Vote to change Pine City Council meeting days, times fails on Wednesday night

A vote to change the Pine City Council's meeting days and times failed in a split 2-3 vote on Wednesday night.

Council member Kyle Palmer advocated for changing the current meeting schedule (the first Wednesday of the month at 6:30 p.m., and the third Thursday at 10 a.m.) to the first and third Wednesday of the month at 6 p.m.

"I'm getting a lot of feedback that we're taking action at daytime meetings that are supposed to be work plan sessions," Palmer said. "The last meeting we had, we had almost zero attendance after about ten minutes. It was a long meeting. It is not convenient for our taxpayers, and it seems like our turnout is in the evenings."

Council member Gina Pettie explained that having two evening meetings a month does not work for her schedule, and that a second Wednesday evening meeting would require her to take time off from work.

"I am still in favor of continuing on with the first Wednesday and third Thursday, and holding ourselves to keeping the third Thursday more of a workshop meeting," Pettie said.

Council member Dave Hill said he'd like to see the council move to one meeting a month.

Palmer made the motion to change the meeting schedule starting in June, with a second from Dan Swanson.

"Do I have to get kicked off council because I can't make that meeting?" Pettie asked.

"I think to keep it in perspective, though, we've had four daytime meetings, and you've been to two of them," Palmer responded. "That's supposed to be the time that you're best available. Your attendance at evening meetings has been better than daytime meetings."

Mayor Kent Bombard said he felt like the council has been improving with taking fewer actions at Thursday morning meetings, and added that Pettie not being able to attend most meetings was a cause for concern.

"So if I start skipping out on daytime meetings, we're going to switch? I mean, honestly. At the end of the day, it's not based on our schedules," Palmer said. "It's based on our residents, our taxpayers' schedules."

City administrator Marcy Peterson mentioned that a community survey was "highly in favor" of one meeting a month.

"This is asking now staff to attend two evening meetings on top of our already full schedules," Peterson said. 

"At the end of the day, staff works for the city of Pine City," Palmer said. "They work for the taxpayers. The taxpayers come in here, they have complaints, and their complaints and concerns have to be listened to. If you want to adjust it so that staff only has to come to one council meeting a month, that's fine. But I'm not really going to listen to the complaining that staff is complaining because they have to come to another nighttime meeting during the week. Sorry. I don't care. At the end of the day, it's about our taxpayers, it's about our residents."

The vote failed 2-3, with Swanson and Palmer voting in favor, and Pettie, Bombard, and Hill voting against the change.

"With that no, I will say that I think we need to continue to strive not to take formal action for morning meetings, and stick to being a work group only," Bombard said.

"That sounds great, I won't be at the next one," Palmer responded.

Swanson said it has "proven impossible" not to take actions during morning meetings, and that "we are cheating our taxpayers" by having limited meetings for action to be taken.

Palmer said the issue comes back to a matter of transparency for Pine City taxpayers.

"If you can live with this, then fine, but I think it's shady and not transparent," Palmer said.