TOWER— Residents here will soon be able to attend at least one city council meeting per month in the relative comfort of the city’s Herbert R. Lamppa Civic Center.
The Tower City Council, on Monday, unanimously approved a motion to begin holding the council’s first meeting of the month— held the second Monday— at the civic center. Mayor Orlyn Kringstad had raised the idea in January, but suspended clerk-treasurer Linda Keith repeatedly told the council it was too much work to move the meeting. Councilor Sheldon Majerle had requested the item be put back on the agenda this week.
Attendance at council meetings has been standing room only since January. The city did hold one meeting at the civic center in March, which attracted an audience of about 60 people.
Councilor Mary Shedd said she had talked to current city hall staff who didn’t think the change would be a burden.
“At least on a trial basis,” Shedd said, “we can try it out.”
Shedd noted that in addition to holding the meeting in a space which is air-conditioned, it also alleviates a safety concern. With the council chambers packed wall to wall with chairs, she noted, it was a safety and security concern in case the chamber needed to be evacuated quickly.
“I like the idea of having civic engagement,” said Mayor Orlyn Kringstad. “If we are in a larger location, we will have more participation.”
The council voted to make the change starting with their Aug. 12 meeting. The second meetings of the month, which usually have a smaller agenda and more limited public attendance, will still be held in the council chambers at Tower City Hall. The council’s regular meetings are set for the second and fourth Mondays of each month at 5:30 p.m.
In other city hall news, Interim Clerk-Treasurer Ann Lamppa let the council know that the clerk’s office will be open limited hours from Friday, July 26 through Tuesday, Aug. 7, and will be closed all day on Friday, Aug. 2. Deputy Clerk Terri Joki-Martin will be on vacation over that time, and the interim clerk only works limited hours.

Fire, ambulance vehicle storage issues
The council questioned why the ambulance and fire department were parking vehicles outdoors instead of storing them in the city storage buildings on South Second or Hoodoo Point Rd.
“It has always bothered me that since the [fire department’s] building burned down, it wasn’t replaced,” said Majerle. “We need to get those vehicles under cover.”
The fire department’s second garage, which was adjacent to the fire hall, burned down about six years ago. The city received $140,000 in an insurance settlement, but has yet to replace the building, which was used to store excess equipment.
The ambulance service has been parking its third rig outside by the fire hall, along with the fire department’s brush rig and a rescue trailer.
Ambulance and Fire Department Chief Steve Altenburg said that parking the vehicles indoors on a gravel floor causes rust problems. He blamed $5,000 in rust damage done to an ambulance from the fact it was parked in a storage building with a gravel floor. He also said the rig is not immediately available for a run if it’s not parked at the hall. Altenburg said that in the winter, when the third rig is not needed because call volumes are much lower, that the department parks it in the Hoodoo Point Rd. storage building, which has a concrete floor.
Altenburg said the brush rig is used in the winter to pull the trailer for the rescue snowmobile, so that is needed at the fire hall year-round.
Majerle questioned whether or not the rust damage was caused by parking the vehicle on gravel. He noted that valuable airport maintenance equipment is stored in a building with a dirt floor without any damage. Majerle wondered if road salt could be blamed for the rust.
Altenburg said the airport equipment is “meant to be outdoors” unlike the ambulance.
Altenburg told the council the garage was not rebuilt because it was already too small to hold the equipment needed.
“It didn’t make sense,” he said. “to waste $140,000 that won’t fit everything we had before.”
The city has not had a long-term plan for the fire department since talks with Breitung Township on forming a regional department fell apart.
The council voted to form a committee, with Rachel Beldo and Mary Shedd, to look into the best short-term options for storing emergency vehicles.
The council also questioned why the department is renting two storage units, at a cost of $85 a month, and wondered what is being stored in the units. Majerle noted that city hall did not have a key to the units, or any inventory of what was being stored in them.
Altenburg told the council that the smaller unit was used to store a $30,000 dual SCBA tank-filler system that was supposed to be installed in the fire department garage that burned down.
“It’s a perfectly good unit,” said Altenburg, “we just don’t have a place to install it.”
He noted the department was using the filling equipment at the Breitung Fire Hall, which can fill one tank at a time. The stored unit can fill two tanks at a time.
At a fire scene, Altenburg noted, the department can refill tanks from a portable unit that is brought to the scene.
Council members wondered if it was worth it to store the unit long-term, or if it would be better to sell the unit to another department.
“It might be dry and safe in there,” said Mayor Orlyn Kringstad, “but there is the possibility of it deteriorating. We don’t have an immediate use for it.”
The second storage unit is filled with Halloween decorations and the tent used for the Fourth of July. Council members wondered if that equipment couldn’t be moved to one of the city’s storage buildings. The decorations are mostly stored in large rubber tubs and stacked on shelving.
The council will also look into longer-term options to meet the storage needs for the fire and ambulance departments.

Other business
In other business the Tower City Council:

•  Appointed Mary Shedd, Randy Johnson, and the clerk-treasurer to the newly-formed Hoodoo Point Campground committee.
•  Agreed to move the deputy clerk position back to a full-time job. It is currently set at 35 hours a week. Lamppa said the amount of work that needs to be done justifies a full-time schedule. The cost to the city will be about $9,000 annually.
•  Voted to donate $1,000 to the Blandin Broadband Feasibility Study. The study is being done jointly with the Laurentian Chamber and East Range Joint Powers Board. The three groups need to raise approximately $75,000, which will be matched with a $75,000 grant from the Blandin Foundation. The study will identify the most feasible and economical ways to bring broadband internet speeds to the area, and it will also identify private service providers that can partner with area communities to provide the higher-speed service. Once the feasibility study is completed, the groups can apply for state and federal funding to help pay a significant portion of the actual installation costs.
•  Heard a public thank you from Julie Horihan, who thanked the mayor and council members for taking on the challenge of “making sense out of chaos.” She noted that they all have likely taken on more than they bargained for, but wanted the elected officials to know that there are many people in the community who support what they are doing.
•  Will work on a new policy to require that all committee/commission monthly reports come in written form and follow a standard guideline to ensure that all council members are being kept informed and up-to-date on issues. The council had passed a similar policy several years ago, which will be looked into and updated as needed.
•  Will need to increase public utility (water/sewer) bills by $3.36 per year, starting in January on account of a statewide fee imposed by the Minnesota Department of Health which covers the cost of the state’s drinking water protection program. The state had not increased the fee since 2005 when it was set at $6.36. The council had voted in June to raise water rates by $2 per month effective in 2020 to help close the deficit in that fund.
•  Forwarded a request from the Wee Cabin Company of Ely to get a short-term rental of the unfinished second bay in the Lamppa Building to use to construct the timber frames for their small cabins, which are then disassembled and moved to the building site for final construction. The company would just need the space on a temporary basis for a few months either in the fall or spring while their primary work space is being renovated.