(VIDEO) Harycki to Cook: 'You're Doing a Pretty Crappy Job'

The city of Stillwater has a lot of major projects coming down the line in the next several years—and there’s a lot of contention among council members about how things should get done.

On Tuesday night, City Council Member Doug Menikheim suggested that strategic planning sessions may help avoid some of the tension that has been building between City Council members.

“The city is going through a dramatic transformation,” Menikheim said. “Over the next five years all of this stuff that is coming down the road at us, we need to work together better to be prepared and take care of all of this.”

Within the next several years the council will make decisions regarding a possible new Armory in Stillwater. That conversation will include the possible expansion of a gymnasium as part of that project—and will eventually take up what should be done with the old armory.

With the Armory Project comes a possible new fire station; and if that happens, would the city decide to staff a substation downtown?

Will police take over the vacated fire department space?

When the Lift Bridge shuts down, will there be a Chestnut Street Plaza?

Does the city become a part of the revitalization and economic redevelopment in downtown?

What will a ?

How will the city handle the in the north end of town?

When will the city take up issues surrounding the 2015 annexation of Stillwater Township to Stillwater?

“All of these things come with a price tag on them, which Micky (Cook) has pointed out to us so many times,” Menikheim said. “We really haven’t taken the time to sit down and talk about these things as a whole, because I think that would relieve some of the tensions on these things, but instead we deal with them on an ad hoc basis.”

Menikheim said he believes the answer is pulling all the loose pieces of the puzzle into a larger picture.

“Where are we going to go as a city council? We are the city council, we are supposed to be leading them,” Menikheim said. ”Where are we leading them? I don’t know. I’ve been on the council for a year and three months, maybe I missed a lot, but I see us working on individual things on an ad hoc basis. We’re doing well, but we could be doing better by pulling this whole notion together. Do we need a vision?  I think we do. I don’t know where we’re going.”

One-third of the cities in Minnesota are doing strategic planning because of the uncertainties of today, Menikheim said. “There has to be a bigger picture to work from.”

Menikheim said the council should entertain the idea of a third-party consultant to help with strategic planning. The consultant would cost the city between $2,700 and $4,500.

“He’s not going to come in and tell us how to run the city,” Menikheim said. He would help prioritize the plans and give a big-picture perspective.

Council Member Jim Roush said he was “flabbergasted” at the idea of hiring a consultant to facilitate the council.

“With all do respect, that’s the job of the Mayor,” Roush said. “It’s the job of the Mayor to facilitate the council, and you want to hire someone from the outside without an election certificate and facilitate the council.”

Council Member Mike Polehna said a lot of that information is included in the city’s Comprehensive Plan, but setting a priority for that plan may be something to look into.

The facilitator would provide an objective piece to that conversation, Menikheim said. “None of us are objective. It’s impossible for us to be objective.”

The idea of using a facilitator is about more than the comprehensive plan, Cook said.

“It’s about how we function as a group and how we make decisions up here. I think this is a good idea. I think there’s benefit in an objective third party facilitating. If I thought that could happen some other way with us, but I don’t see that happening.”

Cook said she felt blindsided by the Armory discussion from the beginning.

“If we set as a council what our priorities were, and this had been part of it, and we really vetted out the whole process … we wouldn’t have something so contentious.

“But what happens is (we take up) whatever someone’s pet project is—and if you have the whatever—then you win,” she continued. “I don’t like that way of doing business. I don’t think most of us like that way of doing business. I think we would prefer to find some common ground—not agree on everything—but at least have more productive conversations up here instead of feeling ganged up on all the time.”

The city council’s job is to represent the people, Stillwater Mayor Ken Harycki said.

“If your job is to represent all the people—85 percent of the people wanted the bridge, 81 percent of the House voted for it—and you steadfastly disagreed with it and threw up roadblocks to it. If your job is to represent the people, you’re doing a pretty crappy job representing the people. You have to listen to them.”

Cook responded to Harycki’s allegations that she is doing a “crappy job” and told Harycki she would entertain a public bridge debate any time.

“That was really out of line, Ken,” she said. “Absolutely out of line.”

On Monday afternoon, Harycki said his comments were relative to a bridge discussion and he shouldn't have said it.

"It was the end of a long meeting and I was wrong in saying that," Harycki said. "I have put in a call to Micky to apologize, but we haven't connected yet."

Polehna asked Bill Turnblad and Mike Pogge if they could give feedback to the discussion.

There are valid points for both sides of the argument, Turnblad said. The comprehensive plan sets goals and plans, but it’s all big-picture stuff.

“We might benefit on fine-tuning a focus on how to implement it,” Turnblad said. “But maybe we can do it ourselves.”

Harycki made a motion for the council to proceed without a consultant.

The motion passed 3-2 with Cook and Menikheim dissenting. Polehna said he preferred tabling the vote until he could see the consultant’s qualifications.

“I’m not necessarily against it,” Polehna said. “I want to see what this guy’s qualifications are.”