St. Cloud City Council to Consider Board Appointments, Contracts, and Improvement Projects Monday Night

(KNSI) — The St. Cloud City Council meets Monday night and will consider approving appointments to key boards, reviewing contracts, and approving some improvement projects.

These items are on the consent agenda, considered routine and approved without discussion unless requested by a council member.

The mayor’s office is recommending the approval of Darian Richardson to the planning commission. He has lived in St. Cloud for nine years and is employed as an Information Technology analyst for Wolters Kluwer.

The city is looking to switch vendors at the Munsinger-Clemens Gardens Gift Shop. Jupiter Moon in St. Joseph had the highest bid for the shop, at $12,200 through 2026. They will take over for the Copper Pony, which has been in the space since 2021.

Repairs to the Paramount Performing Arts Center could be coming. The 29-year-old air conditioning unit on the roof needs replacing. St. Cloud wants to spend around $46,000 in local option sales tax dollars.

For several years, there have been issues with debris, erosion, potential infrastructure failure, and flooding of the drainage pipe where bats are roosting in the Highbanks neighborhood. The pipe replaced a ravine as the city developed. The ravine was a natural drainage ditch between Lake George and the Mississippi River. This project was initiated by residents who reached out with concerns about erosion. Over the past eight years, the city has worked with property owners to identify solutions, secure funding, and protect critical bat habitat. Landwehr Construction is the lowest bidder at $2,325,555.63. The remaining $6.1 million project will be paid for with grant funding. This will cover phase one of the project with phase two to be completed by spring 2025.

Outside the consent agenda, St. Cloud will finalize how much residents will pay for resurfacing and sewer projects completed in 2023. The council will determine resurfacing projects for 2024 and discuss giving Avivo Village $233,000 in unused Community Development Block Grants to help the organization design a $9 million homeless shelter near Costco.

The meeting starts at 6:00 p.m.

___