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PROCEEDINGS OF THE CITY COUNCIL
OF THE CITY OF GRAND FORKS, NORTH DAKOTA
March 30, 2009

The city council of the city of Grand Forks, North Dakota met in special sessions at the call of Mayor Brown in the council chambers in City Hall on Monday, March 30, 2009 at the hour of 5:30 o'clock p.m. with Mayor Brown presiding. Present at roll call were Council Members Bjerke, McNamara, Glassheim (teleconference), Gershman, Christensen (teleconference), Bakken (teleconference), Kreun - 7; absent: none.

Mayor Brown announced that anyone wishing to speak to any item may do so by being recognized prior to a vote being taken on the matter, and that the meeting is being televised.

Mayor Brown commented on various items during the past week and upcoming events:
Thanks to volunteers who have been such a big help to the region and city, including University of North Dakota, high school students and the Air Base and many other groups who made huge contribution. to the needs of the community and region.
There has been good coordination between City, County, University and others, and that our special crews deserve recognition, Public Works including street department, wastewater, stormwater, police and fire departments and finance as well as everyone else who have been contributing to this flood protection effort, that the Red Cross and Salvation Army were important in sandbag central.

FLOOD PROTECTION UPDATE

Al Grasser, city engineer, presented latest flood information - map show hydrograph of Fargo and that floodwaters are on the way down, they crested Saturday at just under 41 ft. and now under 39 ft. and projected to have a continual decrease in their elevations; map showing hydrograph of Grand Forks/East Grand Forks with a 7-day projection with updated crest of 50.6 ft. on Thursday/Friday, however, they are still giving a range of 50 to 51 ft.; range on the map is because of ice conditions on the main stem of the Red and Red Lake plus contributories. Our current elevation is about 48.8 ft. In looking at contributories - Wild Rice, Buffalo, Red Lake and Goose River are all falling and not at major stages and that the Goose River would be below flood stage, even today, and higher amounts coming from southern valley - ND Wild Rice and Sheyenne. Our weather system locked up the run-off starting mid last week and benefit of cold weather has turned runoff into ice and portion that came down as snow rather than rain is helping keeping crests under control. There is still a lot of snow, 5+" water equivalent in some of those areas in the reaches of the Sheyenne Valley and that water has to work its way down through the system. There is again snow in the headwaters of the Red River and this will mean is that we will stay at relatively high levels for quite a long period of time and when this snow starts to melt will probably get a secondary crest but forecast for next 7 days is very little melting and Weather Service having difficult time trying to project that far out.

Comments were made as to our current situation - sandbag central is shut down, street closures are complete, stoplogs are in, gates shut at storm stations and pumps on and are operating on full flood motive at this point in time, now monitoring and waiting. He noted there is traffic disruption on Highway 2 as one lane of traffic will be closed for several hours every day as a company through the ND and MN DOT's will be monitoring the bridges and the riverbed underneath the bridges, watching for scour, etc. so if bridges get to a point where they may become unsafe. It was noted that public safety trying to keep people off the dikes - public needs to pay attention - very serious situations out there as the river is dangerous. Mayor Brown stated that he signed executive order today and if unauthorized people on the dike and ticketed there is a penalty - could be up to $1,000 or 30 days in jail.

Council Member Glassheim questioned how much does an inch of rain or snow in Fargo or in Sheyenne raise our crest. Mr. Grasser stated that technology is beyond what he has - too many unknown factors at this time whether it comes down as rain or snow, during main crest, before or after, and does rain take snow out and make it all run off - but impacts are going to be much greater in upstream reaches (Fargo, Valley City, Lisbon) and as long as we can get this flush of water through our system, we will have capacity to take that water.

There was some discussion relating to whether ice upstream is holding up the flow of water to the north. and it was noted that we have ice everywhere, large sheet of ice located by the Thompson Bridge that is holding some water back, lot of ice in the Oslo area downstream from us and significant amount of ice in the Red Lake River, but water is continuing to flow through and around those ice sheets/jams.

Question was raised as to the preliminary work that was done on the dikes, what percentage of earth was moved that would have had to be moved. Approx. a half mile of levee out of 7 miles was done and probably only 10-15% but what really gained timewise and were able to get some of that started early - the borrow pit that they were using is under water, but intent was to close that window of construction.

Comments were made relative to the MN and ND DOT inspection of the bridges, that equipment was brought in and doing sonar readings, checking to see if the riverbed is getting scoured out to a point where it can endanger some of the footings and pilings of the bridge structure, and from past experience that when get high river velocity there is some scouring out that happens, esp. around structures, and making sure if it in fact does exist does not get to a point of endangering human life and if it did would shut the bridge down.

Relative to traffic control on Highway 2 the MPO put together the basis of the plan during a bridge closure document that they just completed within the last six months, and traffic engineer, police and street department have been working closely to put together a plan during the bridge closure, police have been trying to keep the traffic flowing, some signage re. left turns and barricades of some streets, as left turns were causing problems and traffic is flowing about as well as it can be as there is a lot of traffic through there and will continue to be slow.

FLOOD PROTECTION OPTIONS

Rick Duquette, city administrator, reminded the city council that when we hit 50 ft., our contractors and crews are staged to the point where we will load trucks with clay and put them inside buildings in Industrial Park to keep the clay warm if we have difficulties with flood closure; public will see no traffic as clay will be taken out of our borrow pit to the west and put in the Industrial Park. He reminded everybody that we have a secondary crest coming based upon the moisture that is coming over the next few days to the south of us and need to be prepared. He stated we have lot of hard working people in the city - engineering department, public works, street department, finance and public safety people - fire and police - lot of exceptional work going on, and have a chance to take break for awhile and be prepared for the secondary crest

Question was asked as to what plans during the next snow storm; Todd Feland, director of pubic works, stated crews are back on regular shifts, stoplog closures are complete, and last week had problem where part of the crew putting up stoplogs and at the same time trying to remove snow, and supplemented staff including water distribution and sanitation people but now have our regular midnight and day shifts with snow removal back to normal.

It was reported that status of lift stations, that now on standby waiting for melting and potential rain events doming in April - that flood stations closed because of cold weather and not a lot of runoff, but will be used as we have lot of snow left to melt and may get a rain event - long first crest and possibly second crest.

Funding costs were discussed; that County Commission had emergency meeting and set aside $500,000 for cost of sandbags that went to the county, cost of sandbags and staff time being tracked. Mr. Duquette stated that they will be meeting with staff to look at staffing levels and start to assemble some of our expenditures, that we are into hundreds of thousands of dollars; and will work through our county emergency manager re. applications and chain to the federal government.

Council Member McNamara stated he had received some comments from those who have seen articles in the paper where Fargo and West Fargo have Code Red system, and asked for explanation. Roxanne Fiala, IT department, stated that the City of Grand Forks has a system called "City Watch", where everybody's home phone number is in the system, and cell phone numbers only if people sign up and put their cell phone number in and can do that on the website; and will be doing another promo campaign. Council Member Kreun stated this has been developed into 50 or 60 sections so notification not automatic for the whole city but if certain area in the community needs to be advised, they can block those sections off and do the reverse 911 on that section; and would be doing that in case of breach or some need to notify those individuals - there are backup plans and contingencies and would be recorded message left on those phones giving location of situation, which roads are open and where to go.

MAYOR AND COUNCIL MEMBER COMMENTS

Council Member Bakken stated that he hoped the City of Grand Forks is doing as much as we can for Fargo and if anything we can do during our downtime to help them get ready for their second crest.

Council Member Kreun stated that staff at UND have been working hard, that even though they didn't have students, staff doing some reorganization in classes so can get in their allotted amount of time so that they don't have to make up those particular days at the University; that the UND Food Service area has been out in the public as well, partnership very good along with the students. County and City really starting to have relationship so can rely on each other and can build on that.

ADJOURN
It was moved by Council Member Bjerke and seconded by Council Member Gershman that we adjourn. Carried 7 votes affirmative.

Respectfully submitted,


Saroj Jerath, City Auditor
Approved:
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Michael R. Brown, Mayor