During the April 12 meeting, the Big Lake City Council considered a massage license appeal and a towing agreement. 

Open Forum 

Tracy Sodon spoke in regards to the county’s voting machines. She said that the county’s contract with Dominion expired one day prior to absentee voting, and the renewal did not occur until after the primaries last year. She said this was concerning to her.

Phil Collins spoke next. He is the owner of Peterson’s Towing, which was pitted against Bob’s Towing for the city service provider. He said he was disappointed not to win the contract with the city, and asked some questions of his competitor. He asked whether the new location of Bob’s Towing had been approved with a conditional use permit by the township.

Towing Agreement

Council held a discussion about the police department towing agreement. As indicated in previous meetings, they decided to go with Bob’s Towing now that they have a lot from which they can operate. 

Council Member Ken Halverson brought up some of the issues raised by Bob’s Towing competitor during open forum. He asked the Bob’s Towing representative at the meeting whether they were approved by the township with a CUP to operate at the new lot. The representative was not sure but promised to investigate the issue. 

Halverson again voiced his disapproval of the decision by the rest of the council to select Bob’s Towing, as he felt that the company had taken too long to get into compliance. 

Massage License Denial Appeal

Leah Koch, city attorney, once again presented an appeal for a massage license denial. At the last regular meeting, Xioyan Wu appeared before the council to ask them to repeal a denial of a massage license by city staff. Unfortunately, Wu’s translator was not available that day, and the process did not go far before council decided to table the issue for the next meeting. 

Wu appeared before the council again at the April 12 meeting, this time with her translator there to help interpret. 

The license was denied due to Wu not being fully transparent about her history as a therapeutic masseuse. On her application, she did not disclose that she had previously been denied a license in St. Cloud, and she did not disclose a couple of locations of employment. Since the previous meeting, another undisclosed place of work was uncovered, as well. All of this information is required on Big Lake’s massage license application. 

Wu stated that while she did work in St. Michael, the other undisclosed place of work, in Roseville, shouldn’t count because she only worked there a month before deciding it wasn’t a good fit for her. And as for the license denial in St. Cloud, it was a joint application with another person, who was denied for reasons unrelated to her. 

After hearing Wu’s explanation, council still decided to uphold the decision by city staff to deny the license. 

Fire Dept. Report

Captain Tim Davis gave the monthly report for the Fire Department. He noted 68 calls for service in February and March. Firefighters did some medical training and toured the Cargill Nutrition Center.

Halverson voiced his dissatisfaction with the recent fire truck purchase. He noted that the cost was $350,000 over budget, and thought it would have been better to go with a cheaper option, which would not have fit inside the firehouse, and simply make improvements to the fire house to accommodate the truck. 

Mayor Paul Knier countered this assumption, saying he had done research by talking to the truck manufacturer and to a commercial builder, and determined that the changes Halverson proposed making to the fire hall would have been difficult and costly. Knier said he stood by council’s previous decision.