By Aaron Vehling

Preparing Stacy to connect its water and sewer pipelines to the Chisago Lakes' joint powers water treatment system has been an uphill battle for the City Council.

The council has been working with the engineering firm Bonestroo and Associates to draw up plans and prepare the city to have a wastewater lift station in place by October, the city's connection deadline. A lift station is used to help transport liquid wastewater from homes and businesses across the city to the treatment plant for processing and cleaning.

The main obstacle to that goal has been problems with acquiring the requisite land from the property next door to city hall's southside.

At the council's meeting Tuesday night (Feb. 22) city attorney Pete Grundhoefer revealed issues with the deed on the house and property adjacent to the city hall.

"The title of the property is in limbo right now," he said. Leonard Filius, the owner of the property, died last year and the deed is not in the name of his wife, Kimberly Filius.

For the past two months both the city council and Kimberly Filius have been attempting to work out some deal, but to no avail. The council thought they had a deal worked out, but city engineer Chuck Schwartz notified them at the Feb. 8 meeting that Filius had changed her mind regarding a deal.

The land needed for the lift station is in the rear of the two properties. The only other option, councilmembers and Schwartz contend, is to install the lift station in city hall's parking lot along CR-30.

But at the Feb. 8 meeting, Schwartz deemed this move futile. He said that it would have an adverse affect on the property value of the house and that "it's an eyesore and would take up our parking space."

Grundhoefer presented two options the council could consider to get the land - probate proceedings or eminent domain, which is the right of a government to appropriate private property for public use, usually with compensation to the owner. He said that probate would cost $2,000-3,000, whereas an eminent domain proceeding would cost about $4,100.

Of the two options, Grundhoefer recommended probate. He said the city could pay for the process to benefit both Stacy and Filius.
Grundhoefer will draw up papers that will ensure that if, even after the probate proceedings, the deal falls through the city will be reimbursed for the legal fees.

Filius could not be contacted by the time this story went to press.

In other council business:
ïThe council voted unanimously to allow Bonestroo to move forward with plans and specifications on the liquor store project, contingent on review by Grundhoefer.

ïSchwartz has been looking into the possibility of a new water tower in Stacy and will present more information at the next regular meeting.

ïThe council voted unanimously to approve Lakes Telecom of Forest Lake to install a new phone system. They capped the cost at $5,960, which was the lowest bid of a number of companies which Daher researched.

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