Donna Schmitt, Columbia Heights City Council

Just a reminder:

Tuesday, July 19 is the all-city Columbia Heights Community Picnic at Murzyn Hall/Huset Park.  This will be from 6:00 – 8:00 pm.  Free food and displays/demonstrations from different city offices.  Come meet your community leaders, staff, and enjoy food with your neighbors!  Some parts of the event will be inside Murzyn Hall (air conditioned) so you can get some relief from the heat.

I know conferences can be expensive and may seem like a waste of money but I do believe it is very important for employees, whether they are elected or staff to attend conferences, when they can.  I do not believe everyone should go to these conferences every year, that gets to be too pricey and unnecessary.

Conferences and seminars are important  for several reasons.  These help me to stay out of a rut of doing things the same every time, because ‘we have always done it that way’.  It encourages networking, helping me to see what other cities are doing that is working.  It promotes new ideas, those ideas can either be embraced, or rejected, new is not always better.  It promotes discussion, discussion is always good to help develop thoughts on why we are doing something and getting input from several people to help make a final decision.

For those reasons, and more, I took notes at this conference and shared them with my fellow council members and staff.  As a courtesy to the residents, I am posting them on this website.  There are several comments within the notes.  Take them or leave them.  I do appreciate the chance to go to events like this and wanted to make sure residents can get some feedback on what goes on at events like this.  There are 7 pages of notes and comments so enjoy!

Donna Schmitt

I was able to attend the League of Minnesota Cities Annual Conference in Rochester last month as a representative of the City of Columbia Heights.  (In case some people are keeping records, the city paid for my convention cost, $99, but I paid for all other expenses: cost of hotel room, transportation to and from the convention, and any additional meal expenses.)

The keynote speaker was David Horsager, author of the Trust Edge.  (Excellent speaker!)  Overall trust in government is at 29% (Pew Research 2011).  That is a sad note when everything, quality of business, employees, customers is based on trust.  As government, we have lost the trust of our customers (local citizens).  We need to gain that trust back.

With the loss of trust comes an unrest, a sense of loss, and loss in overall respect.  As elected officials, it is our duty to rebuild that trust.  What was lost takes time to rebuild.  Any mistake may take years to regain the trust of local citizens.

Keep me accountable.  I do not have all the answers and I am not all knowing.  I can not accurately predict the future.  Mistakes will be made and have been made in the past.  But I will do my best to serve this community and help earn your trust as my term continues.

Even though I think 29% trust in government is appalling, a year ago it was sitting at 22%.  Some strides have been made.  There needs to be much more.  I don’t think we will ever get back to what people felt in the Kennedy/Johnson years, 68%, but as regular citizens become more involved in local government we will see a change.

I need your input, your suggestions, your insight when decisions need to be made at the council level. I need feedback to make sure that I stay focused.

If you have questions or comments, feel free to contact me at:  donna.schmitt.citycouncil@gmail.com

Thank you for your patience and thank you for your support.  See you around town!

Donna Schmitt, Columbia Heights City Council

What would the city do in case of a tornado the size of the one in Joplin, MS?  What would the city do in case of a large chemical spill in the rail yard right by us in Minneapolis or from a truck moving through our city?  What would the city do in case of complete chaos?  Those answers can be found in the Anoka County Hazard Mitigation Plan.  All 365 pages of it.

At the city council meeting on June 13, we were asked to adopt a resolution to show the continuation of our support for the Anoka County Hazard Mitigation Plan.  The only problem was that the city neglected to get me a copy of the plan to look over before the meeting.  I asked that it be tabled until our next meeting on June 27.  It was unanimously voted on to table this.

I do have a copy now and I am looking it over.  But I would also encourage you to do the same.  After the meeting, I was able to find that this is readily available by going to the Anoka County Website and there you can download it and look at it for yourself.

Take the time and look it over.  The County will be revising and updating this in 2012.  This needs to be done before November 2012 to be approved by FEMA,  We need many people to look at this and not just county and city officials.  We need to come up with something that is workable, reasonable, and acceptable to protect the safety of our families, homes, and businesses in Columbia Heights.

Monday, I was given a list of 26 properties that the City of Columbia Heights currently owns.  These are properties that the city has purchased over the years for many reasons but mostly because the staff and council felt the buildings needed to be demolished rather than sold ‘as is’ to private parties.  Anoka County has also done this but the difference between the City of Columbia Heights and Anoka is that Anoka County is actually listing their properties for sale.

Some of the properties that the city owns have been off the tax rolls for over 15 years.  That means that the city is not getting any income from those properties but it also means that the county isn’t getting any income either.  While there isn’t any money coming in there still is money going out since those properties need to be maintained throughout the summer, mowing, removing trash and removing any dead trees or brush.

I guess we can say that a few of the properties bring in some money because they are used as community gardens.  One of those gardens brings in a large number of fresh vegetables for our local SACA food shelf which is a blessing for those in need.

My opinion is that the city needs to start selling properties.  Even if it would be selling properties to groups such as Habitat it would be better to have a taxable income than a money sucking property.

Even if that property would be an empty lot, sold to an individual or developer, it could potentially have been bringing in at least taxable income equal to what we are spending in a summer on lawn service.

Thanks to all who were able to make it to the Columbia Heights Memorial Day Service.  Because of the threat of rain it was held indoors at the VFW rather than at City Hall around the flag pole.  Thank you to Gary Peterson and Pastor Dan Thompson for sharing their thoughts. Also, thank you to Bruce Nawrocki for being the MC and to Justine Grow for singing..

Hopefully you were able to share stories and thank a vet for their service this weekend.  Or maybe you just visited a widow and talked about her family and their service to their country.

The VFW had a list of 37 Comrades and Sisters who had died over this past year.  Our prayers go out to those families.  I know the Schmitt family was missing our patriarch, Bob Schmitt, a man that served in World War II and the Korean War but last year he lost the battle to cancer.

Thank you to those who read this and served our country, here and overseas.  We would not be here without your service.  Thank you.

The Columbia Heights City Council voted at the April 11, 2011 meeting to offer residents yard waste carts to take care of grass clippings, leaves, etc…  This would be offered through our contracted garbage provider, Veola, for an annual fee.

It needs to be clarified that this is an optional service.  You do not have to pay for this cart if you choose not to use it. You can still continue to purchase the approved bags at your local garden stores or just compost your yard waste.  Another option is that you can use your own designated container to dispose of these items.  You just need to make sure that you do not overfill and make the container too heavy to empty.

The city will continue to only pick-up yard waste between April and November as they do now.  Kevin Hanson stated that if you do not want to store the container over the winter it can be picked up by Veola to be returned in the spring.

There was some discussion at the April 25th city council meeting about the most recent car auction at Jeff Bobby & Steve’s gas station. There had been complaints about blocked driveways, double parking, blocking fire hydrants and loud noise. With over 80 cars auctioned off it appears that this is outgrowing the site.

Police came and took care of some of the problems. Jeff also talked with the Police Chief and they have tried to come to some agreement as to appropriate changes for any auctions in the future. If those changes aren’t enough, maybe it is time they hire a police officer to help guide traffic or possibly it would be time to move it to a new location.

I see nothing wrong with making money and selling a product that people could use.  But it is also important to show courtesy to the neighbors and respectful of laws.

With all of the tickets that were passed out over the past couple of months for jaywalkers, I am curious how many tickets were passed out at this auction?

This is just something I am thinking is rather ironic.  There are a series of training sessions being offered  “related to strengthening public participation in transportation decision-making”.  The discussion is public transportation yet there is no conventional public transportation, bus or train, available to get to the event!

The “Hear Every Voice” forgot that an important part of this discussion should include public transportation and the only voices that should make the decisions about public transportation should be those that don’t use it.

There were a couple of items on last nights agenda that I wanted to comment on.

As a council we approved the union contract between the city and a couple of the unions representing employees in the city.  I had some concerns that we were approving this when the state is freezing wages.  In addition to that the federal government has frozen wages for 5 years and eliminated STEP performance raises.  The only saving detail is that this is for only two years, without a cost of living wage increase for 2011.  But it did include a 1% increase for 2012 and a STEP increase for both years.   Even Medicare has eliminated its cost of living raise this year.  Is there something the federal government knows that the City of Columbia Heights doesn’t know?

I firmly believe in performance raises.  As long as someone is showing an improvement and showing initiative that should be rewarded.  But I am extremely concerned that we may be putting our city in financial difficulties if we plan on continuing on in this trend of offering raises in two years.  I would have preferred keeping it at the level of 2011, which included performance raises but without the 1% across the board raise. At this point the negotiations have already happened, the closed door information has already been given and this is now just for the council to approve.

My question to staff, asking what would happen if the unthinkable should happen to our economy, didn’t seem to be answered.

With the prediction of $5 per gallon in gas coming within the year, I am concerned that whatever was budgeted for 2011 will be lost and reserves may need to be raided before the end of this year or at the very latest, by 2012 we will be dipping into reserves for basic needs.

As someone who was not part of the closed door discussions, I should have probably abstained from a vote.  If this had been a normal weekend, I would have been able to realize that I was missing items in my packet that would have helped me decide on a vote. (I was at a conference for newly elected officials Friday and Saturday so I didn’t get to look at the packet until Sunday.)

This was a tough vote, partly because I was missing some information but also because you want to do the best for those people that are working hard to keep our city running.  In this incident, I had to rely on the information from the staff because I didn’t have time to research numbers on my own.  It was with some trepidation that I voted yes.

Another item that was up for discussion was the authorization of the city to seek bids for park improvements for Ramsdell Park.  There are some important things to note on this vote.  This was not a vote to approve going ahead to start construction, this was merely a vote to seek bids for construction.  If after looking at those bids, all of those bids could be rejected because it still could be determined that this would be too costly or not the appropriate time to do the improvements.

Another thing to note is that improvements on this park will directly impact the school because the school does use this park because it is directly across the street from the high school and Valley View Elementary.  What that means to me is that this park not only is an improvement to the neighborhood but it also will be beneficial to students that use the park for activities and it will also be utilized by the rec department for their sponsored activities.  When something is widely used by many different groups this is something that should be kept up and maintained.

The plans that the park commission came up with are some basic items that look like they will include fixing a drainage problem that I have noticed in this park.  It will also do improvements to a ballfield that would be beneficial to not just the rec department but would help school activities and could also be utilized by adult leagues.

This is also one of the few parks in the city that has a wading pool.  This is something that parents with small children have utilized over the years.  I used to bring my children there and enjoyed it very much.  I have also noticed over the past couple of years that it is still being widely used by neighbors.  The improvements would allow for more space for parents to set up chairs beside the pool so they can watch their children play in the wading pool.

The last thing to note is that the city is given park dedication funds when there are certain improvements done on properties.  The key is that these are dedicated funds.  Funds that are not supposed to be used for the general fund.  At this point there is $300,000 in this fund.  I did question Kevin’s statement that the cost for this project was going to be $300,000 but when I asked for a breakdown the totals he gave ended up being $345,000.  My hope is that they do limit improvements to the funds on hand.

I see nothing wrong with getting bids.  The plans that the park commission came up with had input from the school and from neighbors.  Some of the items on the plans are part of a ‘wish’ list so some of those items will be the first to be dropped if the price tag ends up being too much.  My caution is that they need to make sure that they choose a legitimate bid because neighbors had complaints about the choice of contractor that the city made for a recent park improvement.