but could take a look at it and could accept the gift from the ND Game and Fish and apply it for something that could work on the north end boat ramp for this year.

2.3 Public Works facility renewal project design services agreement.
There were no comments.

2.4 2010 Arts Re-granting Program.
Council Member Gershman stated concern re. Greater Grand Forks Symphony Assn.
because of the general operating support because not sure want to provide operating support for various arts organizations. A rep. of the Symphony Assn. stated general operating support was not correct request because they were not depending on support for any one concert, that they have a wide span of activities from musical education, outside concerts and their mission is to build a music culture in Grand Forks and their core activity and namesake is the Grand Forks Symphony Orchestra and they usually have 5 main concerts each year, the challenge in producing those 5 concerts is bringing and keeping the very best performing musicians they can find here, and once they are here try to keep that resource in variety of ways; that those musicians were paid $3.00/rehearsal and try to build that for musicians to want to not be reimbursed for it, was expenses, and this is the way they direct their funds.

Mr. Gershman asked what the Arts 2010 Positioning for Success in a New Decade, as didn't have any documentation behind it.. It was noted by a rep. of group that The Arts 2010 Program is
in the 2010 Program there is no direct funding being requested from NoVac - the funding they are requesting from the Arts Counsel and the City of Grand Forks specifically goes to 3 different initiatives, one which is the Young and Old Initiative, which seeks to encourage and foster acts of participation in the Arts by young people and the other one is in response to a variety of older folks in the community and have looked at a series of different types of programming to introduce people to the stage; the second of which is infrastructure advancement which exists to help our facility meet the needs of the community at large; and the third one is a joint venture between the Community Theatre and the University of North Dakota in creating a resource for producers, directors, actors and musicians within the community, specifically revolving around Community Theatre.
Money does go to performances and theatrical events and as part of their Young and Old Musical imitative some of the funding support does go towards the production of theatriatic elements and those costs are typically associated with marketing, advertising, recruiting and one of the focus areas of the Community Theatre is making sure that they can support artists who are creating art, artists who live in our community that are trying to actually advance themselves in the creation of art; and much like the Symphony pays its members, they also have contract and professional staff performance by performance that receive compensation based on their work - the combination of performance, workshop, education and infrastructure.

He also noted that their organization is not similar to SPA, they look at partnership with Summer Performing Arts, Grand Cities Children Choir and org. in East Grand Forks to make sure they don't create a duplication of resources, their workshop theories is specifically geared towards smaller groups and to career preparedness.

Council Member Glassheim asked that copies of the applicant's applications be provided to the council members.

2.5 Request from Pribula Engineering on behalf of Idahoan Foods, LLC for final (fast track) approval of Replat of Lots 5 through 10, Blk. 1 and Blk. 2, all in Greenberg's Industrial Sites (loc. at State Mill Road and Red Dot Place).____________________
There were no comments.

2.6 Request from Randy Bosma on behalf of Al Bergstrom for final (fast track) approval of Bosma Resubdiv., being a Replat of Lot 1, Blk. 1, Landowski Subdiv. and an unplatted part of the E 1/2 of E 1/2 of Section 29, T152N, R50W, Grand Forks County (loc. on N. Washington St.)_________________________________
There were no comments.

2.7 Request from Dr. Richard Odegard on behalf of Kindness Animal Hospital, PC for approval of a conditional use permit (CUP) for Lot 1, Blk. 1, Columbia Park 25th Resubdiv. (loc. at 2325 32nd Ave.S.) for the purpose of constructing an animal crematory to be operated in conj. with Kindness Animal Hospital.______________
Howard Swanson, city attorney, stated he is concerned with the language in the proposed
conditional use permit as to the term, there is no defined term, rather intended to be an indefinite term and will be working with the Planning Department to identify any specific violations or actions the council may take in the event of violations. Council Member Christensen stated what he would like in this conditional use permit that it is specific to the current owner or future owner of the building as Dr. Odegard indicated that he wanted to locate there for business reasons and that the site, the former Hyundai dealership on 32nd Avenue South, and that his concern was that if this council grants it, it is fine for him and that if he wants to sell the building to another vet that is fine but if the use is no longer a vet, then the crematory would be removed, and that would be included in the permit..

6. MAYOR AND COUNCIL MEMBER COMMENTS

1) Council Member Bjerke asked if Chief Packett in regards to immigration, would like to have a briefing or general review of what do we do if we pull someone over and immigration issues arise, and would like an overall briefing on how we are tied into all the subject's in relation to immigration, and to let him know whenever he is ready to pick day and time.

2) Council Member Christensen stated he applauds the Mayor's, Mr. Gershman's and Mr. Glassheim's initiative as to the presentation this evening re. integration of immigrants in our community, and asked if we have any data as to the number of immigrants we have in our community - various churches assist immigrants in the community, and as part of this report, and back to the committee of the whole, would like to know that we would want to help with this program - and curious as to what trying to get done here.

3) Council Member Kreun stated on the question of immigration, that the School District probably should be involved as far as the committee that would be brought forward, know that they have about 26 different languages they are working with at this time and see what their views would be on how to integrate this into the city as well.

4) Council Member Gershman stated that is one of the reasons he suggested that they take some time, that they have anecdotal information of people moving here and would be interesting through the School District and others to get some of that information, how many people are here and that is what is good about taking extra time and would encourage everybody to do is to contact the Mayor's Office and ferret out some of the information that you might want to have as going forward on this.

ADJOURN

It was moved by Council Member Bjerke and seconded by Council Member Gershman that we adjourn. Carried 6 votes affirmative.
Respectfully submitted,



Saroj Jerath
City Auditor