‘The sky lit up in all kinds of amazing colors’

Spisak provided a brief summary during the January city council meeting about an incident that occurred between Dec. 15 and Dec. 16, 2022. 

The incident caused water issues for the village of Marine and Jackson Meadow. 

Spisak explained he was alerted to the issue, “when I woke up at 4:30 a.m. to find flooding in my home coming from the second floor and noticed the water pressure was high.” 

At that time, he contacted Tommy Boesel, lead for the city’s public works department, and asked him to go to pump house check the pressure, 

“I sent emails out to the neighborhood [to notify residents about the issue].”

Spisak said he heard back from Marine resident Greg Johnson, who said the water pressure at his house was, “off the charts.” 

Since Spisak was unsure of what the issue was or how much damage had been done, he advised residents to shut their water off.

“Tommy and Rob [at the public works department] did an amazing job,” said Spisak. 

“They showed up on their way to plow six inches of new snow that morning. I met them at the pump house at about 5:30 and found that the pressure was at 100 PSI which is all the pressure gauge goes to.

“They determined that well two had kicked on and been on and was over pressuring the system. They were able to get that shut off and bleed the pressure off right away. By the time I got there they pretty much had it under control,” he said.

According to Spisak, “The pump must have kicked on when the power came back on and it was probably over pressured for about an hour or two…I’m thankful for them being there as quickly as they were…As a result, a number of people had some damages…but had it gone on any longer, systems could have failed, houses could have filled with water spraying out… so, really just a big thanks to the public works guys for being there…We have talked about putting a pressure valve at the pump house, that is in the works…”

Spisak also thanked city clerk Lynette Peterson and staff.

“I believe there is a claim open with the League of Minnesota Cities that is yet to be determined…Certainly people have damages that were deductibles that aren’t covered, so more to come on that…” he said. 

Fee structure for liquor licenses 

“I’m a little nervous because I usually like to be here for fun things but wanted to offer some feedback about how the decisions you make flow downstream and impact businesses and residents,” said Anna Hagstrom, Marine resident and owner of Anna’s Bistro.

Hagstrom explained that she opened her restaurant last year and received combination liquor license which was $1,400 for 2022. 

“For me, I made a purposeful decision to get the combination license versus the regular beer and wine license... It was a bit of a stretch and also left another license available. "So, I got the combination license…Our city is already kind of ahead of the city liquor license in use, I don’t know if we have ever had three...there is a lot more revenue than we have ever seen form liquor licenses starting 2022.

“The reason I am here is because I received an invoice for my 2023 license and it was $2,000.”

Hagstrom mentioned that she considers herself an informed citizen but received no notification about the change in fees and wanted the council to know that a 1.5 increase is huge for a small business.

“I was really disappointed to receive that invoice…I just wanted you to know that behind that extra $600 is hard work and its people that live in town, who spend some of their paychecks at other businesses in town…It’s a great opportunity for our town and I don’t want to see small businesses get priced out or see what has happened with that building – where the first few years go great and then we can’t sustain it because we only have 25 seats,” she said. 

“For a small business those fees make a difference. We want to be contributors to the town…I’m just asking you to consider as you increase fees in the future that it might not impact every business the same,” said Hagstrom.

Council member Anderson thanked Hagstrom for her comments and explained that the last time fee was updated was 2005.

“I take ownership for the amount of time that passed without looking at what the market was demanding…”

He added, the council had the opportunity to look at prices across the board, "because we weren’t centralizing our fee structure, everything was in different spots."

“We started off on the baseline of where we were…Since a lot of these fees hadn’t been adjusted for well over a decade, there was a feeling among the council that fees needed to be adjusted…We did our best to look at what other municipalities charge. With a town of 700 we don’t have a lot of great options to compare, so we compared Taylors Falls, Stillwater and Hugo…”

Anderson noted that the council had made adjustments to other fees since the recent structure change and mentioned the council may need to look at specific licensing and other fees, “But that is how we got to that decision,” he said. 

Council member Ward asked if businesses were directly notified. City Clerk Lynette Peterson confirmed that notification was discussed at city council meetings, included in the newsletter and available on the city website. 

“I believe the business of the council was done appropriately. The courtesy of the city and representatives could have gone a step further,” said mayor Nyenhuis. “Lesson learned.”