Landfill debate recycled

Cloquet city councilors had to reconsider a decision they made during their final meeting of 2019 on Tuesday night, but the result was the same.

Again the council denied a request from SKB Environmental Landfill to alter its Conditional Use Permit (CUP) and expand its hours of operation to allow for drop-off and dumping of SRFI waste (paper residue left over from junk mail) 24 hours a day.

The vote was 4-3, with councilors Bun Carlson, Sheila Lamb, Kerry Kolodge and Laura Wilkinson voting to deny for a second meeting in a row. This time, however, each one explained the reasons for his or her vote, as advised by city attorney Bill Helwig.

Helwig had recommended the council revisit the issue, explaining that any denial of a conditional use permit or amendment to a CUP must have reasons for the denial entered into the record.

“If it doesn’t happen [at the meeting], it must be put into the record at the next meeting,” Helwig said. “Otherwise it is not considered a valid denial of the amendment that was requested.”

Helwig presented the council with three possible actions:

1. To simply articulate the reason for one’s previous vote. That reason must have been included in the discussion. If no valid reasons were discussed, adding a reason would be disingenuous and likely not withstand a legal challenge.

2. Any councilor who voted with the majority could motion to reconsider the vote, discuss the reasons and put them into the record after a vote.

“Of course, there’s always the possibility the vote could go the other way,” Maki pointed out.

That is — as opponents of the landfill will recall — what happened in 2011 when the city first approved the industrial landfill. Following a denial of the CUP request, the council had to reopen the issue after failing to note the reasons for denial. At that meeting, which included new city councilors, the previous vote was reversed.

3. The third option was to do nothing, and hope that SKB did not mount a legal challenge to the vote.

After some discussion, at-large councilor Lara Wilkinson motioned to reconsider the vote, and the various councilors discussed their positions and reasoning on the landfill’s request for extended hours.

Mayor Roger Maki said he favored granting the request because he thought the landfill has been well run and complaints minimal and sometimes misdirected. Ward 5 councilor Steve Langley pointed out that the changes — allowing SKB to dump the paper waste 24/7 instead of unhooking trailers and leaving them there during the nighttime hours — would likely decrease the noise, something Ward 3 interim councilor Chris Swanson agreed with. Swanson added that he agreed with the opinion that “the sooner we fill this landfill up, the sooner it can close” expressed by Langley and Maki at the previous meeting.

In the end, the three were in the minority. Following the vote, Kolodge reiterated that he voted no because the city had passed a resolution in 2011 that prevents any expansion of existing landfills, which he felt applied to hours as well as geography.

The council denied a previous request for expanded hours in 2017, Kolodge said, noting that he voted “no” then as well.

Wilkinson agreed, and added that she thought expanding the hours would set a bad precedent, plus she had concerns about protecting the neighborhood as well as citizen complaints about odor. Ward 1 councilor Carlson mentioned odor issues and residents’ concerns over cancer-causing agents, while Ward 2 councilor Sheila Lamb said “noise is noise,” referring to the fact that a noise study found that sounds from Interstate 35 were louder than landfill noises (but there were still noises coming from the landfill).

Other matters

• Kerry Kolodge was voted acting mayor for the second year in a row, which means he runs any meetings and other required duties when the mayor is absent.

• The council unanimously approved the Pine Knot News as the city’s legal newspaper for 2020 without discussion as part of the consent agenda.

• The council heard from three citizens.

Dan Tarr requested that the city consider allowing citizens to store their guns in some type of gun locker to be supervised by the Cloquet police department. He made such a request last year when he was concerned about other people living in his home, and his handgun ended up being stolen after the CPD told him they had no such program.

“Sometimes you can’t have guns around because people you live with might be emotionally distraught, or some other reason,” Tarr said, suggesting that people would have to call in advance to arrange dropping off or picking up a gun.

Mayor Maki said the council would look into his request.

Also, Lee Anderson, who spent 35 years in construction, asked the city to revisit its Project Labor Agreement and to research its effects in great depth.

“What was broke that this fixed? What was wrong?” he asked. “We had an open bid process that allowed a lot of different contractors with different skills to bid these projects that you now exclude because of this agreement.”

Anderson also suggested the council ask its attorney to look into the impact of the Supreme Court’s Janus decision — which states that a person can’t be forced to pay fees to public sector unions — on the PLA.

The third speaker, District 11A State Rep. Mike Sundin, spoke in response to Anderson, citing issues at the new White Pine apartments on 14th Street that he said would have been prevented by using all union labor.

“Consider the benefits, not just saving a buck here and there,” Sundin said.

Sundin attended with his grandson, who is working toward a Boy Scouts citizenship merit badge.