Officials plan firsthand look at lights

Brainerd officials will be taking an after dark tour to look at the effect shutting off street lights has had in the city.

The Brainerd City Council on Monday adjourned to 10 p.m. on June 29 and 10 p.m. on June 30 to allow elected officials tour the city with staff and Brainerd Public Utilities officials to see what effect shutting off 500 of the city's 1,600 street lights might have.

The tour is being planned in advance of a 6-8 p.m. July 8 public hearing at Brainerd City Hall about the street light reduction.

Selected street lights - in alleys, in mid blocks and duplicates at intersections - started being shut off by Brainerd Public Utilities in early May in response to the Brainerd City Council's direction to reduce the street lighting budget by $91,000.

"I think it's important to do it," council member and Personnel and Finance Chairwoman Mary Koep said during the Finance Committee meeting. "I have had citizens ask me, 'Why don't you come over and look at it.'"

The tour will cover north and northeast Brainerd on June 29 and the rest of Brainerd on June 30. Koep said she hoped people who want to talk to city officials about the street lights during the tour would inform the city.

Brainerd Public Utilities will be issuing public service announcements through the media and Watts News, the utilities newsletter mailed to every resident, before the July 8 public hearing.

In other action, the council:

Approved with a 5-2 vote changing the Ward 2 Precinct 2 polling location from Whittier school to the Lakes Area Senior Activity Center.

Brainerd School District officials, in an e-mail to the city, noted they would prefer Whittier not be used as a polling place because, for all practical purposes, the building was off-line and not conducive for public use.

While the May 12 deadline set by state statute had passed to change a polling place before the primary election, the Crow Wing County auditor's office said the city could argue that Whittier has become unavailable for use and, per statute, the city could make the change.

Voting against were council members Bob Olson and Kelly Bevans.

Bevans noted that when the council made a similar motion two years ago, constituents in Ward 2 Precinct 2 were against it.

"I want to make sure their voices are heard, that Whittier is the preferred polling place," Bevans said.

It was for that same reason that Olson voted against the change.

"I don't think we should mess with it," Olson said. "We've had that polling place for years. I think school can accommodate this."

Mayor James Wallin, whose wife served as an election judge at Whittier, said even when Whittier was open as a school it was cold for election judges.

"I think there is time for change," Wallin said. "To force polling judges to sit in that kind of environment all night long to me is injustice."

Wallin said the people upset with the change from Whittier to the senior center two years ago represented a minority of the voters in Ward 2 Precinct 2, but the "squeaky wheel got the grease" two years ago and the council changed it back.

Koep said the council shouldn't discuss the pros and cons of Whittier but what is the best site to accommodate voters for elections.

"This is not about Whittier School," Koep said. "It's about a polling place (at the senior center) that's relatively comfortable, ready to go, clean and used every day."

Met in a closed session for about a half hour following the regular city council meeting to discuss preliminary consideration of possible discipline against Eric Makowski Budrow, a paid on-call firefighter and former Brainerd Housing and Redevelopment Authority and Planning Commission member who in December pleaded guilty in federal court to the theft of $660,000 from the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe. The council had no public discussion and took no action on Budrow's employment Monday.

Directed staff to call candidates who put political signs in the right-of-way to have them removed. City ordinances prohibit the placement of such signs in the public right-of-way and City Planner Mark Ostgarden sought clarification on how staff should handle the signs when they appear.

Adjourned to 6-9 p.m. Tuesday for the Initiative Foundation's Healthy Community Picnic at Brainerd High School.

Set a public hearing at 7:30 p.m. July 6 for a petition to improve Kingwood Street from North First to North Second streets.

Was informed by City Finance Director Theresa Goble gave a brief 2009 audit report to the Personnel and Finance Committee, all of whom missed the June 17 audit presentation by LarsonAllen. The audit results were clean Goble said, with one finding relating to internal controls - that the city needs more financial staff - and one finding about needing an out-of-state travel policy, which was corrected this year. Goble said Tom Koop of LarsonAllen, which performed the audit, said it was one that the elected officials should be proud of.

Amended an ordinance making brush piles, cut down trees and branches, pulled stumps and leaf piles not in containers nuisances under city ordinance. Also, the abatement period was changed from 30 days to 14 days.

MATT ERICKSON may be reached at matt.erickson@brainerddispatch.com or 855-5857.