NORTHERN TOWNSHIP BOARD OF SUPERVISORS – Monday, April 25, 2022. 6:00 p.m. Northern Town Hall, 445 Town Hall Road NW, Bemidji, MN.
PRESENT: Chairman Jess Frenzel, and Supervisors Curt Blumhagen, Mike Kelly and Gary Barnard. Absent; Chris Lahn. Road Supervisor Tim Vigen, and Clerk Mary Israelson. See sign-in sheet for guests.
MINUTES: A motion was offered by Kelly, and seconded by Blumhagen, to approve the minutes of the April 11, 2022, meeting as presented. The motion carried unanimously.
VISTORS:
Carrie Fish – Is a resident of Golf View Drive and recently experienced an incident with a road maintenance operator employed by Contractor Johnson Construction. She proceeded to explain that she was not aware that it was against MN Statute to push snow from her property into/across the township road, and had stopped the operator to find out why the snow was pushed back across her driveway. The operator proceeded to explain his action in a manor that is not appropriate and it was recorded by Fish. She, and a neighbor, also feel that he was traveling too fast through the neighborhood, and will retaliate as a result of this issue. The Board apologized for this unfortunate incident, and assured her that the Contractor will be notified that this is not acceptable, and that there is no reason why snow should be purposely placed in front of a property owner’s driveway no matter what.
ROAD REPORT:
Gravel Roads – Vigen reported that all the gravel roads are in bad shape right now. The late spring breakup, coupled with late heavy snowfalls, have made maintaining the non-blacktopped roads very difficult to do at this time. This is true for all of these roads in the area, regardless of the municipality. Causing more damage to these roads is a concern during these conditions.
Tavistock/S. Movil Lake Road – This project has been delayed a bit due to the weather and not being able to do the survey topographic work as planned. Fuller will be attempting to talk further with the K. Molitor regarding the trees in the ROW and storing the reclaim materials on her property.
RURAL FIRE ASSOCIATION (RFA):
Blumhagen submitted the Annual Report and the list of calls in Northern Township for 2021. It was noted that many of the calls on the report were for the apartments on Supreme Court, which has been annexed to the City of Bemidji. Those adjustments will be forwarded to the Fire Chief. There are now some added expenses that were not anticipated for the new fire truck, which includes the surcharge on the chassis at $18,000.00. It was suggested that an Attorney look at the next contract, in order that these surprises don’t happen again. Blumhagen is not able to attend the next meeting on the 28th, so Frenzel agreed to attend, and will again push for an accounting firm to be hired for the RFA and to continue looking into creating a fire district.
JOINT PLANNING BOARD (JPB) REPORT:
The offices at City Hall were flooded out, and have been moved to the City’s Public Works facility on 5th Street. Frenzel will miss the May 11th meeting, so someone will need to fill in for him.
Town Board Meeting – 4/25/2022
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NORTHERN TOWNSHIP/CITY OF BEMIDJI:
The applications for grant funds to the federal government have been submitted, as well as the application to Congressman Pete Stauber, that was done by Beltrami County. Contact will continue to be made with the representatives, in order that the requests continue to get attention.
Kelly and Lahn met with representatives from the City of Bemidji, to talk further about the management of the proposed extension of services in Northern Township. They indicated that they will want to deal with Northern Township alone as one connection to their system, and are not willing to do the billing to the individual property owners. They anticipate that there would be a maximum of 140 hookups, and feel that the SAC/WAC fee of $2,675/parcel needs to be paid up front = $374,500.00. They have also indicated that their up-charge for the use of the system will be much higher than what has been anticipated. The City also asked what the plan is if Federal or State funding for the project is not received, and at this time, the board does not have an answer. There is no plan for another annexation agreement.
TOWNSHIP PROPERTY:
Bathroom – The contractor is supposed to come in next week to complete that bathroom updates.
Garage – The sealed bids will be received May 9th. Kelly would like the ad for the bids to be placed in The Pioneer as a classified ad another time.
CORRESPONDENCE:
1) the letters to the property owners of Northern Township with an update of the sewer/water extension were mailed last week, 2) JPB Listening session/business forum is scheduled for Tuesday, April 26th, 3) notice of the next Joint LGU meeting scheduled for Wed, June 15th at 7:00 p.m. at the South Shore’s Old Mill Building, 4) copy of the first quarterly ARPA report, 5) information from Assessor’s Open Book Meeting held this morning at the Northern Town Hall.
OTHER:
Deputy Clerk – It was agreed to pay Deputy Clerk Dianne Dockendorf $20/hour for any time she puts in.
Road Contractor – Vigen will meet with the Road Contractor, Joel Johnson regarding the incident with his employee.
With no further business forthcoming, the meeting was adjourned at 7:19 p.m.