Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Well, you figure that might be a little undersold. Okay, I'm ready. Okay.

What are they going to sell? Okay.

We'll go ahead and call this meeting to order and welcome everyone. Thanks for coming. And we'll do a quick roll call. Crystal Jamerson here.

Mark Sloan. Steven Aistrup.

Lisa Kildee.

Ryan Weinzer. Mike Rader.

Jessica Melvin.

Bruce West. Chad Olson.

Don Morrison.

Okay, thank you, everyone. All right, we have up next is the agenda approval. Any questions, changes?

So moved.

We have a motion. Is there a second? Second. And a second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right, motion passes. We go on to the approval of the minutes from July 1st, 2026 Planning Commission meeting. Any questions, changes?

Move for approval.

All right, we have a motion. Is there a second?

Second.

I'll take Ryan as a second. No, Ryan, sorry, no. Mike as a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right, motion passes. Okay, we'll go on to the next item. Do we have a public hearing? No public hearing, no update, and go to consideration, discussion in Clay County Trailblazers Snowfield Club, access to the rail business district.

I'm sure they were to be here. I don't know why they're not.

Okay. Yeah, because the only thing in our agenda is just the email from Greg Strumman requesting the Planning Commission. We don't have anything else to consider. Well, do we move on? Or, I mean, we don't have much else on the agenda other than to file and receive the building permits.

I was trying to do one more thing on the agenda, but the party wanted to wait until October.

Okay. And...

In other words, they don't have the code. We can start walking through that tonight, too. Yeah.

Well, I can give a, well, yeah, we can give an update on that in the project updates.

So, Madam Chair, may I make a recommendation? When this comes back before us, if we had the relevant city ordinances dealing with snowmobile usage, that would also be a good reference for us to have as we're trying to determine the best route for snowmobiles potentially.

I like that.

Because there is an allowance, and you can drive your snowmobile to and from the gas station, direct route type things. But it would be a good reference for us to use in order to make an informed decision. And I know we're not discussing it, but I like the idea of... winter recreation and opportunities to line it up with restaurants and keeping safety in mind, but something to consider.

Is there, yeah, with that, is there also like a count, is there anything above us, like a county ordinance that we'd have to look at or not really?

I don't think so. Okay.

Just ours.

They will, they have jurisdiction over everything outside the city limits, but we do within the city limits itself. Okay. BASICALLY, AND THE CITY CODE SAYS SNOWMEAL TRANSIT ON CITY STREETS, AVENUES, AND ALLEYS IS ONLY PERMISSIBLE WHEN TRAVELING TO AND FROM DESIGNATED TRAIL ACCESS AND SERVICE AREAS AS DESIGNATED BY STATE AND COUNTY SNOWMEAL ROADS OR DURING INCLEMENT WEATHER WHEN AUTOMOBILE TRAFFIC IS RESTRICTED. OPERATORS MUST ADHERE TO TRAFFIC LAWS, BASICALLY. THAT'S IT. THE OPERATION AND OTHERS AND MUCH ELSE OTHER THAN

I would add maybe, Chad, if we could get maybe some like reference points, are there other, how do other smaller cities deal with this? You know, not looking to Moorhead, that's just a little bit different than what we are, but maybe like a Hawley or maybe like a... Lake Park, Auburn. Yeah, yeah, some smaller reference points as to maybe how they deal with it too.

Yeah, because I know there's, Madam Chair, pardon me, there are some markings and... I DON'T KNOW IF THERE ARE TRAIL FLAGS THAT YOU CAN SEE THAT ARE UTILIZED, AND SOME OF IT SKIRTS HIGHWAY 10. AND I KNOW THERE'S LIKE A VINTAGE CLUB THAT UTILIZES THAT ONCE A YEAR. THEY DO A TRAIL RIDE AND A FUNDRAISER. SO THERE HAS TO, I'M GOING TO ASSUME THAT THERE'S some information out there that will help us create an informed decision, whichever way this decision takes us.

Madam Chair, if there's any need for more information, too, I actually know the president of the Becker County group. if I can gather for that, I can certainly do so.

Perfect. Madam Chair? Yeah. Just a note too, in rural Clay County, there's more than one group. Trailblazers is one, there's another, I think there's two others actually, but there's an actual trail system, a designated snowmobile trail routes, then there's, we have online maps that show you where they are. So if we get to this to consider it, it would be nice to have it tied to those so that people could follow those. And those routes are actually groomed.

Way more information than we thought, that I thought anyways was out there for this, so. Interesting Okay, so we have lots of reference points to if they do come next meeting then to have for consideration for the city Perfect Perfect Okay, we'll move on since no one's for that we'll go ahead and receive and file the building permits any questions or Discussion on the building permits? Okay, we have a motion. Is there a second? Second. And a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right, motion passes. Okay, we'll go on to project updates. Jess or Don? Don, I didn't know if you had any to share.

along seventh and eighth developers want to start to have conversation about that there will be a building use question brought to you in the mixed use downtown area well the building what it was traditionally used for has had two uses since and the owner is having difficulty leasing the building and wants to move beyond staff and wants to talk directly to the Planning Commission, then maybe this item, too, we'll be back on. I'm not in, just so the Planning Commission is aware also, we've completed, the committee's completed review of the draft zoning ordinance, so it'll be coming to you probably in November, where you're starting to take a look at it, review it directly with the Planning Commission. Just anything I missed?

Um, you've heard a little bit on that tire shop.

Yes, there is a potential, uh, project next to quick trip, the lot where the trees are removed. Um, and, um, they're submitting applications now, I guess once, once the application is formally accepted and that can announce what it is. Yes. Yes. It'd be another commercial structure. I have not been given dates on the time frame. There might be some preliminary grading down this fall, maybe some work on stormwater retention.

Yes. I had one question. On 7th and, like, 4th or 5th, right behind the trailer park, they had removed the, like, the guard in there. I was wondering what was going on there. I didn't know if there was something that we had that was submitted or if that's going to be, if that's just new piping or.

That's a fantastic. You want to touch that one? Are we? You want to touch that one? I like that one. I'm excited about that one. It's the kicker lot.

Oh, is that what you're asking about the ditch?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, we have approved that. That's the kicker lot development line there. Precinct's townhouse is put in there.

HOW MANY?

SIX.

I DON'T KNOW WHAT I WAS THINKING. I WAS LIKE IT'S TOO SMALL FOR A MOBILE HOME PLACE. AND MAYBE I WAS THINKING THAT THE TOWN HOMES WERE GOING OVER BY WALMART. SO SORRY ABOUT THAT.

YEAH, THERE'S A LITTLE SLICE RIGHT THERE.

OH, OKAY. VERY NICE. SORRY ABOUT THAT.

THESE ARE TWIN HOMES, NOT TOWN HOMES, RIGHT?

IT'S A GREAT PROJECT UPDATE, AS PEOPLE ARE ASKING. I MEAN, IT DOES A LOT. I MEAN, IT DOESN'T DO A LOT, BUT IT HELPS DIVERSIFY OUR HOUSING STOCK. The building permits are here for a quarter million dollars apiece. So it does create either entry-level housing or transition housing. Like I don't want all the maintenance and upkeep, and I want to transition into something that's less work. So I'm excited about it. I'm hoping that it fills fast and spurs more like-minded development. Because there's HOA. RIGHT, THAT'S GOING TO TAKE CARE OF EVERYTHING, MAINTENANCE, ALL THAT STUFF, SO, YEAH.

IS IT GOING TO BE A, IS IT AFFORDABLE HOME, AFFORDABLE HOUSING, OR IS IT JUST...

IT'S MARKET, MARKET RATE HOUSING.

IT'S MARKET RATE HOUSING, BUT I THINK ON THE MORE OF THE INTERFERENCE. YEAH. SO IT WOULD BE NICE. OKAY, VERY NICE. EITHER SENIOR OR, YOU KNOW, YOUNGER OR SENIOR. IT CAN GO EITHER WAY.

NICE.

IT'S NOT AGE DEPENDENT, RIGHT? SO THAT'S, AND HE WON'T ADMIT IT, BUT DON TOOK A LOT OF PHONE CALLS FROM ME ON THAT ONE. as we were trying to navigate how to get it done and make sure I didn't make any mistakes and the lack of, or in the vacant office that is our city administrator, there was a lot of phone calls from me to Don and saying, how do we do this? This is what I said. And he's, you told them what? And then we had to figure some things out, but that's gonna be a great success. And Don put in a lot of extra time, took a lot of extra phone calls to make that happen. That project update and the fact that that project is moving forward, a lot of credit to Don and, of course, our full-time staff. Again, they're teaching Chad how to do these things and why we do things and stop promising things that I don't know what I'm talking about. I may have gotten my hand slapped a couple of times by Angela, but she keeps me in line. So we're happy about that. It's going to be awesome.

I appreciate it. Thank you, Chad.

Jessica, pardon me. Yeah, Jessica, especially Jessica. Why did I look at you and say Angela? I'm scared of you still. I don't know. It is. It's remarkable. It really and truly is. Because you take the water and sewer and, again, Jessica – really like, nope, this is how it needs to work. And this is how things need to go. I'm like, okay, you're the boss. And that's the way we did it. So it's going to be great.

I think the activity on the west end of Dilworth as well with the cranes has been wonderful to see north of Slumberland with that new, not low income, but what is it now? Workforce housing. Yes, the workforce. I think that'll be a great addition to Dilworth and expand and keep affordable living in Dilworth. It was great.

I think it's important to note, too, the efforts of the Planning Commission to make that happen. How many times did they come before us? Like three or four? It's got to be three at least. Three or four times, right? I mean, and again, when we're... When we're working with a builder or developer or an investor who is working with the state and trying to get that financing, again, we sit here and we know what we want. We see the vision. And then, again, it kicks to the full-time staff that they deal with the phone call after phone call. and it's great to see it was off i don't know if i've ever seen cranes in delworth before maybe the water tower construction but i can't remember it was 1986. yeah i don't i don't i don't i don't know that um but to see cranes in delworth was was exciting like hey we got two cranes we're like we're building things and i think it was even more exciting to say okay now we're down to one you know we must they must be getting close right that part is done so again The efforts and the conversations that take place here in Planning Commission and your volunteer time and your commitment, it's awesome. Because the vision is ours, right? We bring it from our citizens, and we try to build that reality. And it's great to see. You get excited when you're coming into town.

Crystal? I had two other things. Sorry, really quick. Is there a new gas station that's coming to Miss Casey's? It's open. It's open? Okay. I didn't see any signage, so there was an old gentleman that was there trying to pump gas, and I told him, no, it's closed. I'm sorry. You have to, like, because he was trying to get his card reader, and I was like, no, there's nobody here. You need to go.

Like this week, grand opening. I'm going to go cut a ribbon. I'm making that part up.

I don't really know. They've been slowly opening, doing kind of like a soft opening.

What is it? Yeah. SNACK ATTACK. SNACK ATTACK. OKAY. SO DON'T TELL PEOPLE NOT TO GO TO THE GAS SEASON.

WE WANT THEM TO BUY GAS AND SNACKS.

YES. THE SECOND THING IS, IF WE WANTED TO PUT SOMETHING ONTO THE AGENDA AS FAR AS TRANSPORTATION INTO DILLWORTH, What would be the best way to do it through Jessica?

Same way I do it.

All right.

So I've had conversations with Deb White from the MAT bus, and the GTC is currently unstable in Fargo, and so they've moved it to temporary housing into the FARGO ENGAGEMENT CENTER, BUT WE'RE IN TALKS ABOUT DOING, THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT EITHER DOING ONE GTC OR MULTIPLE GTCs THAT WOULD GO ACROSS A COUPLE OF DIFFERENT CITIES SO THAT IT WOULD MAKE IT EASIER FOR PEOPLE TO GET BUS PASSES AND GET TRANSPORTATION. Since we're kind of right on the edge where rural communities would be able to come you know we we were talking about possibly having a Like a hub in Dilworth if if possible do they want to run space It you know what anything is possible So I just wanted to see about you know what the city would feel about being able to offer that opportunity

MY RECOMMENDATION WOULD BE ON THE NEW ADMINISTRATOR STARTS ON 28th, THAT THAT ITEM GO TO HIM AND LET HIM ROUTE, BECAUSE THERE'S OTHER STAFF THAT HAVE BEEN WORKING WITH MADBUS AND THERE'S BEEN ROUTES AND STUFF IN CONSIDERATION OF THE CITY COUNCIL, SO I THINK THAT'S MAYBE AND ROLLS MACK BUS, THERE'S A NUMBER OF AGENCIES. SO SOME OF IT IS GOING TO HAVE TO COORDINATE ALL THE THINGS THAT WE'RE CURRENTLY INVOLVED WITH, AND THAT WOULD BE THE NEW SEAT ADMINISTRATOR.

Yeah, so there is a Minnesota Transportation Task Force that we've kind of put together with MapBus, Sanford Health, Essentia Health, CAPLP. There's probably about 10 different agencies on there all discussing rural transit and then the different transportations that's going to be happening that MapBus is rolling out, like they're on demand and such. So just trying to see how we can get Dilworth on the map and I'm advocating to make sure that we are included, especially with the rural transportation that we could possibly get to provide and get people to different employment. Sanford in Essentia is, are in talks with us on how we can get more people from Dilworth area to be employed in their services and what type of transportation we can take to do that to make it easier and more equitable for our community members. So that's why I just wanted to see. So I'll go that route and see what I can do. All right. Thank you.

All right. Thanks, Michelle. Any other project updates? Just go ahead.

The 7th Street and 8th Avenue presentation is going to be coming. I know the city council has talked about the beginning of construction on that 8th Avenue corridor. Have any decisions been made on what to do with that, or does the proposal that's coming in the next month facilitate that response from the council?

Well, see, it's been discussed. THERE'S BEEN DISCUSSION ABOUT 8th STREET EXTENDING INTO THE DEVELOPMENT, MAYBE STOPPING THERE, OR EXTENDING INTO THE PARK PROPERTY, OR ACTUALLY GOING THROUGH THE PARK PROPERTY TO THE OTHER SIDE. THERE'S ALWAYS BEEN CONVERSATION, TOO, ABOUT A LINK SOUTH, BUT THAT'S NOT IN THE CARDS ANYTIME SOON. DOES THAT SOUND ACCURATE, MAYOR?

THAT SOUNDS 100% ACCURATE, AND A LOT OF IT WILL BE DRIVEN BY COST. And then how that can be shared with the develop between the development in the city because a significant portion of that road Will be owned by the city it'll go through the park land so we will solely be responsible for that And potential designs with that if we did a if we did a pedestrian tunnel underneath We're talking about some significant costs But in terms of public safety, having that infrastructure in there so kids can go from one end of the park to the other and avoid traffic, it's going to be in serious consideration. But a lot of it is going to be driven by the dollars. What can we responsibly do well? And how much of it can we responsibly do at one time?

So this proposal that we'll be looking at next month will be? WOULD EVENTUALLY INCLUDE AN EIGHTH AVENUE PART OF THAT THAT'S NOT JUST GOING TO BE COMING OFF OF SEVENTH STREET?

RIGHT.

IT WOULD FORCE THE HAND OF THE CITY COUNCIL TO MAKE A DECISION ON WHAT'S GOING FORWARD?

100%. LIKE, AT LEAST THROUGH THE RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT, RIGHT? WE'LL WORK WITH THE DEVELOPER TO SEE THE ALIGNMENT, HOW IT LOOKS, BECAUSE THEY'LL BE LOOKING AT MAXIMIZING THE AVAILABLE HOUSING UNITS IN TERMS OF HOW THEY CONSTRUCT THE ROAD. And then, of course, we do own that significant chunk of parkland right in the middle of town, and then we'll have to decide where we go from there, what we want to do from there. It will be cheaper to do it today than it will be in five years, but who knows what five years looks like.

Thank you.

Madam Chair, just one more quick thing, sort of a project, but you, Don, alluded to it. What is the status of the vacant city administrator position?

THE NEW GUY IS STARTING AT THE END OF THE MONTH.

OKAY.

YEAH. SO COUNCIL WENT THROUGH THE IT WAS A BIG ADO. IT WAS MUCH ADO ABOUT EVERYTHING. I DON'T WANT TO STEAL SHAKESPEARE, BUT HIRING ARGUABLY THE MOST IMPORTANT POSITION IN THE CITY. AND, AGAIN, WE WENT THROUGH ALL THE WE HIRED DDS TO DDA. WE HIRED A PROFESSIONAL FIRM TO HEAD HUNT THE TOP TALENT. AND WE SPENT A DAY. COUNCIL, STAFF, MANAGEMENT, CITY LEADERS ALL TOOK PART IN THE PROCESS, AND AT THE END OF THE DAY, WE OFFERED A CONTRACT AND HE ACCEPTED TO MIKE BRETHORST, WHO WAS A CITY ADMINISTRATOR IN... HE'S IN MELROSE. HE'S IN MELROSE. HE WAS COUNTY?

BARNESVILLE. MELROSE, AND THEN HE WAS THE COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR IN BECKER COUNTY. BECKER.

CURRENTLY DOING... Consulting work and getting back into public service. So, he will start at the end of the month.

And he brings considerable experience.

Tremendous experience. Did he call you today, Jess?

Yes. Thank you for the full-time city staff for handling all that and doing all the interviews. We know how much work that is and how hard it is, so thank you. Any other project updates? Lots going on, as always, in Dilworth. All right, I'll adjourn today's meeting. Thanks, everyone.

Thanks, everyone.