The Duluth City Council convened on October 15, 2024, for a Committee of the Whole visioning session at 6:15 PM followed by the regular meeting at 7:00 PM. The agenda included public hearings, resolutions, and ordinance readings. Key topics included the Central Entrance corridor vision plan, renewal of the Downtown Waterfront Special Service District, tax abatement for Enger Park Golf Course, bonds for Spirit Mountain and water utility, Sofidel paper mill expansion, and a resolution supporting a new Academic Health Sciences Center. Public comment focused on the Israel-Gaza conflict and a proposed amendment to vacation dwelling unit regulations. All actions except one opposed vote on the Sofidel development agreement passed.
Central Entrance Corridor Vision (Committee of the Whole, 6:15 PM)
Downtown Waterfront Special Service District Renewal (Ordinance 24-042-O)
Tax Abatement for Enger Park Golf Course (Resolution 24-0785R)
Spirit Mountain Restoration Loan (Resolution 24-0787R)
Sofidel Paper Mill Expansion (Resolutions 24-0795R, 24-0796R, 24-0813R)
Academic Health Sciences Center Support (Resolution 24-0815R)
VDUs Ordinance Amendment (Ordinance 24-049-O, First Reading)
Other Ordinances (First Reading)
Administration Report
All right, good evening, everyone. It is six fifteen, and as promised, we'll start on time. Um, this is the committee of the whole. We're gonna hear some visioning. I'm gonna call Mr. Ron Chica to kind of kick us off and to uh set the table for what we're gonna hear tonight. Thanks. Thanks uh to the council uh for having the opportunity here. Um appreciate it. It's been a little while since I've I've I've I've done this. So uh it's thanks for having me. Always enjoy talking about our plans. Uh and many might know at first thanks to Therese and Mike counselors are on our MIC board, our policy board, um, as well as there's a mayor's appointment as well. So uh thanks to them for um inviting me here today to talk about this core, this corridor, very key corridor. It needs some work, it needs some help. It's gonna happen, it's gonna happen. I'll get ahead of myself here some. But it's gonna happen, and we need a road network, transportation network to complement it. So most folks might be familiar. I again, Ron Chica direct the the MIC at ARDC, and have been there for 30 years now, almost 30 years. Time has flown along. Uh we've been doing this plan for about that long, too, by the way. Um, but I'll uh I'll get into that. I should mention that even before that I've been coming through this area with connections up on the range. So uh I think I know uh this corridor very well. It's been so many different plans that we have have done here. But again, appreciate this. I've got a few slides, and then I'm going to uh turn it to city. Well, we'll talk about uh what's a very key element is the city's uh small area plan here. So oops, are we are we moving? Uh let's see here. Hopefully we are one point. Maybe just go for go forward. Hopefully they'll come along. Quickly about what we are. I think some of the most counselors might know uh what we do. I won't get deep into this. We're the federal transportation planning body for this Deluxe Superior metro area. We've been around for a long time. Uh we do strictly transportation planning, land use planning, all modes of planning, bike ped transit, freight, etc. Uh for uh this area, um Deluxe Superior, some of the townships. Every um every population of 50,000 or more has one of us. They're housed a little differently throughout the country, but there's 400 of us across across the U.S. and every city in Minnesota has one as well. I should mention also that uh Dave Montgomery is well very familiar with with us. Dave was our back a few years ago as was my was my board chair. Very nice, very good to have that connection here at that time. So thanks, Dave. Uh what do we do? Well, we do plans and we get local input.