TOWER— The city council here voted unanimously to pursue a possible joint powers agreement with neighboring townships to operate the city’s ambulance service. The action came following the release of the recommendation of an ad hoc committee established by the Tower Ambulance Commission to study ways to maintain the economic viability of the ambulance service.
The service’s financial outlook has dimmed in recent years under the burden of low reimbursement rates, a costly paid on-call system adopted in 2018, and more accurate accounting of the service’s expenses.
Under the joint powers proposal, the city and area townships served by the Tower Area Ambulance Service would form a joint powers board that would operate the ambulance service in the future. The new board, which could operate as a nonprofit, could well establish a taxing district that would generate the taxes to cover the current gap between operational and capital costs for the service and its available revenue.
“Doing nothing is probably not sustainable,” said city council member Kevin Norby, who served on the ad hoc committee. At the same time, Norby said the cost to operate the ambulance would likely be higher under a joint powers arrangement, since the city subsidizes some of the costs of administering the service and uses staff time to fill some on-call hours during the week.
He said the service would also likely need an independent audit, which would further add to the costs. On the other hand, the joint powers arrangement and a taxing district would provide a broader tax base to help subsidize the service and provide area townships a much greater voice in the operations of the service. “If townships don’t like how we’re running it, it’s a chance to play a role in making it better,” Norby added.
Norby said the ad hoc committee had explored other possible alternatives, including combining with neighboring departments or employing a private service, such as Buhl did recently with Essentia. “That works well for Essentia in Buhl because it’s halfway between their facilities in Hibbing and Virginia, but they weren’t interested in looking at doing something like that here,” said Norby. As for combining, “Ely said no because they have their own problems to work out, and Cook was lukewarm.”
Norby said the committee had hoped a solution might come out of the McGrath study commissioned by Greenwood Township but noted that that study had concluded that neither regionalization nor privatization were likely solutions for the area.
Norby, in response to a question from Mayor Dave Setterberg, said there was a strong consensus on the ad hoc committee for the creation of a joint powers board and a taxing district. “Just letting it go in the hopes that someone else will take it over, well, hope is not a plan.”
In other business, the council held off on approving a supplemental agreement with city engineering firm SEH for continued work on the water treatment plant the city owns jointly with Breitung Township. The Tower-Breitung Wastewater Board (TBWWB) has already spent about $253,000 on design and engineering for the long-delayed project and SEH is now seeking an additional $57,145 to update bidding documents, update specifications, resubmitting documents to state regulators, and updating permit applications.
The city has paid for the funds already expended through a temporary loan that was supposed to be repaid through grant funds for the project, but if the project fails to move forward, the loan will need to be repaid by the TBWWB.
The project had appeared ready to go three years ago, when the Army Corps announced a $3.375 million grant that was supposed to cover 75 percent of the project cost. Nearly three years later, however, the project remains in limbo as bureaucratic delays at the Army Corps and last year’s failure of the Legislature to approve a bonding bill have tied up funding. Meanwhile, the pandemic-fueled spike in inflation, particularly in the cost of construction, has only exacerbated the problem by driving costs much higher. SEH engineers now estimate the cost of the drinking water plant at $5.5 million, leaving the TBWWB facing a more than $2.1 million funding gap.
City officials appeared to want to wait and see if funding proposals before the Legislature are approved before committing additional dollars toward the project.
In other action, the council:
• Heard that the proposal to transfer the corpus of the Gunderson Trust to the Duluth-Superior Area Community Foundation for ongoing management will be heard before a judge on May 30. Following the hearing, the judge has 90 days to render a decision, although in uncontested trust matters like this, the judge will typically rule from the bench at the conclusion of the hearing. The order will likely then take a week or two to process, according to clerk-treasurer Michael Schultz.
• Heard that the meeting and site visit for the MN Housing Partnership is set for Friday, April 28. Donald Goggleye is the community development manager with the partnership who will be working with Tower.
• Voted to hold a public hearing on the question of whether to rename that portion of Spruce Street in front of the Tower-Soudan school building in honor of the late Carol Alstrom. Some former students of the popular physical education teacher have requested the renaming of the street, but city officials have been trying to assess public sentiment on the question. “There’s a lot of history in this town, so you want to think it through,” said Schultz. No date has been set for the hearing.
• Briefly discussed a longstanding issue with the city’s storefront account, which appears to have been tapped several times over the years for other city spending, leaving it largely depleted. The issue was recently reported as a new development by the Tower News, but Schultz said the disappearing funds date back beginning as early as 2009 and that the account has had very little activity over the past few years. The fund, which is now managed by the Tower Economic Development Authority, was recently restored with $50,000 from the sale of land on Mud Creek Road and a $50,000 development partnership matching grant from IRRR. The fund currently has approximately $111,000 available for lending for commercial renovations and improvements.
• Approved a motion to work with architects MacDonald and Mack to perform the bidding and construction administration for the Tower Depot roof replacement project, not to exceed $2,500. The council also greenlit an application to Lake Country Power’s Operation Round-Up for $1,000 to help cover a portion of the cost of interior painting at the Depot. The city has also lined up a $29,550 grant from Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation and $10,000 from the Minnesota Historical Society toward the project.
• Established the dates of Saturday, June 3 and Monday, June 5 for the Tidy Up Tower blight reduction effort. Council members will recruit volunteers to assist with the effort on Saturday and city public works staff will finish up hauling of debris on Monday. The city is dedicating $500 to cover costs of the now-annual clean-up effort.
• Made no decision on what to do with the city’s 6-passenger electric GEM car/truck, which has been inoperable for several years after the batteries quit holding a charge. Council member Joe Morin reported on quotes he had received for new batteries, which were around $3,500 give or take, not including shipping. Schultz suggested that the vehicle could be stationed at the city’s airport as a courtesy car.
• Approved the hiring of Chaz Hanna as an emergency medical responder with the Tower Ambulance Service. Hanna recently joined the Tower Fire Department as well.
• Approved the low bid for retrofitting the lights under the Hwy. 169 bridge at the mouth of the harbor to LED. The lights require replacement of bulbs and/or ballasts as it is, so Schultz said it was a good time to upgrade to LED. The low bid was $6,935 from Amptek.
• Approved a motion to allocate $14,000 from the sewer fund repair and maintenance for sewer televising and $2,500 from the water fund repair and maintenance to exercise water valves throughout the city.
• Approved the final payout to the Nordic Group for work done four years ago on trails and lighting around the harbor.

The city had held final payment until one light that was not working was repaired.