City reaffirms actions taken by Nygaard, Fuchs

With Mayor Clarice Liechty absent, the Jamestown Finance and Legal Committee passed a resolution reaffirming the legitimacy of the actions of one of its board members in regard to documentation for a PACE interest buy down for a Jamestown business.

“I’m requesting this as a result of the mayor’s letter calling out the council and Jeff (Fuchs) for not following city procedures,” said Pat Nygaard, City Council president and member of the Finance and Legal committee. “We’re asking the council to state that Jeff and I acted properly in signing the letter.”

At issue was a resolution for a $75,000 Flex PACE interest buy down to Allen Enterprises for the construction of a building to house Buffalo City Diesel in the I-94 Business Park. The resolution had passed the council after Liechty declared a conflict of interest due to holding a mortgage on a building used by a competing diesel repair company.

Liechty had not signed the resolution and requested further financial information documentation regarding Allen Enterprises and Dean Hafner. In her stead Nygaard signed the resolution prompting Liechty to raise a question of Nygaard’s authority in both City Council meetings and in a letter to the editor to The Jamestown Sun.

The four members present acted unanimously to reaffirm the actions of the board in passing the resolution and that no further documentation had been requested by the council. The reaffirmation of the board’s action will now be part of the city’s consent agenda at its regular Jan. 4 meeting.

Also on the consent agenda is an amendment to the city administrator’s job description.

“This request only deals with the supervision received,” said Kelani Parisien, council member. “The job description currently reads ‘under the administrative direction of the mayor,’ it should be changed from mayor to City Council.”

The motion passed 4-0.

The Finance and Legal committee refused to endorse a proposed 1 percent sales tax to be split equally between the city and county. Jamestown would use its share for improvements to infrastructure such as the sewer system while the county had earmarked its funds for road maintenance.

“I’m not in favor of increasing our sales tax above the current 7 percent,” Nygaard said. “We’re struggling with leakage to Fargo and Bismarck and we don’t want to encourage people to travel elsewhere.”

Other committee members agreed. The motion to refuse to endorse the concept failed 4-0.

“I sympathize with the problems the county is facing,” said Ken Schulz, council member. “I wish I had some good solution to suggest.”

The committee approved a resolution increasing the subsidies to Renaissance Recycling by $15,000 over the first six months of 2010 by a 3-1 vote. Nygaard voted against it.

“The increase in subsidy will allow us to hire another employee so we can go after more business,” said Ralph Friebel, owner of Renaissance Recycling. “Otherwise we keep doing what we’re doing or decide we’re losing too much money and shut down.”

Friebel said his recycling company prevents about 100 tons of waste from going into the landfill each month. He said he hopes curbside recycling becomes a reality in Jamestown in the future believing it would eliminate the need for a city subsidy for his business.

In other business the committee unanimously approved a request from the Buffalo City Tourism Foundation to hold a contest to establish a name for the World’s Largest Buffalo, approved a study to be conducted by Interstate Engineering of the city’s storm sewer system at a cost of $136,000 and authorized hiring a utility operations director.

All actions passed by the city committees will appear on the consent agenda of the Jan. 4 City Council meeting. Any member of the council can remove any item from the consent agenda for discussion and separate action.

Sun reporter Keith Norman can be reached at (701) 952-8452 or by e-mail at knorman@jamestownsun.com