After a brief public hearing last week, the Clearwater City Council voted unanimously to vacate an undeveloped portion of Linn Street.

The area lies between three properties and aligns with Co. Rd. 75 and the existing Linn Street.

Administrator Kevin Kress said it was never used as a street as part of the city. 

“It used to be owned by the State on Minnesota. It was turned over to the county, which then turned it over to the city,” he said. “It sounds like it was at least 30 years ago.”

It has been vacant land ever since.

Earlier this summer, the council discussed whether the city had any use for the small parcel of land. They talked about potentially auctioning it off or selling it as a building lot. But they realized a portion of it could be used for a future water and sewer line to potentially connect across Co. Rd. 75 to Archery Park. That would eliminate a big portion of buildable area.

As part of Monday’s action, the land will be split among three adjacent property owners. The city will also require a 35-foot wide utility easement as part of the agreement.

Engineer Joe Pelawa from Bolton & Menk said the 35 foot easement would straddle the center of the road, with 17.5 feet on each side.

Kress said the city did not do a survey because the city would not be keeping the land. He said it would be up to the adjacent property owners to have a survey done. Then the new legal descriptions for each parcel, including the easements, would be recorded with the county.

Fire Contract

The council voted to give 90-day notice to Clearwater Twp. and Lynden Twp. to terminate the existing fire contracts.

Kress said during the interim, the city will be re-drafting fire contract proposals to both townships.

“It’s just a notice to them that we’re not going to do either our old formula or the newest one for 2020 payment,” he said. “So whatever calls we get in 2020 will be based of whatever formula we create in the interim.”

Because of problems with the previous formula, all three jurisdictions sat down together multiple times last year and came up with a contract based on a new formula. However, there have also been issues with that new formula.

Council members agreed it was a good idea to look at other options.

“It’s not to eliminate the contract,” said Kress “It’s to tell the two townships that we’re not going to follow either one of the formulas that we’ve had in the past.”

Councilman Wayne Kruchten felt the council could just let the current contract end instead of terminating it.

“Why is this necessary, since the contract has a termination date anyway?” he asked. “Just let it expire at that point.”

Kress said there is no termination on the fire contract. It automatically renews unless there is a termination notice.

“It’s a continuous document,” he said. “It would revert back to the old formula, which we didn’t agree on either.”

Kress said the 90-day notice would set the termination date close to the end of 2019. In the meantime, the council will begin looking at alternative formulas.