County pleases labor with latest move

The Carlton County Board of Commissioners breezed through its first meeting of July in 24 minutes Tuesday. But it managed to get work done, raising the threshold for project labor agreements while also announcing its intent to work more closely with the local tribe on matters that impact both jurisdictions.

Regarding project labor agreements, county engineer JinYeene Neumann explained the decision to raise the threshold triggering a project labor agreement from $175,000 to $250,000 on county-led construction. A committee had met throughout the past year to revamp the agreement, she said.

“We changed some of the language in the project labor agreement,” Neumann told the board. “We changed the threshold amount to $250,000, and we would have it be adjusted every five years by the Consumer Price Index, whereas in the past it was never adjusted.”

The Consumer Price Index “is a measure of the average change over time in the prices paid by urban consumers for a market basket of consumer goods,” according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Commissioners unanimously approved the update to the agreement, a move that was made with cooperation from the Duluth Building and Construction Trades Council. Multiple trades members attended the meeting held at the Transportation Building in Carlton.

“We really appreciate this,” president Andrew Campeau said. “Thank you, commissioners, for taking care of the people in your community.”

The board had previously affirmed its use of union labor on major projects in resolutions it passed in 2007 and 2013.

The move came a few months after the city of Cloquet did away with its mandate to install project labor agreements on private development work over $175,000.

City officials argued successfully that in the previous six years no private developer had sought business or housing developments within the city, and that removing the labor mandate would serve to attract more development.

The city council voted 5-2 to remove the requirement for any private PLA. City projects with a $175,000 price tag or higher will continue to require agreements with union labor.

County, Band tackle

range of topics

County officials met with members of the Fond du Lac Reservation Business Committee earlier this month to discuss a range of issues, as well as the prospect of increasing the frequency of their formal communications to quarterly.

Previously, the jurisdictions had been meeting roughly twice a year.

County coordinator Dennis Genereau provided an overview of the session, which he said touched on a dozen topics, including cooperation between each entities’ public health, law enforcement and probation, road maintenance, broadband, housing and collection of the county’s twin half-cent sales taxes.

• On road maintenance, the topic of transferring responsibility to the Band came up.

“There are four or five different roads that were discussed at the meeting to find out if they’re interested in doing the work,” Genereau said.

• On broadband: “The Band is interested in working with the county … possibly extending the reach of their broadband infrastructure (into neighboring townships) now that they’ve more or less taken care of all consumers on the reservation,” Genereau said.

• On housing: Genereau said the Band has access to state and federal dollars and that it’s willing to partner with the county on housing development.

• On the county’s two half-cent sales taxes for road and bridge maintenance and construction of the new $75 million justice center: “We’re going to meet (further) on the two half-cent sales taxes and whether they’re willing to collect that,” Genereau said. “They’re open to it, but that’s a process.”

Genereau also noted the possibility of formalizing a working agreement between the county and Band, one akin to the agreement between the Leech Lake Band Of Ojibwe and Cass County. Those governments have agreed to share information and work together on issues that impact each other to the benefit of one another.

For now, commissioner Tom Proulx wanted to ensure the two parties were “doing anything more than just talking.” He proposed using formal agendas, so that issues didn’t come and go without resolution.

County officials affirmed they’d be doing just that.