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Serving Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota

Cook council edges closer on new blight ordinance

David Colburn
Posted 3/1/23

COOK- Residents of Cook who are concerned about blighted conditions in their neighborhoods are on the verge of having a new tool in their toolbox to combat the problem.After months of review and …

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Cook council edges closer on new blight ordinance

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COOK- Residents of Cook who are concerned about blighted conditions in their neighborhoods are on the verge of having a new tool in their toolbox to combat the problem.
After months of review and legal consultation, the Cook City Council is finally ready to move ahead with a new blight ordinance, one with some teeth in it for enforcement that the current ordinance lacks.
An enforcement officer may issue a compliance order to anyone with blight conditions on their property as described in the ordinance. That order will provide a minimum of ten days and a maximum of 30 days to bring the property into compliance, although the enforcement officer will have the discretion to grant additional time if warranted.
The person served with the compliance order may request a hearing with the city council. If the council finds that a violation did occur, the council has multiple options depending on the circumstances.
If it is a parking violation, a fine of $15 will be assessed that will double to $30 if the fine is unpaid within 10 days of being imposed, and will double every 30 days thereafter.
For all other violations, each week that a person continues in violation of the ordinance constitutes a separate offense and will be fined $100 per week.
The city also has the authority to cut and remove weeds and grasses, or remove garbage, refuse, or any other accumulated materials at the expense of the owner and occupant. If the charges for the work are not paid, the amount will be applied against the property as a special assessment.
Finally, the city may also elect to seek prosecution as misdemeanor for any offense under the ordinance.
The updated ordinance was presented at last Thursday’s council meeting, but before it can become official, the public has to have a chance to comment on it. That chance will come at a public meeting at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, March 16 at the community center. Until final council action is taken on the ordinance, the current blight ordinance will remain in effect, City Administrator Theresa Martinson said.
“We were told by legal counsel when we did further review that we can use our current blight ordinance,” she said. “If we received letters of complaint we have addressed those. There was some confusion along the way but we got it figured out.”
Recreation specialist
Another months-long odyssey reached an end when Martinson happily introduced Therese Cheney as the city’s new recreation program specialist. The primary focus of the position is to bring increased visibility to and public utilization of the community center and the city’s parks.
“We’ve been working for some time to try to get a staff person or a contract person at this facility to promote the community center to look at ways to basically have their operations open,” Martinson said. “Tammy Palmer and I have both met with Therese Cheney, who called our office and was interested. Tammy and I have talked with Therese about promotion and some of the experience Therese has in events and the kinds of things that we could do at this community center and as a community.”
“I have a background in doing event coordination for large groups of people,” Cheney said. “I’ve also done some local things in other communities with youth and elderly, so I have some experience there. I’m just going to jump in and get my feet wet and look for ideas and then present them to see what we might be able to do. But I think we have a beautiful facility here and it’s underutilized. I don’t think that everybody in the area even realizes that it’s available to rent or what can be held here. As I told Teresa the other day, I’m reaching out to other communities in the area to try to find out what they have going on, just to give us some ideas. But I’m really excited about it.”
Cheney also talked about the importance of collaborating with other community groups.
“Together, we can come up with some things to support everybody and hopefully bring in some revenue here as well,” she said.
An online community calendar is in the works, Cheney said, and she hopes to report on her progress with that at the next council meeting.
Cheney’s position is considered a contract service position where the majority of her hours may be off-site. Cheney will be paid $625 a month, an annual rate of $7,500.
In other business, the council:
• Learned that the surface condition of the ice rink has deteriorated from mixed weather conditions to the point that it is unusable. Given the time of year and the work that would be needed to rehabilitate it, it was decided to close the rink for the rest of the season.
• Hired Steven Correll as a clerk at the liquor store.
• Formed a policies committee consisting of councilor Liz Storm and Mayor Harold Johnston to begin the process of reviewing, revising, and updating city ordinances. Other council members may also be involved in the process, although only two can work together at any one time in order to avoid open meetings law violations.
• Changed the March council meeting date to Thursday, March 30.