.jpg)
Following concerns presented by council member Jim Lassi at Tuesday’s city council meeting, Ordinance No. 274 — set to allow chickens within Babbitt’s residential district — will be pushed back to the planning and zoning committees with new amendments. City attorney Joel Lewicki recommended a public hearing on the ordinance.
“It didn’t go to a public hearing, and this is easily one of the most controversial ordinances that the city has faced, and yet we deny public input,” Lassi said.
“If the city of Babbitt, on their own initiative, initiates a change in the zoning ordinance, you do not need to go to a public area,” Lassi continued, “But there are two paragraphs below that that directly say if a petitioner — and this happened in this case — the petitioner filled out the zoning forms and he came and asked to change the ordinance, this should have gone to a public hearing.”
The council additionally discussed potential revisions to the ordinance. Changes will include clarification that a chicken coop will be exempted from accessory structure status, similar to a doghouse; a requirement to keep coops at least 20 feet, rather than 10, from property lines; and a further requirement that chicken owners must not allow chicken waste to exceed the amount of a five gallon bucket.
“Do you know how long it would take to fill a 20 gallon container with six chickens? Can you imagine the stink? The odor? I think that should be reduced quite a bit and emptied more often,” Lassi said of the mandate proposed in the ordinance’s earlier draft.
The council then passed a motion to send the ordinance, amendments included, back to the planning committee.
Later in the meeting, the council reversed course on the May 20 decision to halt the marina project, citing “further investigation” on the financial repercussions the city would face if they were to discontinue the LCCMR grant.
“It’s not the marina project, it’s a marina design project, so we would have a design out of it and we wouldn't have to fill out that report saying that we basically wasted the money that we already were given,” deputy clerk-treasurer Sara Powell said. “There’s nothing physical going out there at this time at the beach.”
“If we don’t go ahead, spend the rest of the money for the design, that could harm our credit rating in the future for us asking for money, which is unfortunate, and I get it, we don’t want to risk that because we do have reason to believe that we will have upcoming projects where we’ll need the DNR. So our hands are kind of tied on the whole thing,” council member Duane Lossing said.
“This grant is not a taxpayer grant, it’s lottery money,” Powell said. “But when we need money and we can’t get it because LCCMR won’t give us any more lottery money, then we’re going to be looking to the citizens and start raising your taxes and start using your tax money for things that we need because we can’t get the funding.”
The City of Babbitt will go through with the design and leave it to future councils to decide what course of action to take on the project.
In other business, the council:
• Hired a new Teen Center attendant • Passed a motion to use the outdoor rink as a trial location for the proposed dog park
• Rezoned two parcels behind the golf course as “industrial” for use by Green Mining Company
• Approved repairs at the ball- field and beach park, using left over funds from the playground funding, as well as from the sale of playground equipment Approved a financial incentive, covered by payroll excess, for the city’s EMTs and paramedics to pick up extra hours in order to fulfill the state requirement of 24/7 emergency coverage. Every 36 hours on call will earn an EMT $120 on top of their current pay
• Approved the sale of locally- made soap at the campground
• Hired a summer laborer for the recreation department
• Discussed the possibility of making a new easement behind Cherry Circle.
