The opening meeting of the year of the International Falls City Council Monday brought change and some obvious tension.
Clearly, Mayor Bob Anderson intends to change the way the council does business. The mayor, sworn in just that day, took the reigns of the council exerting his authority as he weighed in on a number of issues ranging from the make up of committees, meeting dates and times and previous council resolutions and issues that were not even on the agenda.
Anderson proposed a number of the changes that were adopted by the council. They were intended to provide more transparency to council decisions and offer more opportunity for the public to address the council. And while some councilors may have felt frustrated by Anderson’s actions, most of his proposals seemed reasonable.
We couldn’t help but wonder why Councilor Cynthia Jaksa raised two previous council actions on which Anderson had already made his opposition known: Exploration of a taxing district to fund the Falls International Airport and contracting for $24,000 per year with the lobbying firm of Lockridge Girndal Nauen.
At a meeting in December, Anderson asked the council to delay action on the lobbying firm and he told The Journal he did not favor a taxing district to fund the airport. Neither of the two issues were on Monday’s agenda nor required action at this already contentious meeting.
Jaksa Monday asked the council to reaffirm a resolution approved in December calling for the local airport commission to investigate funding mechanisms which the council says will remedy what they see as “tax unfairness” in funding by the county’s contribution. She raised the issue first at the organizational meeting and then again later at the regular meeting. The council did so on a 3-2 vote, with Anderson and Councilor Pete Kalar voting no.
Jaksa also raised the the lobbying contract, for which she said the council must set priority issues. Anderson told her that the newly created Legislation and Land Use Committee, of which she was made a member, should recommend its list of priority issues to the full council. In addition, he questioned the value of an earlier stated priority of the contract – to push construction of a new land port of entry in the community. Anderson said he’s been told by federal officials that Congress is not funding “ bricks and mortar” projects other than at Detroit and wondered why the city would now spend taxpayer money on that instead of $4,000 to continue a lobbying effort to push for funding for more improvements on U.S. Highway 53, a major transportation corridor that continues to be successful in securing funding. Jaksa suggested the discussion be revisited at a future meeting.
Both issues added to the tension at this first meeting and discussion, which was likely be divisive, would have been best left for another day.
In every walk of life comes change. A city council is no different. Issues change, members change, ideas and views change. There is no doubt that all members of this council have the best intentions of this community at heart and to that end we urge all members to set aside the frustrations they may have felt Monday as they move forward.
