FAIRMONT– The consideration of a termination notice to the agreement between the city of Fairmont, Fairmont Hockey Association and Martin County Fair Board was on the Fairmont City Council agenda on Monday.

Interim City Administrator, Jeff O’Neill, said staff has been working with both the hockey association and fair board for a number of months to come up with a new arrangement to govern the facility in a fashion that’s more consistent with the current conditions as the agreement that is currently in place was created back in 1985.

“In order for that agreement or those terms to even be considered, we need to withdraw from the current agreement,” O’Neill said.

He further explained that both the hockey association and fair board require a six month termination notice.

“In the near future it would be a good idea to get some parameters under which the group wants the city administrator and finance director to negotiate within it. Or, you may decide you don’t want to be involved in operating the facility and would rather work out a deal with the fair board that the city’s involvement in the facility ends,” O’Neill said.

Finance Director, Paul Hoye added, “over the years, a lot of things have changed with the operations there and in our agreement, a lot of amendments have been done. It’s kind of confused a little bit about the operations and who’s responsible for what and who maintains what.”

He said the questions and issues have come up in the past and he thinks it’s best to pursue a new agreement that includes more details and is current to how the facility is being operated now.

“There won’t be questions about who should be paying for what or how much each entity should be contributing for business maintenance and that sort of thing,” Hoye said.

Council Member Britney Kawecki said she believes it’s overdue to update the contract, but that both the citizens and the council need more information.

“What exactly is in the contract for if the city of Fairmont was interested in completely pulling out? What would we as a city be responsible for paying? What options are there for the city in terms of what is required for maintenance right now?” Kawecki asked.

Mayor Lee Baarts asked O’Neill for some clarification and said that if the council agrees to the six month termination now, it doesn’t mean it’s bailing out, but rather looking at starting a new agreement. O’Neill said that was correct.

Council Member Randy Lubenow said he thinks some kind of time limit needed to be put on it to get the contract done. He also noted that while the building is old, he hasn’t heard of anything that’s structurally unsound.

Hoye said the fair board’s biggest concern is the condition of the beams and that he thinks that could be addressed separately from the agreement itself.

Lubenow said he’d like to see an engineer’s report on the condition of the beams.

“Is there some structural problem with the beams that we think all of a sudden they need to be painted?” he asked.

Public Works Director Matthew York said he believed it was for both appearance and to prevent the beams from deteriorating any further.

A motion, made by Lubenow, to authorize the issuance of a six month termination notice to withdraw from the existing agreement passed unanimously

On Monday the council also heard from Community Development Director, Pat Oman, who asked it to consider forming a select committee to analyze the Request for Proposal (RFP) to repurpose the Southern Minnesota Educational Campus (SMEC) building in Fairmont.

As Oman said, back in April the council had requested that city staff prepare an RFP, which was completed and approved in July. He said it’s been put out to brokers and contractors and that two responses came in.

“Both are legitimate prospects. They are taking a different look at the SMEC building, but both are involved in multi-family,” Oman said.

He said it would be nice to have at least one or two council members sit on a committee to review the proposals further.

Council Members Jay Maynard and Wayne Hasek offered to sit on the committee, which the rest of the council approved of.

Oman also asked the council to consider an amendment to the application for dumpster assistance guidelines to allow for a second dumpster bin opportunity per project.

The issue arose as a property at 1524 Albion Avenue is being cleared out and prepared fro demolition.

Lubenow made a motion to approve the second dumpster, which Maynard seconded. The motion passed.