Cloquet council member leaving ward

The good news?

Ward 3 Cloquet city councilor Dakota Koski just bought his first home.

The bad news?

It's not in Ward 3.

That means Koski will have to step down from his council seat as soon as he makes the move from his current residence on Eighth Street to his new home in the Sunnyside neighborhood, which he expects to happen July 1.

City administrator Aaron Reeves said the council will have a choice between setting a special election as soon as possible, or appointing someone to fill Koski's seat until the next regular election in November 2020. The council will likely address the issue at its meeting Tuesday, when Koski planned to formally advise them of his pending departure. (He already emailed them last week.) Reeves said he would recommend appointing someone. The city has already incurred the expense of a special election this year for state senate.

Koski said he struggled with the decision, because he put a lot of effort into getting elected, then attending training and just getting up to speed with city government.

Koski said he had been looking mostly in Ward 3 - which lies between Highway 33 and 14th Street, and Doddridge Avenue and the St. Louis River - for a few years without success.

Any time he found something suitable, it was snapped up by someone else.

Then a property in the neighborhood where he grew up became available.

"I knew it was land that my great-grandparents and grandparents owned; the seller purchased it from them," Koski said. "I grew up playing with her kids. We lived a block away and my grandparents lived on the other side of that lot."

His new home is actually located in the English Addition of Cloquet - named after Koski's great-great-grandparents on his mother's side of the family. Koski sent the seller a letter with his offer, and she chose his over a full-price cash offer, he said.

"There's a lot of family history there," Koski added. "I figured, if it's meant to be, it's meant to be."

Koski said he struggled with the decision, but decided that he plans to live in that home for decades, while his council term is four years, so it didn't make sense to pass up the opportunity to live in his old family neighborhood. It's been a learning experience, and a good one, he added.

"I am disappointed that I have to step down because I won't be living in my ward," he said. "But we'll see what comes up in the next few years. There's a good possibility that I'll be running again."

Koski's new home is in Ward 5, currently represented by Steve Langley, who is related to Koski. Langley's seat is up for election in 2020, as is the at-large city council seat currently held by Lara Wilkinson. Wilkinson was elected in 2018 to serve the final two years of Adam Bailey's term, after Bailey bought a home outside the city limits.

If the council decides to accept applications to fill Koski's seat until the 2020 election, anyone who has resided in Ward 3 for at least 30 days and is at least 18 years old can apply online or by picking up an application at City Hall.