Marine city council welcomes new year with new members

“Just a reminder the EDA was established in the business of purchasing the school (MVS) currently our sole interest is to deal with the economic development of the school property. We have sworn officers to that, so we need to reassign,” said Mayor Kevin Nyenhuis.

Miller was sworn in as secretary to replace council member Gwen Roden who completed her term December 2022.

Newly appointed Fire Chief Glen Mills gave his first public safety report to the city council and named officers for 2023. 

“Last year we had 103 calls for Fire & Rescue. The final report for 2022 is currently being worked on,” he said. “And we are currently working on equipment evaluation and looking at needs in the coming year.” 

Officers named: Assistant Chief Andy Lapos, EMR Captain Gayle Knutson, EMR Lieutenant Brain Wicklund, Fire Captains Michael Aspengren and Scott Mears and Fire Lieutenants Jamie Philip and Tim Barberis. 

“Two firefighters started training in Stacy, Minnesota." said Mills. “Stacy fits our model better and has more flexibility than Century [College].”

After Chief Mills gave his report, council member Anderson noted that Pete Malmgren, who completed his term as Fire Chief for the city of Marine Dec. 31, 2022, was recently named as Deputy Chief for St. Paul Police department.

Citizen Committee – Green Step Cities EV charging stations update

Council member Wendy Ward presented a recommendation on behalf of the Green Steps Cities for the city’s consideration of Electrical Vehicle (EV) charging stations and gave a summary of recent updates.

“The group has been meeting the last several months and met just a couple of days ago,” said Ward. 

“There are three of us Kevin Hine, Greg Johnson and myself…We looked closely at this in the spring of 2022. We thought we had a location, we worked really hard on that but I failed to consult with the Planning Commission, good lesson learned on my part. After that, monies started to be allocated through an infrastructure act, so we thought we needed to find a new spot, maybe there is money there, maybe we want to own the infrastructure – so we took a big pause and did a bunch of research,” she said. 

“…We see the monies going to major roadways meaning big freeways, that’s where they are going to put a lot of this money…Due to believing there will be no monies filtering down to a town our size and in our locale for the next year or two…and believing that the technology for this is going to continue to change fairly rapidly with pricing reduced for machines, I recommend we defer active engagement in this,” said Ward.

“We will continue to look at it and gather information but we are not going to engage the way we did last year. I don’t see the point and want to take the burden off our citizen committees and the citizens who volunteer to do this.”

Ward hopes that people understand the recommendation and opened the floor for comments.

Council member Anderson agreed that with technology moving so fast, “it wise to see where the technology is in a year or two.”

Mayor Nyenhuis thanked Ward for report and those who have championed it.

Other items

• Council member Lon Pardun named acting Mayor (in absence of the mayor Nyenhuis)

• Monthly council meetings were set for the second Thursday of each month at 7 p.m. and guided by Roberts Rule of Order (revised by the official rules of the meeting). 

• Security State Bank was designated as the Official Depository. The Country Messenger named the official newspaper. Johnson & Turner named as the city’s legal firm and Bolton & Menk named City Engineer.

Waste Management update 

City clerk Lynette Peterson announced that Waste Management agreed to a four-week credit for missed pick-ups for Tuesday residents. ‘We are trying to get a hold of them for contract negotiations but gave not heard back from the legal department. We will continue to work on that,” she said. 

Cell Tower update

Council member Anderson noted there continues to be work on cell tower. 

“A survey of compost area and drain field was performed and contract negotiations are ongoing,” he said.

Skating rink update

Anderson commented on the amount of work has been put into getting the ice rink to make it skateable and thanked Mitch Hanson for his time and work.

“It takes a lot of water and a lot of time to get that rink in good shape…we have a lot of good kiddos working up there, skating trainers will be available to work with children and we are looking at the possibility of a future community event,” he said.

Anderson also noted that the boards area about 15 years old and rotting.

“I’m not suggesting anything now, but we may want to start thinking long-term about what we want to do or what our options are.”