Duluth City Council Meeting – December 16, 2024: Budget Adoption, Legislative Priorities, and Public Comments
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Duluth City Council Meeting – December 16, 2024
This final council meeting of 2024 adopted the 2025 budget and tax levies, established legislative priorities, and heard public testimony on housing inspections and employee wages. All consent agenda items and ordinances passed unanimously (9-0) with one abstention.
Consent Calendar
The council approved 24 resolutions en bloc by a 9-0 vote, including:
- Agreement with HCM Architects for pre-design of a consolidated maintenance facility (not to exceed $56,250).
- Employee assistance services contract with Sand Creek EAP ($12,911.67).
- Purchase and installation of snow package equipment from Bert’s Truck Equipment ($221,387).
- Lawful gambling permits for Portman Recreation Association and Irving Community Association.
- Temporary expansion of on-sale liquor serving areas.
- Contract with WEX Bank for Circle K fuels (2025, up to $1,300,000).
- Amendments to firefighter and lateral firefighter civil service classifications.
- New classification of Manager, Economic Development & DEDA.
- Amendment extending City Administrator David Montgomery’s contract to February 15, 2025.
- Acceptance of $1,023,146.24 from St. Louis County for MFIP/DWP employment and training services.
- Amendment increasing Duluth Regional Exchange District road/utility work from $10,423,182.78 to $11,179,576.78.
- Authorization for DEDA to expend up to $967,000 for demolition of the Shopper’s Ramp.
- Rescinding Resolution 19-0764 and prohibiting truck traffic on Piedmont Avenue from West First Street to TH 53.
- Establishing no-parking zones on Junction Avenue, Buffalo Street, St. Marie Street, and College Street.
- Coal storage/delivery agreement with Midwest Energy Resources ($55,000).
- Contract to Northland Constructors for Upper Lakeside Water Interconnect ($1,155,180).
- Contracts for water treatment chemicals: Hawkins Inc. ($456,254.60) and Thunder Bay Chemicals Ltd. ($243,408 for 160,000 gallons of liquid aluminum sulfate).
- Authorization for administrative order with EPA Region 5 under Safe Drinking Water Act.
- Amendment for professional architectural services for Spirit Mountain Upper Chalet Phase 2 (increase of $2,135,020, new total $2,160,020).
- Addition of 69 parcels to St. Louis River Natural Area.
- Amendment with U.S. Steel for recreational license (no cost to city).
Public Comments & Testimony
Six members of the public spoke:
- Duluth Tenants Union members (Cody Pals, Madeline Brumell, Shine Lem, and a fourth speaker) described unsafe rental conditions (mold, lack of heat, fire hazards, landlord neglect) and urged the council to strengthen tenant protections. They expressed support for the additional fire inspector position but called it a first step.
- Brandon Quaid (AFSCME Local 66 employee) recounted recruitment/retention issues in city utility services due to wages 8–12% below market; he requested a full market adjustment without concessions, noting that the retiree health care fund is fully funded.
- Ken Leffler Kemp (AFSCME Council 5 field representative) reiterated that AFSCME workers are paid 8–12% below market, work short-staffed, and have been denied adjustments given to other bargaining units. He urged council to act.
- Aaron Krieger (Duluth Library Foundation) expressed support for including downtown library renewal in legislative priorities.
- Bob Ronold (landlord) complained about parking tickets and appealed to council about city fees and building safety regulations.
Discussion Items
2025 Legislative Priorities (Resolutions 24-0987R, 24-0988R, 24-1012R)
- Resolution 24-0987R establishing the city’s 2025 legislative priorities was adopted 9-0. Priorities include: (A) Area Lift Bridge repairs, (B) Water Treatment Facility upgrades, (C) Seawall repairs, (D) Downtown development tax credits, and (E) Union Gospel Mission engagement center.
- Resolution 24-0988R supporting additional legislative initiatives was adopted 9-0 after three unanimous amendments:
- Mayou amendment: Support for construction of a lakeshore wall at Scandia Cemetery to prevent erosion (county-led project, no city liability).
- Tomanek/Awal/Mayou amendment: Support for planning and implementation of renewal of Duluth’s downtown public library. Councilor Awal cited 750,000 checkouts, 300,000 visitors, and 37,000 program attendees in 2023.
- Forsman amendment: Support for construction of a new Academic Health Sciences Center (MET School) in the downtown regional district (no city funding required).
- Resolution 24-1012R approving a $80,000 agreement with Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP for federal legislative services was adopted 9-0. Councilor Mayo noted positive feedback on prior year’s services.
Bayfront Festival Park Management Agreement (Resolution 24-0992R)
- Five-year contract with Duluth Entertainment Convention Center (DECC) for $443,081 was adopted 8-0-1 (Councilor Durrwachter abstained due to potential work conflict). Councilor Awal thanked administration for conducting an RFP process.
Ordinances
- 24-055-O: Ordinance amending city code regarding water infrastructure surcharge (replacing sunsetting clean water surcharge) was adopted 9-0. Councilor Mayo explained the surcharge funds capital improvements needed per EPA requirements; can be reduced if state bonding is secured.
- 24-072-O (first reading): Ordinance authorizing Duluth Airport Authority to accept 2025 federal/state grants – read and will return for second reading.
- 24-062-O, 24-065-O, 24-069-O, 24-071-O (second readings, all adopted 9-0):
- General purposes tax levy for 2025.
- Special parks fund levy for 2025.
- Special taxing district (Duluth Transit Authority) levy for 2025.
- Fiscal year 2025 budget appropriation.
Finance Committee Report (pre-council)
Before the regular meeting, the council’s Finance Committee received a presentation from Belmont Partners and Lawrence & Schiller on the city’s tourism marketing contract (ending 2024). Highlights over three years: 31% growth in total neighborhood trips, overnight trip growth from 60% to 63%, 242 million paid media impressions, $13.1 million in direct revenue from paid media, 587 earned media articles, and 15 industry awards. Councilors expressed appreciation and asked about transition of creative assets (city retains all).
Key Outcomes
- All consent agenda items approved 9-0.
- Legislative priorities (Resolutions 24-0987R, 24-0988R, 24-1012R) adopted 9-0, with three amendments added to 24-0988R.
- Bayfront Festival Park management contract approved 8-0-1 (Durrwachter abstaining).
- Water infrastructure surcharge ordinance adopted 9-0.
- 2025 budget and all tax levy ordinances adopted 9-0.
- Councilor Awal noted upcoming work on tenant protections with city administration.
- Mayor Reinert thanked council, highlighted zero percent property tax levy increase, and announced new city administrator and human rights officer hires in early 2025.
- Next meeting: January 9, 2025, at 5:15 PM (agenda session).
Meeting Transcript
All right, we'll get started in one minute. Evening, Mike. Okay. And let's just kind of put that in conditions. All righty. We are just at about 6.15. So I'd like to welcome our friends from Belmont Partners up for our final finance committee meeting of the year and our opportunity to hear from the tourism partners we've had for the last few years. So I want to welcome Shelly and her team up, and I'm not sure exactly who's gonna start, but whoever wants to start can approach the lectern and take it away. All right, great. Thank you, uh President Randorf, uh, Councilor Forsman, all counselors, thank you for the opportunity to present to you tonight. Uh we're excited to share our work from the past year as well as the overall results from the uh last three years uh as we wrap up our contract at the end of the year. So uh we'll be going through these uh slide presentations pretty quickly, but we'll be sure to save time at the end for questions and discussion. Uh so our agenda for today um we'll do some quick introductions, uh, we'll walk through our content contract outline and the work we've done this year for each element. We'll discuss the results and how we've moved the needle over the last three years, um, and have time for question and discussion at the end. So quick introductions or reintroductions for most of you. So I am Megan Anderson, I'm a director at Belmont Partners. I lead our uh Duluth work and our tourism and hospitality work. I am joined here today by my uh colleague Shelley Lysick, who is a partner at Belmont Partners, along with our uh partners at Lawrence and Schiller, uh Laura Mitchell, who is VP of Marketing, and Kiri Bustler, who is a senior media strategist, who you will hear from today as well. So the first line item from our contract um for the last three years was to put together a comprehensive marketing plan. And with that, I will invite Laura to come up to share more about that. Thanks, Megan. Uh you can see here on the screen this maps out our annual plan for 2024. Uh the colorful chart at the bottom shows when we had all of our efforts running or in market. Uh starting with our overall business goals, we track things like tourism tax revenue, uh, hotel numbers from STR, uh, our distribution of visitors throughout the city, and the length of stay of our visitors, so how many how much time they're spending at uh neighborhoods and certain points of interest. Uh, for the marketing strategy, uh geographically we select markets based on different times of the year. So our peak strategy targeted primarily um in-state, and then we had three different tiers of out-of-state markets as well. Uh our primary markets that had more broad awareness channels, secondary markets which were more targeted digital only, and then we had some testing with our look-alike markets, um, where we had expensive media markets, but we're able to create lookalike audiences of people who had engaged with our media in the past to be highly efficient with our dollars. Uh and then with shoulder, we paired that back a little bit uh for a budget budgetary reasons, uh primarily targeting in-state, um, some of those primary and secondary markets, dropping off look-alikes, and then our holiday and winter efforts, really focusing in on our drive about a 250-mile radius for in-state our primary markets, then narrow down secondary markets, and then we also have evergreen efforts that run nationally all year long. So if anybody's searching for trips to Duluth or vacations to Minnesota, that sort of thing, we are in front of them with the Duluth message. So you can see how that shakes out throughout the year. Our paid media goals, we track things like earned our medium engagements, ROI from our OTA or online travel agencies like Expedia Priceline, that sort of thing. And then we also have earn media going all the time. So that tracks things like number of clips, the impressions, UVM and local, regional, and national coverage that we gain. Our second component of the contract includes audience profiles. So you've seen these three audience profiles. These are the usual suspects. We target our ready to roam audience, our up for adventure, and our kids in connection audience. So these are the three primary groups that we are in front of. We've evolved those throughout the years as we've learned more about how they engage with our media, which channels are best to reach them, and what's been most effective. So those are broadly the same, but know that we've been uh tweaking those over the past uh three years as well. Uh the third pillar is creative campaign development. So we are in our third year of the Love It Like We Do campaign, uh which kicked off in early 2022 and are continuing to evolve that. So in this past year, uh we launched what we call My Duluth, which is an offshoot of our Love It Like We Do campaign. So it's still based on that local flavor of our Duluthans, uh, but just gives a new voice to that. Uh, we really tried to prioritize diversity in people, place, industry, that sort of thing with the uh the content that we featured, um, really showing those firsthand Duluth experiences told through uh documentary style, so really using our Duluthans to use their own words and tell uh visitors why it's a great place to visit. Uh so you can see the four that we targeted, or not targeted, that we uh featured Jonathan Thunder, Sandy Larson, Eric Gert, and Galen Lee. Uh with that, I'm gonna ask Kiri to come up and talk a little bit about the campaigns and uh the media that we use to target uh during the different seasons. All right, our first campaign of the year um is really focused on winter. So I was targeting our January and February months, trying to get people to come up here, enjoy you know, skiing, other winter recreation. Um, a cool highlight of that last year was some weather activated display banners, so it served when it was snowing, which was a little tricky last year with the snow, um, but we still made it work a little bit.
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