SCHROEDER TOWNSHIP

      Minutes for Regular Board Meeting of Aug. 15, 2018

Present: Supervisors, Tina McKeever, Bruce Martinson, Rick Anderson; Clerk Doug Schwecke; Treasurer Carla Menssen; Fire Chief Phil Bonin, Dep. Clerk Gale Ring and residents of Schroeder. Absent: Commissioner Storlie

The meeting was called to order by B. Martinson at 7:11 PM.

R. Anderson moved to approve the agenda, adding problems at Harbor Park to Recreation and moving opening of bids to after approval of minutes. T. McKeever seconded. Motion carried.

R. Anderson moved to approve the minutes of July 10, 2018 regular meeting and Special Joint meeting of July 31, 2018 as presented. T. McKeever seconded. Motion carried.

Chair turned the meeting over to R. Anderson for the opening of bids for the sale of the plow truck. Two bids were received, Mike Rose-$15,999, Curt Laboda-$20,550. R. Anderson moved to accept the bid for the 2000 Sterling plow truck from Curt Laboda for $20,550, payment due upon receipt and transfer of the title. (currently being upgraded after inspection, hopefully about 2 weeks) T. McKeever seconded. Motion carried. The Board asked Curt to store the truck at his place until the title is transferred.

Treasurer’s Report: Treasurer Carla Menssen reported-Receipts for July totaled $2,901.78. Disbursements totaled $57,092.32. The ending checkbook balance, as of July 31, 2018, was $61,630.15, and a Total Balance of $196,311.81. CD#19005 in the amount of $10,556.82 was redeemed and deposited in checking to make sure we had enough to pay for the paving if it was due before we received the rest of the taconite tax money. R. Anderson moved to approve the treasurer’s report. T. McKeever seconded. Motion carried.

R. Anderson moved to approve checks #4390-4414, with ck# 4398 being voided, in the amount of $6,617.40. T. McKeever seconded. Motion carried.

Lodging tax debit slip for June 2018 in the amount of $5,587.36 was approved and signed.

Fire Dept: Phil reported they had a meeting Monday night. They worked on equipment and had training. Provided mutual aid for a fire near Lutsen last night. Working on having the brake lines on #2 pumper replaced. We should start looking into upgrading this truck. They are working to change the name on their checking acct. from Fire Relief to Firefighter Fund, since the fire relief has been transferred to PERA. R. Anderson moved to approve allowing the change of name from Schroeder Fire Relief Fund to Schroeder Firefighter’s Fund. T. McKeever seconded. Motion carried. They will be hosting a pancake breakfast on Saturday, Aug. 18. Clerk mentioned we are still working on the employee handbook. The 2019 municipal contribution due to PERA for the Firefighter Retirement Fund will be $0.

Commissioner Storlie: was not present but emailed that the county budget is moving towards a 5-6% increase. A townhall meeting on the budget will be at Birch Grove on Sept.5 at 6 PM.

Road and Bridge: MNDOT has replaced the culvert at the intersection of Hwy 61 and Sugarloaf Rd. R. Anderson moved to send a thank you to MNDOT for the prior notification and work done. T. McKeever seconded. Motion carried. Brushing Sugarloaf is on hold right now but may be done yet this year. Grading Sugarloaf is needed and will be done as soon as we get some rain. Paving project- Thoresons have removed the bad areas on Baraga and Schroeder Tote Rds. They are having to wait to pave because of an oil shortage because of the refinery fire in Superior. Quite a few maintenance items, like tires and brakes, will need to be taken care of on our grader pretty soon. Finding an operator for the old thing is getting harder. A local person has a grader and the cost to have him do it will not be much more than using our own. For these reasons Rick recommended that we consider selling the grader before we can’t get anything for it. T. McKeever moved to authorize Rick Anderson to sell our grader following State Statutes. B. Martinson seconded. Motion carried. Our current snow removal contracts have been in force for 3 years. T. McKeever moved to notify current contractors of termination of contract and to seek new bids for snow removal, with the bids due Sept. 11. R. Anderson seconded. Motion carried. Clerk will notify current contractors and put ads in the paper and on our website.

Cemetery: The water tank needs to be filled. Fire Dept. will take care of it. Clerk was asked to send a thank you to Chuck Whiteside and the West End Garden Club for work they have done at the cemetery.

Recreation: Rick noted that there was an issue of someone tearing down the gates at the west end of the ball/dog park. It was probably just an isolated problem as it hasn’t happened since. He did get some chains and padlocks to close those gates. Discussed the problems with a short-term rental unit by Harbor Park. Some of the occupants have been loud, not cleaning up after their pets, leaving trash in the park and moving the picnic tables down to the beach. Discussed what could be done to alleviate the problem. Private short-term rentals have exploded in recent years county wide and is something that the county will have to deal with. There probably is not much the township can do about it. As far as the park is concerned we will look into putting up a dog station at the park and reviewing the posted rules of conduct for using the park. Action tabled until Sept.

Maintenance: Karl has repaired the front steps. New restroom faucets have been purchased and will be replaced as soon as possible. Spraying for cluster flies was approved.

Other Business: TSSSD- A Joint Board meeting to gather public input was held on July 31, at the Schroeder Townhall. The next step is to approve a resolution to authorize detachment. T. McKeever moved to approve Resolution #2018-05, a resolution authorizing detachment of the Town of Schroeder from Tofte-Schroeder Sanitary Sewer District and execution of Petition for Detachment. R. Anderson seconded. Motion carried and the resolution was signed. Birch Grove Community Center- Tina checked with a MAT attorney about our giving monetary support to Tofte Twp as covered by MN Statute 471.85. We need to be specific about what the money is to be used for and Tofte would have to agree. Further action was tabled until Tina could set up a joint meeting with all 3 townships to discuss proper steps involved. Clerk was asked to write a letter asking MNDOT to provide hand sanitizers in the restrooms at the Cross River wayside rest area. We received a request by email to provide payroll information to a company in Florida. Since we are not an urban township we are not bound by the Data Practices Act. Citing privacy concerns, T. McKeever moved to not provide the data requested. R. Anderson seconded Motion carried.

Correspondence: Sent– resolution to PERA

Received– thank you from Tofte(4^th of July support), Cook County Hazard Mitigation questionnaire, MNDOT customer survey, MAT District 10 meeting and election-Aug. 30, MN Revenue-2019 Town Aid $3774

Public Comments: Tina asked the other supervisors if they have done the LBAE training online. She has been having trouble accessing it. The others have not tried yet.

R. Anderson moved to adjourn. T. McKeever seconded. Motion carried. Adjourned at 8:48 PM.

Respectfully submitted,

Doug Schwecke, Clerk