Blue Earth takes a long view
Sarah Day — Staff WriterBLUE EARTH - Long-range planning and maintaining streets are two of the most prominent concerns of the Blue Earth City Council.
On Monday night, city administrator Kathy Bailey led the council through a workshop. Each council member had sent her a list of goals, which she wrote on a large sheet of paper, posting them around council chambers.
There were 21 sheets, on topics such as street improvements, long-term financial planning, park projects, pay hikes, tax rates, encouraging growth, building new homes, enforcing ordinances, extending trails and more.
Nearly all of the council members are focused on seeing the streets improved.
Councilman Dan Brod wants the Fourth Street, Eighth Street and 10th Street projects completed. Fourth Street reconstruction has been in the works for at least 10 years.
Councilman Rick Scholtes believes there needs to be better financial planning for the streets so more can be done.
"We're headed in the right direction," he said. "I think what we're doing next year is five blocks, but when you sit down and look at all our streets, most of us will be dead by the time we get all the way through. We need to be more aggressive."
Councilman Les Wiborg agreed. He thought the budget should be looked at carefully to make more funds available for streets.
Councilman Dick Maher had the most "radical" suggestion: He wants the council to determine places where it can eliminate the street. Maher said he knows of several blocks that could be eliminated without affecting homeowners.
"Maybe we don't need all our streets," Maher said. "Maybe this is a far-fetched thing. We need to take a look at that. Maybe we don't need Galbraith for a certain section. We'll never get our streets fixed before we have to start over again."
Mayor Rob Hammond said everyone on the council wants to do something about streets, and that they're all frustrated because of the costs.
Councilman Glenn Gaylord cautioned the council against being too aggressive. He warned against spending too much on streets and increasing taxes.
"Let's do it cautiously," he said.
After officials discussed their topics, the categories were narrowed or combined to eight. Council members were given three color-coded dots, ranked 1-3. They each put a dot on their highest priority to third highest.
Streets became the top concern, receiving six first-priority votes and two second priority votes.
Planning for economic development; housing; infrastructure; parks, trails and youthful activities; and funding was the second most popular category, while teamwork was third.
For the planning category, many council members want to see long-range planning.
For quite some time, the city has only looked ahead for the next year, not a three- to five-year range.
Scholtes said long-range planning would help the city plan improvements better. If, for example, the city was going to pay off a debt three years down the road, the council would know more funds were going to be available for other projects, he noted.
Hammond said it is difficult to go forward if city officials don't know what their limitations are.
Also for future planning, the council wants to see more emphasis on increasing available housing options, developing another industrial park, and developing parks and other forms of entertainment to retain youth.
The teamwork category emphasizes working with others on a regional scale.
Bailey said the council could probably spend a year or more on planning. She asked which aspects of planning are the most important - infrastructure and funding emerged as the top two.
Bailey will work on plans for those categories to help the council achieve its goals.
