By MaryHelen Swanson

While it looked like the Monday night North Branch Council meeting was going to be a breeze, the bump in the road came when the councilors started budget talks.

A preliminary levy and budget had to be adopted to be sent to the county auditor by Sept. 15.

Minus the mayor, the four councilors marched down a path of line-by-line reductions. Councilor Larry Erickson, however, remained mostly quiet, saying he was expecting to do the cutting later.

Going into Monday night's session the levy increase for 2008 was around 20 percent.

When they were done and ready to adopt the preliminary levy, the increase stood at 16.54 percent, the figure that will be heading off to the auditor this week.

Councilor Theresa Furman entered the discussion with suggestions for cuts that would have produced an increase of less than 15 percent.

Mayor Gloria Karsky, who had to be out of town, had sent an e-mail reiterating her position that she would not be satisfied with a 20 percent increase.

And so the councilors worked on.

Councilor Amy Oehlers had her list of recommended cuts, but the question was, what could the four of them agree upon.

Much discussion centered on the hiring of a community service officer, recommended by Police Chief Steve Forner.

The point is to have someone working proactively in the city on code enforcement.

In the end, they agreed to proceed with the hiring, starting in September. But the job was to be combined with a building inspector position. More input is expected on this position.

A halt was put on overtime for building, finance and park employees.

And a cut was made in allocation for a facilities plan.

The council also decided to take an additional $40,000 from liquor store funds to offset the cost of redoing the city's parking lot.

The final levy number for next year was $3,852,810.

Even after the long discussion, however, the vote to approve the preliminary levy was 3-1. Councilor Amy Oehlers voted no, citing her objection to the budget still including equipment certificates.

She said she won't vote for a budget until they're gone.

A final note: the levy increase for 2007, according to finance director Dave Stutelberg, was 14-15 percent.

In other business, the council:

• Learned from City Administrator Bridgitte Konrad that agreements regarding Flink Ave. realignment needed to be tabled once again as the Market Place developer was still working on negotiations with ShopKo and a grocery store.

She noted that the bidders on the projects were willing to wait.

• Approved a temporary street vacation for Living Branch's Kids Carnival.

• Postponed action on the purchase of blinds for the new library windows because it was felt that not all areas were covered in the bids. The councilors want the library to understand that this is to be the last item purchased by the city for the building.

• Agreed that the city's preferred site for a new post office is on a lot at 6408 Elm. Two other sites were submitted to the Postal Service, but the council wants to keep the post office downtown.