The City of Whalan held a special city council meeting on November 12, in which the first part of the meeting was closed to the public. According to Terry Chiglo, City Attorney for Whalan, the reason the initial part of the meeting was closed to the public was “for the preliminary consideration of allegations and/or charges pending against a person subject to the City of Whalan’s authority. Those allegations and/or charges were based in another city in the State of Minnesota. The person subject to the City of Whalan’s authority performed a role in the city of Whalan similar to the other city, in which the charges and/or allegations were pending. The result of the meeting is the person subject to the City of Whalan’s authority was placed on unpaid administrative leave.”
Present at the council meeting, which was moved from November 11 (Veterans Day) to November 12, were Mayor Marlys Tuftin and council members Kim Berekvam, Everett Johnson, Owen Lewis and Tonya Cook. City Clerk Lolly Melander was absent.
The city council has decided that the City of Whalan will be requesting an audit from the State of Minnesota of the city’s records dating five years back.
There were no minutes read from the October 14, council meeting.
The Treasurer’s Report and Bill’s Due were not read. Two bills were presented by Tuftin for payment including Plunkett’s and MiEnergy.
Old Business
The second agenda item was the request for street vacation and purchase of a section of second avenue that was proposed by the Murphy family.
Tuftin explained the council had done some research and had taken a look at the proposal, with the intent to approve or disapprove the proposal at the November council meeting.
“Looking forward, way beyond whether we are here or not, looking forward as to vacating city property, we just don’t know what that might be used for in the future,” stated Berekvam.
“We don’t know what the future is going to bring,” added Berekvam.
“The other thing to consider, I think, is Second Avenue is a main street and technically if it continued on past Oak Street it would connect up to Bench Street… if there’s going to be development in that area, or some building, and there has been an accessory building up there that was constructed and a house was moved up there as well, so there is the potential that if some vacant property that could… be developed, in which case you would actually need a roadway, a street, to extend that way as well,” stated Tuftin.
The request for street vacation/purchase was not approved.
Tuftin reported on the proposed tax levy. The final decision on the levy will be made at the December 2019 meeting. Tuftin asked the council members to give the proposed tax levy a lot of thought. “We need to have enough reserves that we can pay for those unexpected things that happen,” she stated.
Cook reported that $200 has been donated from the pancake breakfast, which will go toward updating the concession stands at the ballpark. The council shared their appreciation for all of the wonderful volunteers that helped with the pancake breakfast in any way.
New Business
The Root River Trail Towns Annual Meeting will be held at the Whalan Town Hall on Wednesday, November 20. The meeting will start at 9 a.m. and a noon lunch will be served.
The next regularly scheduled Whalan City Council meeting will be held on Monday, December 9, at 7 pm in the Whalan Town Hall. The public is encouraged to attend.
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