FAIRMONT–After months of discussion, surveys and planning, the Fairmont City Council on Monday approved a “preferred alternative” plan for Blue Earth Avenue.

Interim City Administrator, Jeff O’Neill, gave a recap and said that while there were four original plans to consider, after input from citizens, council members and the engineers, they came up with a plan that has an emphasis on pedestrian and traffic safety.

At its most basic, the project is a mill and overlay slated for 2026 but the city was looking to incorporate some improvements in the process. Over the past few months a variety of options including mini roundabouts, two-way stop signs, beautification and reduced parking spaces had been discussed.

On Monday, O’Neill said, “There was a mixed (view) on medians but there was very much a preference for alternative strategies for enhancing the boulevard.”

He said the community input was thorough, but collected before knowledge of various grant sources that council was made aware of after the survey was collected.

“The council had at its disposal knowledge of some funds available to do some things to enhance the boulevard that are non-tax levy funds,” O’Neill said.

He aded that the council was also in favor of taking a strong cost-conscience approach to the project.

Troy Nemmers with Bolton and Menk, the city’s engineer on the project, went over 10 key aspects of the design, which includes an extended median from Downtown Plaza, greenspace boulevards and bump outs at the Park Street intersection, two-way stop signs at Park Street and maintained right turn lanes for north and south bound traffic on Park Street, greenspace boulevard and bump outs at Elm Street, a mini roundabout at Prairie Avenue and extended median west to provide traffic calming and beautification options, among some other aspects.

Nemmers specifically said that in focusing on the Prairie Avenue intersection, they wanted to maintain driveway access into Richard’s Auto Repair and Towing. He said right now the existing driveway is about 30 feet and comes close to the existing intersection and while the original plan was a 16 foot driveway, after a conversation with the property owner, they’re looking at making the driveway wider for in and out traffic.

“I think this touches on a lot of ideas that people had during the input session and that the council had at the input session. We’re trying to grab little pieces here and there where it makes sense where we can provide some symmetry with the project and help with beautification that also provides safe intersections for pedestrian crossing and public in the vehicles,” Nemmers said.

Mayor Lee Baarts asked about the design for the mini roundabout and Nemmers said it will be similar to what’s in place at the beginning of Downtown Plaza outside of the Fairmont Opera House.

Council Member Randy Lubenow asked who will be maintaining the various greenspaces and Nemmers called it a good question.

“Past practice is the city has property owners maintaining the boulevards and in this case it’s probably up for discussion,” Nemmers said.

He called what goes into the boulevards a next step design feature and said they could do low maintenance plantings that are salt tolerant.

Luebnow said he didn’t think it was practical to have much greenspace along the street but O’Neill chimed in and said greenspace really refers to intermittent plants separated by hardscape.

“It’s not going to be grass… I don’t believe Bolton and Menk will design a boulevard of grass. It will be strategically set up so that it can survive and thrive with very little maintenance,” O’Neill said.

Public Works Director Matthew York encouraged the council to stay focused on the traffic pattern and roundabouts.

“The stuff that’s green, we’ll have a whole other discussion to talk about landscaping. I don’t want to get into the weeds on landscaping right now, what we need to do is stay on hard surfaces so we can get these guys starting the design of the project,” York said.

Council Member Britney Kawecki said she thought the plan incorporated a lot of what “everyone wanted.” However, she asked whether available parking on Elm Street was in line with an earlier traffic analysis.

Nemmers said that the parking shown isn’t based on the number of parking stalls, but rather the space available.

After some more discussion Maynard agreed with Kawecki and said he felt like the design captured what he wanted by maximizing safety while being fiscally responsible, but Kotewa asked how much it would cost to put a mini roundabout at Park Street instead of a two-way stop sign.

Nemmers said that to build a mini roundabout, he would recommend putting down a concrete surface. He said it would be about $150,000 more to try to squeeze in a roundabout but said the space wasn’t ideal. All in all he said it would be $250,000 to $300,000 more.

In a roll call vote, a motion to authorize staff and consultants to initiate detailed planning and design as outlined passed 4-1 with Lubenow opposed.

The council on Monday also considered rescinding a federal appropriation and state capital budget request to fund a public safety government center. The council had approved moving forward with the request for a new fire hall, based on the 2023 feasibility study, back in March of this year.

However, Community Development Director Pat Oman talked about some issues with the timeline of the federal appropriation and state capital budget requests.

“In our division directors meeting and in talking with staff and major stakeholders that wold benefit from this project, we thought it’s such an important investment that we should be very thoughtful and thorough in locations. By doing that, time is an issue to be able to do due diligence. We think the best step is to rescind,” Oman said.

He said instead a work group will be established that will look for funding in the future, as well as look at locations and what entities could benefit from being in the same building or on the same property.

Maynard asked whether the city would submit a revised request and Oman said he did not think there would be enough time before the Oct. 17 deadline.

O’Neill said that he thinks there is a huge need for the public safety divisions to be in facilities that properly support their functions.

“They’ve been operating for a long time without that and I think it’s due time to get really serious about it and pick a target date to get done,” O’Neill said.

The motion to rescind the funding requests passed unanimously.

Moving to other matters, the council considered a policy establishing standards for city council review and approval of requests for proposals (RFP). This was met with some hesitancy by a number of council members.

O’Neill said that the goal was to provide better cohesion between the city council and city staff.

“If we’re trying to work together and move forward, I don’t feel that council has to be an expert to understand it and come up with questions… I guess I’m confused why the RFP can’t come to the council if it’s a simple update,” Kawecki said.

O’Neill said that it would add a few days to the process and said it’s another step that might not be necessary.

Maynard said he didn’t think city council should be micromanaging city staff and pointed out that they’ve been hired to do a job and need to be trusted.

“I would expect that they would err on the side of caution but by the same token, we already have three hour council meetings because staff is bringing more and more things to council. At some point you have to ask, is that truly productive use of council and staff time,” Maynard said.

Lubenow said he then questions what their job is as council members. He said he didn’t feel that three or six hours a month was too much time.

“If you’re not willing to commit the time you shouldn’t have run for office,” he said.

Kawecki made a motion to approve the policy with a change in language that all RFPs need to come to the council for approval with the exception of the delivery due date.

The motion failed 3-2 with Council Members James Kotewa, Wayne Hasek and Maynard opposed.

Maynard made motion to adopt the policy as presented and it passed 3-2 with Lubenow and Kawecki opposed.

Next, the council considered a policy establishing standards for city council review and approval of funding mechanism requests including grant appropriations and other external funding.

O’Neill said that much more grants are applied for and received than council is aware of.

“What this policy intends to do is to make sure that we’re all on the same page of making sure that when we apply for grants, council knows about it and that they approve of that grant application, especially when there’s a match required,” O’Neill said.

The motion passed unanimously.

Finally, the council considered proposed amendments to the purchasing policy. O’Neill said that the city had adopted the contemporary policy in 2021 and while he said it’s a good document, he said it does not to be reviewed and updated from time to time.

The council discussed some specific language to update and a motion to go forward with it ultimately passed 4-1 with Lubenow opposed.