NB school board, city council meet on issues

By Barbara Brown
The North Branch school board and the cityís council plan to hold regular sessions together to keep each other up-to-date on projects and plans.
The first discussion was held at the start of the cityís regular work session June 5.
Discussion between the two groups is important because each has levy power and they understand the money paid to the city and to the school board comes out of the same pockets, Mayor Gloria Karsky said.
School board chairman Mary Jo Ahlgren said she would like to see the board and city work together when building projects arise. She said if the schools and city can work together to address space concerns, the partnership may save both entities ñ and ultimately taxpayers ñ money.
Population growth and transportation are two topics that have each of the boards equally concerned. The city takes up 36 square miles of the school districtís total 180 square miles.
City planner Al Cottingham said the city has been growing at about 150 households per year for the past several years.
He said projections show the population of North Branch will double to 16,000 by 2020.
Superintendent Dr. Robert Stepaniak said the school district not only is concerned with population growth but also activity opportunities and space.
ìAs our community grows,î Stepaniak said, ìparks will be a major issue.
ìThe small parks do us no good,î he said. ìWeíre looking for playing fields.î
Stepaniak said the board is already considering whether to cut middle school athletics and other events due to lack of funding and space.
He said if the schools cannot provide activities to the students for space needs, ìthey would be turned loose after school with no activities because of no community support for them.î
ìWe are the communityís center when it comes to activities for youths, and we donít mind that,î Stepaniak said. ìBut we could be running into problems.î
Cottingham said the city has several larger parks in the works that would be in conjunction with housing developments, but would be useful to the rest of the community also.
One park would be on the west side of I-35 and could include up to four baseball fields and several soccer fields.
Council member Kathy Blomquist asked the school board for a table that would define more clearly how many students are in each classroom at the schools and the projected future growth of the school population.
Transportation is another issue that crosses both jurisdictions of the school board and city council.
While the city is in charge of laying out where future roads will be and currently is spear-heading a charge to get federal money to expand the Hwy. 95 overpass on I-35, the school board must map out its busing routes accordingly.
Stepaniak said the school board may be forced to stop busing within the cityís limits because of the need to get students from outlying areas to the schools.
Both boards agreed that talking about where roads are planned could help everyone involved.
Before leaving the meeting, both the city council and the school board agreed to meet on some kind of regular basis and to exchange minutes of each othersí meetings so they could be aware of issues that potentially could affect both sides.

Top of Page

©ECM Post Review

6448 Main Street
North Branch, MN 55056
Telephone: 651-674-7025
Fax: 651-674-7026
E-mail: editor.postreview@ecm-inc.com