A special meeting of the Council for the City of Crystal Falls was held in the Council Chamber of the City Hall on Wednesday, September 5, 2001 at 8:00 a.m. Central Time.

Present: Mayor Cram, Councilors Hendrickson, and Lind.

Absent: Councilors Benda and Nylund.

Also present were City Manager Nordeman, City Attorney Lawrence and City Clerk/Treasurer Olson.

The purpose of this special meeting was to conduct a workshop to discuss the goals of the Council and give the Manager direction on those goals.

Mayor Cram opened the meeting by leading all present in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Mayor Cram asked Attorney Lawrence to explain his letter of August 31, 2001 to the Council regarding the budget process. Mr. Lawrence advised his letter was written to highlight the Council’s authority regarding budget amendments, when amendments can and cannot be made by the Council. He said that although they cannot amend the budget, they can determine whether or not to spend all, some, or none of the monies allocated to the budgeted items. He urged the Council to read Chapter 5.07 of the City Charter for clarification. There was some discussion regarding the interpretation of the City Charter regarding the budget process.

Mayor Cram then asked the Councilors to give their own lists of goals for the city. Councilor Hendrickson’s list consisted of: water system improvements, sidewalk improvements, power plant automation, power plant roof, Riverwalk project, Streetscape project, and a welcome program for new business’. She noted that these were not in order of priority. She also repeated her concerns regarding the sewer litigation, healthcare cost, barrier net cost, the Consumer Price Index, and the need to borrow money to purchase equipment.

Mayor Cram and Councilor Lind agreed with this list of priorities and Manager Nordeman was asked what his priorities were for the City. Nordeman responded that he felt the water system, upgrade of roads, and the streetscape project for the downtown area were tops on his list.

There was much discussion regarding all the items listed and the Council agreed that the following were the top priority items for the City:

Water System improvements

Streetscape/Road improvements

Sidewalk improvements (In particular the cleaning of the North 6^th Street sidewalks prior to the implementation of the M-69 detour route in 2002.)

Mayor Cram also suggested the Council meet in April of 2002 to set the budget priorities for the upcoming fiscal year.

Councilor Lind gave Manager Nordeman a suggested format for future quarterly financial reports to the Council. Manager Nordeman indicated that the computer program provided a limited number of formats for these reports and said he would present some examples to the Council at the next regular meeting.

Clerk Olson advised the Council that clarification was needed on the employee wage adjustments for the upcoming fiscal year and suggested this be done as a motion at the regular meeting scheduled for Monday, September 10^th.

Meeting adjourned at 10:07 a.m.