Action comes after city’s successful court trial on the issue

By Tim Douglass

tdouglass@pctribune.com

Glenwood City Commissioners denied a resolution seeking authorization to use a provision of a Minnesota Statute to provide snow plowing operations on roadways located within Mini-View Estates at 6th Ave NW, 7th Ave. NW and 8th Street NW. The area is located north of Brownies Tire and Service.

Snowplowing the streets in that  area became the topic of a lawsuit which was won by the city in August of this year.  

In that lawsuit, Paul Twite vs. the city of Glenwood the plaintiff (Twite) sought a writ of mandamus to compel the city to plow snow and perform sanding and maintenance on streets, even though those streets were not constructed to city specifications and the city did not accept their designation and “the developer was informed there would be no street maintenance for those reasons,” it was stated in the findings of fact at the trial.

The court judgment ultimately denied the plaintiff’s request for a writ of mandamus and denied all requested relief by the plaintiff and the complaint was dismissed on Aug. 29, 2024.   

The request resurfaced because of a state statute allowing the city to do snowplowing on a street that has not been accepted by the city. But the city can refuse to do so based on those reasons and because the state statute states that a city “may” maintain or plow the streets, not that it “shall” maintain and plow such streets.  

If the city were to plow those streets, it would need to adopt a resolution each year.

City Attorney Troy Nelson, who attended last Tuesday’s city meeting via digital access, recommended that the city deny the request and said the city was successful at trial on the matter. 

Based on the city attorney’s recommendation, the commission voted unanimously to deny the request.

Plowing and maintaining the streets in that area is a an issue that dates back to the 1990s when the developer refused the city’s financial support for adding sewer and water and bringing the streets up to the city’s specifications.  

In other business, the 

city commission:

•Approved a event permit for Oct. 19 for an Irish Wedding at Mount Lookout Park/Glenwood Overlook.   The permit is for activities from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. and was requested by Ivy Zelinsky.

•Approved a craft and vendor show event permit from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. for Oct. 19 for Tina Sabreken at the Pope County Fairgrounds.  The city also approved an event permit for a craft and vendor show for the same hours at the Pope County Fairgrounds on Nov. 9.

•Approved a request for a variance to allow the addition of retaining walls as part of a new home being built at 375 North Lakeshore Drive owned by David and Charlott Tourtillott.  The need for the walls was to hold highly erodible soil along a steep slope.  The variance was needed because the retaining walls would surpass the “imperious area” allowed by city ordinance.  The city’s planning commission recommended approval.

•Denied a request for a variance to impervious surface area requirements to split into two lots on property owned by Julie Hanson at 511 2nd Street South.  Once the lot is split, the occupied lot would be significantly over the impervious surface area allowed by city ordinance.