The Austin City Council may cancel its Coffee with the Council meetings until next year.

The council will hear a motion at Monday night’s regularly scheduled meeting as the result of a 5-2 vote on the matter at the June 18 work session. Council Member Brian McAlister expressed concerns city office candidates would use the informal monthly meeting to promote themselves.

He and other council members said they had other concerns with the informal meetings, too. Certain residents dominate the conversation and limit the variety of opinions that are shared at Coffees, while others bring up subjects outside the scope of the city’s jurisdiction, such as school board or county issues.

“It’s really not doing anything very useful,” McAlister said.

Council members Marian Clennon and Janet Anderson opposed the work session’s motion. Clennon said there were ways around the behaviors that give other council members pause.

“I think if we set down the right rules, whoever’s moderating it will stop it,” she said.

The motion follows the first Coffee with the Council meeting to have minutes written up and points of follow-up for specific citizens’ questions highlighted. If the motion passes, Coffees will not resume until after Jan. 1, 2013.

 

Street closures

Two upcoming street closures, if approved by the council, will block certain routes for Austin drivers. Hormel Foods Co. and Hybrid Mechanical have asked the city to close Fourth St. NE from Hormel Drive to 14th Avenue NE on July 9-11. The companies want to make room for a 350 ton crane to set new evaporation units on the freezer facility. If approved, drivers could access the nearby neighborhood through 15th Avenue.

In the downtown area, the Austin Area Chamber of Commerce and Downtown Retailers Committee have petitioned the City Council to close Main Street from First Avenue to Fourth Avenue NW for its Downtown Crazy Day. The event, which is planned for 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Thursday, July 19, will invite local businesses and vendors to set up stands along the sidewalks.

In addition to closing streets, organizers are asking the city to provide “no parking” signs along Main Street and barricades that they will place and remove themselves.

 

Public hearings

Two public hearings will be held early in the council’s meeting. The first will be an assessment in the amount of about $206,000 to G&R Truck Wash for unpaid bills.

The second will be a hearing on the assessment made to Dobbins Creek Estates residents, which the council chose to lower after receiving objections from about 50 affected property owners. The assessment was lowered from about $15,590 to $15,000 per property following a recent appraisal that gauged the benefit as being about $15,000.

 

Other business

During the meeting, the City Council will also decide whether to:

—approve carrying over $100,000 from the previous budget and approving a Limited Use Permit with the Minnesota Department of Transportation to construct a pedestrian trail between Younkers and Target. The eight-foot-wide trail would cross Highway 218.

—accept Murphy Creek property from the Austin Housing and Redevelopment Authority. The HRA decided at its June 21 meeting it could not make use of the land and voted to give it to the city.

—approve a Mutual Aid Agreement with Freeborn County. The agreement would lay out any legal issues and a schedule for reimbursement in the event one party needed the help of the other’s fire or emergency medical services. Austin Fire Chief Mickey Healey said reimbursement would cover services extending more than five hours.

—authorize city staff to work with the Humane Society to develop a joint animal pound and Humane Society facility. The facility would be built as two separate structures that share a parking lot. The new buildings would occupy a plot of land at the end of Oakland Avenue E, east of Highway 218 and beside the Austin Municipal Airport, that the city still needs to acquire.

—grant the Planning and Zoning Department the ability to contract for the removal of junk and illegally stored vehicles from six Austin properties: 1001 Sixth Ave. NE, 1011 Eighth Ave. NE, 1005 Ninth St. NW, 305 First ave. SW, 305 First St. SW and 411 Main St. S.

—approve a Gambling Premises Permit for The New Smitty’s Tavern.

—approve petitions for three distinct sidewalk improvements at the expense of each requesting property owner.

—approve the engineering services of Bolton & Menk Inc. for the replacement of a traffic light at Oakland Avenue W and First Street.

 

In contrast to typical City Council meetings, there will not be a work session held after Monday’s meeting.