Minot - Minot City Council voted to approve a property purchase of $920,000 at the last Minot City Council meeting. This was the second consecutive council meeting that the action item was brought to the council.
On July 1, the action item to purchase property next to the current City Public Works building was brought to the City Council with a $920,000 purchase price. Council voted down the item in a 3-3 tie, Councilman Paul Pitner being absent. Those who voted against it were worried about spending money on a property that was not in current expansion plans but was open to public input.
“In my mind, buying land because it is possible we could have to grow at some point in the future,” Councilman Mike Blessum said at the July 1 Meeting. “And this happens to be attached to the public works current area does not pass muster for meeting the needs of the city.”
Blessum would continue by mentioning that this would put the city on an investment rather than a service path.
Councilman Rob Fuller asked Public Works Utilities Director Jason Sorenson what the purpose of the property would be. Sorenson mentioned that it would be used for a laydown area for sewer pipes and overflow for equipment stating that there were no “grand master plans yet but that would be the next step.”
Fuller told The Dakotan directly that if the item was to come up again in the future he was going to table the motion for 30 days during which time there would be an opportunity for citizens to reach out and comment directly. Fuller stated, “While I know I was elected and the citizens have faith in me, I believe we need to hear from the community on purchases like these, bailouts like Broadway Circle, etc.”
Fuller motions to table the item would fail, though. At the July 15 City Council Meeting the Action Item came before the Minot City Council a second time with the understanding that another offer was on the table, and this was the City’s last chance to purchase.
Public Works Utilities Director Sorenson presented the action item to Council again.
“So, optically, this probably looks weird. Two weeks ago Council said no, we are not going to purchase a piece of property and now we bring it back with a different purpose and a different funding source,” Sorenson said.
Sorenson would reference on May 2 the Souris River Joint Board authorizing a contract with Barr Engineering and Ackerman-Estvold to reevaluate the Preliminary Engineering Report from 2011-2012. This was a broad-scale look at the overall flood control project from a high level.
Sorenson would continue, “On June 20 during a regularly scheduled meeting that I have with the engineers on the current projects I made mention in regards to something that we had an offer in on The Kemper property, and at that time Ryan [Ackerman] made a comment [saying] that he [thought] that was good we are evaluating something and [Ryan] thought that property was going to be necessary for flood control.”
Sorenson stated that on July 2, the day after Council voted 3-3 concerning the purchase when it was presented as an expansion for the Public Works facilities, Ackerman called him.
“He was like Woah, we weren’t expecting that, maybe not weren’t expecting that but now that Council declined that we need to take a closer look before we let this opportunity leave us.”
Following that phone call, Ackerman-Estvold with Barr Engineering ramped up a design exercise to explore how this purchase could be used in a future flood control project. Three options were created and it was determined that buying the land could save the city 40 million in the long run.
But this solution brought about its own set of questions.
Ackerman mentioned how, if State Flood Control Funding was used for the acquisition, the land would, likely, not be able to hold a permanent structure that was not used for flood protection. Using this funding would allow for only 25% of the Purchase Price to be paid for by the city.
Councilman Mike Blessum brought up how this seemed a little “shady.”
“A couple things, as I talked to city Staff, as I talked to Ryan about this the first word that came to mind was shady, I fell back to the word icky just on the process,” Blessum continued, “It felt like after the first meeting with the new Council that something was being brought back because the result wasn’t what was hoped for or expected.”
Councilman Paul Pitner mentioned that he would have liked the plan that was presented on July 15 Council to be presented at the July 1 Council but “you don’t know what you don’t know.”
“Would I have liked this plan that was presented tonight to be the one that was presented previously? Absolutely.” Pitner continued, “We always want all the information. I think that everyone at this dais would like all the information when we are making decisions. The tough part is that you don’t know what you don’t know. This is a testament to staff and to Jason to have these conversations with Ryan in the meantime, to put pen to paper, to put thought to this, to say let’s go down this rabbit hole and see where this might take us.”
The Action Item would pass 4-3 with Councilwoman Lisa Olson, Councilman Mark Janter, Councilman Paul Pitner, and Mayor Tom Ross all voting in favor. Councilmen Mike Blessum, Scott Samuelson, and Rob Fuller were opposed.
