BRAINERD — The Brainerd City Council dissolved the city’s Cable TV Advisory Committee Tuesday, Sept. 6.
The decision comes after the city established a new cable channel to air its public meetings earlier this year.
The committee formed in 2005, with the initial adoption of cable franchise agreements with Lakes Area Media Collaborative. During the agreement renewal process in 2021, however, the requirement of the city to maintain an advisory committee was removed. The committee already had a hard time recruiting enough members to have meetings and had not had a quorum since 2019.
The new channel, which is a collaboration between the city and Central Lakes College, was established with input from committee members, who then requested the committee be dissolved.
The new cable channel allows members of the public to watch city council meetings on cable through CTC and Charter, through Roku, Apple TV or Amazon Fire TV, and on YouTube and Cablecast.TV. Meeting videos are also embedded on the city’s website.
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The city previously aired its council meetings on a public, education and government access channel through a partnership with Lakes Media Collaborative, though that has not happened since before last year’s renovations at city hall, which drove the council to meet at the Crow Wing County Historic Courthouse. After attempts to work with the media collaborative to reinstall audio equipment in the renovated council chambers and purchase new video equipment to air meetings on TV again failed, the council cut ties and began working with CLC.
In other business Sept. 6, the council:
Approved a memorandum of understanding with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Union to appoint Crystal Gauthier as acting transit transit coordinator, placing her at Step 1 of the city’s wage grid, earning $34.41 per hour.
Promoted Taylor Lokhorst to the Street Maintenance I position, effective Oct. 3, at Step 1 of the city’s wage grid, earning $21.74 per hour, and authorized staff to begin the hiring process to backfill Lokhorst’s park maintenance position.
Authorized the sale of a retired police squad car, using Central Minnesota Dealer Auction.
Approved the hiring of Nick Karsnia as a police officer, placing him at Step 1 of the wage grid, earning $29.79 per hour.
Authorized staff to request proposals for a 2023 classification and compensation study. The last time the city did a study was 2018.
Agreed to continue using CliftonLarsonAllen as the city auditor.
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Approved an event application for the Brainerd Fire Department’s annual open house, set for 5-7 p.m. Oct. 13 on East River Road. The road will be closed between the fire and police departments.
Approved an event application for the annual St. Francis of the Lakes Catholic school marathon set for 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Oct. 19 on streets around the school, including Juniper, North Ninth, North 10th and Kingwood streets.
Approved a temporary construction easement to use land owned by Breen & Person for the historic water tower rehabilitation project. There is no cost for the easement, but it will be recognized as a donation to the tower project.
Approved a quote from Pike Plumbing & Heating and Holden Electric for additional mechanical and electrical work on the street and parks building addition, with the total project coming in at $586,263.
Set a public hearing for the regular council meeting Sept. 19 to request the removal of Library Board member Loyal Hyatt, who has not attended a board meeting since August 2021 and has not been in contact with the rest of the board.
Approved a conditional use permit to operate an ice and water vending machine at the property at 1202 S. Sixth St. The applicant proposes to demolish the building on the property and replace it with an ice and water vending machine.
Approved a conditional use permit for Central Minnesota Adult and Teen Challenge to operate a residential addiction recovery facility with outpatient services at 2501 Greenwood St. The facility is proposed to have 64 beds.
THERESA BOURKE may be reached at theresa.bourke@brainerddispatch.com or 218-855-5860. Follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/DispatchTheresa .
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