GREENWOOD TWP- The Greenwood Town Board is ready to take the first steps towards becoming a Firewise community. Firewise USA is a national program to help communities take action to reduce risks and increase resilience to wildfires.
Teresa Floberg, who works for Dovetail Partners, a nonprofit hired by St. Louis County to manage a community wildfire defense grant, spoke to the board about the process to become a Firewise community, how to develop a plan, and funding opportunities to implement the plan.
Greenwood is part of the area covered by the St. Louis County grant. Eagles Nest Township, Tower, and Vermilion Lake Township are already participating in the program, she said.
The first step involves creating a mitigation action plan, a roadmap for the community’s efforts to reduce wildfire risks. This involves setting up a two-hour meeting with community members, township officials, and fire department officials. The goals of this meeting are to identify wildfire risks, prioritize concerns, and discuss what more needs to be done.
Once an action plan is in place, the township can apply for grant funds for projects such as brush thinning, brush chipping, and educational programming. This can eventually lead to designating the township as a Firewise community.
“A lot of projects in our area revolve around getting rid of balsam,” Floberg said. “But every grant application looks different.”
The board voted to set up the initial two-hour planning meeting with Dovetail Partners to develop their mitigation action plan. Clerk Teresa Martinson will work with Floberg to set a meeting date.
“This plan is a living plan,” Floberg said, “it will change with time.”
The projects can be led by different types of groups, not necessarily the town board. In Eagles Nest, the fire department leads the program. In Tower, the city’s forestry board is leading the effort.
Firewise also offers site visits for property owners, at no cost. Residents can email firewise@dovetailinc.org to schedule a visit.
Resident Chelsea Grover said they had Floberg visit their property on Old Hwy. 77.
“I’d love if all my neighbors could do that too,” she said.
Residents on Isle of Pines have also sponsored local educational events about the program.
More information on the Firewise program is also available at https://www.stlouiscountymn.gov, and search for Firewise, or at https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/firewise/index.html.
In other business, the board:
• Heard from resident Julie Horihan about the Cook Library. She said Greenwood is lagging in support for the library, compared to other townships around Cook. There are 206 Greenwood residents with active library cards, she said, more than any of the other surrounding townships. Greenwood currently donates $100 a year to the library. She asked the township to consider raising their annual donation to $1,000, which would equal $4.85 per cardholder, which is similar to the donations per cardholder from most of the other surrounding townships. She noted that Beatty and Field townships both are extraordinarily generous to the library, donating $2,500 (13.09 per cardholder) from Beatty, and $800 ($9.99 per cardholder) from Field.
• Heard that the IRRR grant funds can be used for the water system repairs/upgrades, as well as repairs for the air conditioning system. The board approved a low bid from Mike Sailer Heating for $8,500 for new mini-split systems.
• Will be calling for quotes for snowplowing and sanding, for a two-year term.
• Voted to discontinue using the telephone conference call system since the township is already recording their meetings, as well as livestreaming them on Facebook.
• Heard that absentee voting begins on Sept. 18, but residents need to go through the St. Louis County office in Virginia. Clerk Teresa Martinson said the information will be available on the township website.
• Approved having the treasurer do payroll through the CTAS program, instead of oursourcing it through ADP. Treasurer Jill Clark said this change will just take a little additional time, but will reduce headaches with dealing with ADP. It also adds a second layer of control, since both the treasurer and clerk need to enter the data. Clark said she is very familiar with the process, and she will train the deputy treasurer also.

The board also gave Clark permission to use a different process for handling small cash deposits.