The Becker City Council met Tuesday night to discuss a bid acceptance, a dehumidification project, community forests management, the personnel policy, support for the relocation of a business and issues dealing with video services in chamber.

 

Rep. Jim Newberger of Becker has been working at the state level to help Northern Metal Recycling's efforts to relocate from Minneapolis to Becker. Northern Metal Recycling boasts that they are the upper midwest’s leading metal recycler and if relocated, they could be bringing  approximately 90 full time jobs to the community.

 

Newberger is working with the company to obtain bonding money to help with the relocation. He sent a request to the  Becker City Council and the Sherburne County Board to pass resolutions supporting the relocation to Becker, thereby indicating to the legislature there is wide support for the project.

 

The Becker EDA adopted a similar resolution  during its April 11 meeting and the Sherburne County Board was expected to adopt a similar resolution at their April 19 board meeting.

 

City staff said the company would be commissioned to locate in the industrial park where they can benefit from Xcel Energy and Liberty Paper’s locations as well as the railroad.

 

Randy Sabart of SEH presented council with five bids to work on the realignment improvements along Hancock Street and Hwy. 10.

 

The lowest bidder was Hardrives, Inc., who came in at $227,530.35 — just $242 less than a bid from Rum River Contracting. The engineer’s estimate was approximated at $277,402.50 and the other bids were $246,315.00 (Knife River), $274,519.00 (Helmin Construction) and $278,772.80 (Astech Corp.).

 

The project’s start date and finish date are yet to be determined due to the fact the city and SEH have to coordinate timing of the project with BNSF.

 

BCC Manager Jamie Cassidy discussed preliminary engineer estimates and the next phase of the replacement of the dehumidification unit at the BCC.

 

Cassidy pointed out the initial preliminary expense phase was already completed and now the BCC is looking to move forward with Wenck Associates to complete the plans and specifications stage.

 

Cassidy said it puts the project on schedule to have bids go out in May with a desired timeframe of completion by Oct. 1 at the latest.

 

The agreement spells out the proposal to complete the scope of the work for a price of $48,100. This is part of the overall estimated cost for the project budgeted at $405,000 and will be paid out through the BCC capital improvement plan.

 

Council was asked  at their last council meeting, to pass a resolution encouraging Gov. Mark Dayton and the legislature to create a statewide program which would support community forests, focusing on management of the Emerald Ash Borer and other future attacks by invasive species.

 

Gina Hugo from Sherburne County gave a presentation at the last meeting and she says the new resolution could help secure matching funds to assist local governments with the preservation of their community forests in the amount of $13 million.

 

At the last council meeting, Rick Hendrickson requested to table a resolution in regards to the personnel policy. The reason was he felt he hadn’t had the proper amount of time to review the documents. 

 

Tuesday, the policy was back before council and City Administrator Greg Pruszinske detailed the stratagem.

 

Pruszinske said the personnel committee spent all of 2015 reviewing the city's current personnel policy and wanted to merge it with the model personnel policy as recommended by the League of Minnesota Cities. By taking these steps, Pruszinske said, the city will now have a policy that has been thoroughly vetted by the league and whenever state law changes in regards to personnel policies, the manual can be updated to include the new recommendations.

 

Some of the key additions or changes included: • Addition of a data practices advisory; • media requests and the appropriate way to handle them; • defining part-time and fulltime employees more specifically in order to comply with federal health care and reform laws and regulations; • adding retirement (PERA) to the benefits section; • laying out the grievance procedure and addition of more specific guideline related to travel, education and training.

 

Pruszinske also asked for approval of the City of Becker Golf Course/Community Center Privileges Policy that discusses the employee wellness program,  season/annual passes, the use of the golf course/BCC, use of golf carts and driving range and the purchase of items from the pro shop.

 

All members voted in favor of the two policies with Mayor Lefty Kleis objecting to the golf course/BCC policy, citing he doesn’t think the employees should be allowed to make golf reservations, that the golf pro shouldn’t be allowed to make exceptions to the policy and that golf employees should not be able to buy merchandise at a 10% over cost price — which could possibly lead to inappropriate buying and reselling of product.

 

Mayor Kleis told council he has been receiving numerous complaints from the citizens on the video presentations of the city council meetings. Kleis said the quality is poor and when people step up to the podium to speak, the cameras do not switch over to show who it is who is talking.

 

Kleis suggested the city utilize the school’s media department to bring in students who could help refine and run the system. 

 

Council and staff said it would be looked into and agreed to discuss the idea further at a future workshop.

 

March’s safety award was given to Rodger Bellinger of the public works department for bringing insight into working safer and building a safer environment.

 

The next Becker City Council meeting is May 3 at 6 p.m.