Nancy Edmonds Hanson
hansonnanc@gmail.com
The cost of running a rapidly growing city is rising slightly, while the revenue generated by recycling its waste has gone down. Those realities prompted the Moorhead City Council to approve two changes Monday that will pinch local pocketbooks a bit more in 2020 – though both increases reflect serious efforts to keep the totals down.
Council members voted unanimously to approve the proposed 2020 budget presented by city finance director Karla McCall. The $115.4 million plan includes a small tax increase, she explained, of 2.9% on residential property – somewhat under the annual average of 3.03% since 2015.
Sixty-one percent of the tax levy goes to the city’s general fund, with police protection accounting for 35%; fire protection, 16%; elected officials and public administration, 15%; parks and recreation, 11%; public works, 10%; engineering, 9%; and planning and neighborhood services, 5%.
McCall described the $33.2 million the city plans to spend on capital improvements in 2020. The largest item is $20.1 million for wastewater, storm water, golf courses and public transportation improvements. Other areas include $2.9 million for facilities, parks and trails, software and IT, and fire equipment. Street improvement projects account for $8.7 million in planned investment, and equipment purchases – police cars, trucks, mowers and snow removal equipment – total $1.5 million.
The tax increase on residential property – as foreseen at this point – bumps the monthly bill of an owner of a $185,900 home (the average in the city) by $1.72 and adds $3.04 for those assessed at $300,000. Commercial and industrial property rates will remain stable, thanks to the disparity tax credit passed by the Minnesota Legislature.
Garbage going up
Moorheaders will be paying a little more starting next month because their garbage isn’t worth as much as it used to be … specifically, the materials they discard in the blue bins that collect unsorted recyclables. The fee is slated to go up 88 cents, from $3.59 to $4.25.
Public works director Steve Moore explained that MinnKota Recycling of Fargo, which collects and sells materials both from residents’ commingled paper, glass and plastic waste and from sorted bins of cardboard and paper, is raising almost of its fees in the two-year contract approved by the council. One factor is the collapse of the international market for discarded paper products.
The council considered several alternatives, including eliminating glass from the blue bins to reduce the fee increase by 14 cents, spreading the increase over several years, or boosting the rate for six months before reevaluating the situation. They ultimately ratified Moore’s favored alternative of simply charging the full amount required to cover costs and rebuild the solid waste department’s reserves, which have been depleted in recent years as it sought to keep up with rising costs.
LinkFM bus stops
The bright pink LinkFM bus that has circulated between downtown Moorhead and Fargo every 15 minutes for the past four years will soon disappear …except on a handful of special occasions. After the city of Fargo decided to drop its support last month, its Link partner was forced to follow suit. The council voted Monday to also eliminate regular daily service, whose $231,000 annual cost it has split with its neighbor.
However, the Link bus will roll again for 10 special events including the Scandinavian Hjemkomst and Viking Midwest Festival in June and the Downtown Street Fair in July. Moorhead is also seeking to include transportation to the Trollwood summer musical and Midwest Kids Fest, both at Bluestem Center for the Arts.
The two cities have co-oped on LinkFM since 2015, when the service was initiated partly to provide additional parking for downtown Fargo workers at the Center Mall during construction of the new city hall, as well as easy intercity travel for shoppers and downtown residents. Putting it back on the road just for the most well-attended festivals and events will cost about $18,000, again expected to be shared by the two cities.
Sludge matters
Lime sludge seldom comes up in conversation. It dominated the final moments of the Moorhead council meeting, however, complete with a milk bottle of murky white liquid that Water Division manager Kris Knutson used to illustrate one of his department’s latest challenges: building a facility to dry out the minerals removed by water treatment and find a way to dispose of them.
Treatment of the city’s water supply, drawn from the Red River and the Buffalo and Moorhead aquifers, requires several steps before it’s fit to pour from city faucets. One process softens the notably hard water by removing its lime content. That results in the large volume of lime sludge that Moorhead Public Service has been storing in 12 outdoor ponds near its wind turbines and solar arrays. In 2015, however, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency changed the rules. It reclassified the substance as industrial solid waste and ruled out the city’s open-air disposal.
Knutson explained that MPS has been working on plans for a lime sludge dewatering facility to meet MPCA regulations. The council approved award of the construction contract of about $6.1 million to Swanberg Construction. Construction and other associated costs will be covered by a $7 million allocation in the Water Division’s 2019 budget. Construction near the present water treatment plant is expected to begin in April and be completed by August 2021.
The new facility will remove water from the milky sludge so that its mineral content – mostly calcium and magnesium carbonate – can be pressed into cakes. While the end product can be a valuable soil additive in some regions. But because Clay County’s soils are alkaline, the mineral cakes will have to be transported at least as far as Wadena to reach areas where it is potentially useful.
