News

New mayor oversees city’s reorganization meeting for the council

By Scott Wagar

07/03/2012

Bottineau’s new mayor, Ben Aufforth, oversaw his first meeting on Tuesday, June 26, during the council’s reorganization meeting, which saw two former council members step down from the council and three elected individuals be sworn into their newly acquired positions.

In Aufforth’s first order of business as mayor, he resigned from his seat as a councilman, which was approved and accepted by the council.

With Aufforth leaving his seat to become the new mayor, the following four issues can take place to fill Aufforth's council seat:

•  Local residents have 15 days to file a petition for a special election to be held in Bottineau for Aufforth’s council seat.
•  After 15 days, the council can call for a special election.
• The council can appoint an individual.
•  The council can chose to leave the seat open until the next election in 2014.  

The council then moved forward with financing the 2007 street bond issue. Mike Manstrom of Manstrom, Dougherty and Co, was present at the meeting and explained to the council that with new interest rates being so low at the present time, the council could save the city approximately $133,000 for the street paving project in 2007. 

With that information, the council voted unanimously to accept the bond at the new interest rate.

From the bond issue, Janet Carnahan, co-owner of Simple Threads Inc., in association with her business partner, Carmen Dolbeare, submitted a five-year tax exemption request on the owners’ new building, which is going to be constructed in the near future at the former property of the Dakota Trailer Court, which is east of Tommy Turtle Lanes on the frontage road of Highway 5.

The tax exemption committee met on June 14 and decided to make the recommendation to the council on Tuesday evening to grant the tax exemption application, because there is no other competing business like Simple Threads Inc. in the area. The council voted in favor of the tax exemption.

The alderman then turned their attention to EDC’s Gateway budget for loans and grants. The finance committee held a special meeting on June 6 to discuss replacing Gateway money which was transferred into the pool fund and sidewalk, curb and gutter fund.

The special meeting on June 6 was called by the newest alderman of the council and finance committee, Greg Bernstein, who replaced Andy Freemen on the council by appointment after Freeman resigned from the council when he moved out of his ward.

Bernstein stated that as a new person to the council and financial committee he wanted to understand the Gateway fund more clearly, and to learn how the budget for Gateway loans and grants became expended so quickly in the year.

Diane Olson, Bottineau’s EDC director, informed Bernstein that the requests, which come through the EDC office have been increasing over the years, and that it is hard for her to budget ahead of time because she simply does not know what request are going to come to her office on any given day.

She also stated that over the past two years the council has taken money allocated for her loans and grants in the Gateway fund and used it for other projects in the city, lowering her budget for Gateway requests. She added that even more funding was being taken out of the Gateway fund for another city project in the 2012 budget.

With that statement by Olson, Bernstein asked where the money was being allocated to. Nostdahl explained to Bernstein where the money was being transferred to, which is as follows:

•  2010 - $50,000 was transferred out of the Gateway budget to go the new pool fund.
•  2011 - $75,000 was transferred out of the Gateway budget with $25,000 to the new pool fund and $50,000 to the sidewalk, curb and gutter fund.
•  2012 – It has been budgeted to remove $50,000 from the Gateway to go to the new pool fund.

At that time, Olson requested that the money be placed back into the Gateway fund because it was budgeted for her office.

The finance committee, (which is made up of Bernstein; Ben Aufforth, who was named to the committee after Brad Gangl resigned from the council and finance committee in early 2012; and Mayor Doug Marsden, who didn’t attend the special meeting) stated that they felt the money should be replaced back into the Gateway fund for Olson to assist her with her future projects.

It was decided by Bernstein and Aufforth that three issues would be recommended at the reorganizational meeting directly after the June election, which during the reorganization meeting on Tuesday evening included the following recommendations:

•  The line item number in the 2012 budget for a transfer to the new pool fund be eliminated and placed in the Gateway fund’s loan and grant line item of the budget.
•  Return, with the end of year transfers, the $50,000 that was transferred from the Gateway fund in 2011 to the sidewalk, curb and gutter fund.
•  The possible return of some of the money transferred into the new pool fund to the Gateway fund from 2010 and 2011. However, this will need to be held off until it is determined what the cost are for the pool renovations as council already determined those costs were coming out of the new pool fund.

On a roll call, the council members voted in favor of the finance committee recommendations.
While discussing finance and developments, the council informed Fred Kainz’s that his Renaissance Zone application had been approved by the North Dakota Department of Commerce.

With old business completed, Mayor Aufforth turned to new business in the reorganization meeting. He first presented a plaque and thank you to outgoing council member Grant Tegastad, and informed the council that outgoing alderman Ron Martin would also receive a plaque and thank you for his service to the city, but that Martin could not be at the meeting due to medical reasons. (Tegastad and Martin chose not to run for re-election)
Aufforth then stated that the Oath of Office for the new council members, Steve Brandt, Fred Kainz and Tim Sanderson, had been conducted and seated the new members. Kainz and Sanderson each were elected to a four year term on the council, while Brandt was elected to fill the remaining two years of former councilman, Brad Gangl, who resigned in early 2012 from his seat.

Once the new councilmen were seated, the council voted in favor of Jeff Hall being named the new president of the council and Harley Getzlaff as the vice president.

Aufforth then informed the council that he was currently working on appointing members to committees. He spoke about two committees on Tuesday evening, the finance committee and shade tree committee. Aufforth stated that at the present moment, Greg Bernstein, Harley Getzlaff and he (Aufforth) would presently sit on the finance committee, but that he would remove himself from the committee when he creates the new finance committee.

With an open space on the shade tree committee, and a meeting coming up before committee assignments would be completed, Aufforth assigned Kainz to the shade tree committee.
Aufforth also told the alderman that all committee hearings would be posted prior to the meeting, an individual must take minutes during the committee meetings and that the committees will be responsible in reporting the full committee meetings to the entire council.

The final item on the docket was a letter of resignation from Bob Abrahamson as the city’s building inspector. The mayor and council made a decision to form a committee through Aufforth with the intention of researching the issue of hiring a certified engineer as the new building inspector in association with Roland Township and the county, with the intention of splitting the salary of the new inspector between the three entities. The city feels that by doing this the three governmental bodies could improve on their zoning issues and inspections in a much better manner.