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The first meeting of North Branch Council on their new night and time, (second and fourth Wednesday at 6 p.m.) was called to order last week by the vice mayor, Robert Canada with Mayor Kevin Schieber absent.

Council got business done inside of about a half-hour.  

The main action was to adopt an ordinance 4-0 giving the city a new revenue stream dedicated to parks and recreation expenditures. State law allows local governing units to collect a 10 percent remittance from charitable gambling activity in the city.  North Branch has not historically done this;  and instead generally sees a firefighters’ donation periodically from their relief association gambling.  Other licensed charitable gaming involves North Branch Area Hockey Association activities at Tailgaters and Pizza Pub, the Legion Post holds bingo and has gaming at Muddy Cow.   Old Brick Inn offers firefighter relief association gaming ad JJs Bowl has CHOPS Inc. gaming.

Staff did not calculate expected revenues. 

Council heard the various licensed gaming sites will begin sending the 10 percent,  remitted quarterly, as of April 1.  

This is part of the licensee’s “allowable expenses” under MN Gambling Control Board rules.

Council was wondering if the amount of time that will be put into administering this will wipe out any benefit from revenues and council was assured not a lot of accounting effort goes toward tracking and recording this. Currently several other cities in Chisago County collect this statutorily allowable percentage of net proceeds from a number of charitable gaming operations.  For 2024the state database shows the 10 percent contribution generated as much as $32,000 in Chisago City and $42,000 in Wyoming to about $3,000 collected in Taylors Falls.

City Planner Nate Sondrol commented that the citizen commission that advises on Parks, Trails and Open Space experiences a “constant issue” with finding funding to provide maintenance and repairs for recreational needs.  North Branch right now has a park dedication fee assessed on new developments as its only dedicated income source for recreation.

Even though Mayor Schieber was absent he sent a letter for staff to read expressing his support of the new ordinance setting up the 10 percent account.

Another account the city will need to establish and monitor will be its role as fiscal agent for the Veterans Memorial project.  The “Circle of Honor” is slated to be built in Central Park.

An agreement was adopted 4-0 identifying the city as the responsible entity to pay all vendor bills and keep track of finances for the memorial project.

The agreement also calls for termination if the operating entity (right now it is the Beautification Association coordinating this project) should fail  to raise sufficient funds within three years of this agreement being accepted.  

Reminder:  there is a pickleball tournament Saturday Feb 21 at the North Branch High School as a fundraiser for the memorial.  Go to the ISD138 website under Community Education to register. There’s competitions arranged by age groups.

And, North Branch Fire Chief Pat Heinen announced that the department has 100 carbon monoxide detectors available for anyone who wants.  

Firefighters will set up a time to install the devices in the home, and check your smoke detectors if you like.  There is a maximum of two of these free carbon monoxide detectors per residence.  The chief said the program providing the devices has a deadline to distribute them by June 2026.  Firefighters are frequently called out to respond to carbon monoxide related incidents and the chief said there have been 24 calls since last fall, for replacement detectors.  Contact the department or city hall on Facebook to reserve a detector installation.

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