City 'missing boat' on food trucks

The Cloquet City Council took up the topic of food trucks at its meeting Tuesday at City Hall, wondering if it should amend an ordinance to allow the cultural phenomenon better access to city park events.

Councilor Kerry Kolodge raised the issue after having heard from a food truck operator who was denied access to a large bike race last month at the Pine Valley recreation area. The city currently doesn’t allow food trucks at parks unless it’s a city-sponsored event, such as the Fourth of July celebration.

“Our ordinance prohibits that kind of thing, sales of items in our parks,” Kolodge said. “Food trucks are something that has become a popular thing in our culture.”

Food trucks appeal to festivalgoers and lunch-seekers, while allowing business owners to launch catering and food service without all of the risks associated with opening a fixed restaurant.

In Minnesota, the state inspects food trucks annually, city administrator Tim Peterson said. He offered a series of possibilities for the city council, including extended licenses — for a food truck that may want to set up in the summer outside the pool at Pinehurst Park — and shorter licenses for trucks that want to park outside weekend events. The Minnesota Cycling Association’s massive mountain bike race at Pine Valley drew an estimated 3,000 visitors to Pine Valley, Peterson said.

“We’re missing the boat a bit on not having food trucks at events of that nature,” Peterson said. “I do think we should revisit that ordinance.”

The current ordinance is a blanket statement outlawing sales in parks, and would need to be amended to include a food truck exception. No new language or amendment has been presented yet and would need to come up again at a future council meeting.

Governor’s cabinet visits

Peterson reported that half of the members of the governor’s cabinet visited Cloquet recently. They toured Sappi and met with officials from the city, school district, Carlton County, Fond du Lac Band, the local tribal community college, and Community Memorial Hospital. Topics included child care, access to broadband internet, inflation, and waterline improvements from Lake Superior to Sappi.

The in-person visits didn’t include Gov. Tim Walz, who is campaigning for re-election. But Peterson said the engagement “resonated” with cabinet members who had already proven receptive to $5 million in bond funding to improve the Lake Superior waterline.

“The biggest problem we have with the waterline is it doesn’t really fall into any category for (other) state funding,” Peterson said, adding that it’ll likely be targeted for another round of state bonding legislation, which failed to pass last session.

Sappi uses 17.5 million gallons of water per day in a combination of St. Louis River water and water pipelined from Lake Superior.

Water meters to be updated

The city’s first generation of remote-read water meters is reaching the end of their useful life, and the city council unanimously approved a resolution to solicit a round of bids for replacements.

So far, 10 of the existing water meters serving 3,000 customers have failed, and now require staff to manually read meters at those residences. More failures are expected as battery power wanes and the system approaches 20 years old.

The city had previously approved a $1.76 million investment in new-generation technology. Instead of automated meter reading, the councilors agreed Tuesday to upgrade and solicit bids for advanced metering infrastructure — an “integrated system of water meters and data management systems that enable two-way communication between meter endpoints and utilities,” the city’s resolution said.

Unlike the existing system, the new one does not require utility personnel to collect any data. Instead, the system automatically transmits usage data directly to the utility at predetermined intervals.

Daily readings can allow the utility to flag accounts with abnormally high usage, so staff can notify customers sooner than in the past.

City officials asked councilors to approve a “best value” bid system versus a lowest bid award.

“There’s a reason for that,” public works director Caleb Peterson said. “This is a company you’re going to have an ongoing relationship with over the life of the system. We wanted to take that into account.”

Replacement was budgeted for 2022, with the city council previously approving the issuance of revenue bonds to accelerate the process, so that a new system could be paid for and implemented in three to six months, instead of across multiple years, the resolution explained.

New work trucks OK’d

The city council unanimously approved purchase of two 1-ton trucks, one capped at $65,000 and the other, with plow and sander, at $80,000. Both trucks will feature dump boxes. The plow truck will be used to clear snow from alleyways in the city.

Public works director Caleb Peterson explained the trucks had been approved previously as part of the 2022 annual budget. But when the city had tried to order the trucks, the state purchasing windows closed before the city had time to get precise dollar amounts through for council approval.

“We’ve been waiting all year for the opportunity to actually purchase (the trucks),” Peterson said.

Rather than see another window shut awaiting price approval, city officials asked for approval of a maximum dollar amount for the trucks. That way, the city could act quickly when the next purchase window opened.

“We’re asking the council to trust staff and set a maximum dollar amount,” Peterson said, before gaining approval.