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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11, 2020 VOL. 36 NO. 46 www.countrymessenger.com $.75
FUNDING FOR INVASIVE SPECIES TREATMENT : Scandia City Council PAGE 6
Marine filmmaker's award winning movie airs March 15
Wet basement? Sorry, no app for that BY ANGIE HONG EAST WATER METRO
CONTRIBUTED
The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis will screen the short film, Grandfather's Birthday, on Sunday, March 15 at 2 p.m. It is included as part of a retrospective program featuring the work of female filmmakers. Grandfather's Birthday, produced and directed by Marine on St. Croix resident, Gayle Knutson, premiered at the Walker 20 years ago this month as part of its “Women With A Vision” series. The film went on to win 23 awards worldwide including a Midwest Emmy in Entertainment. Knutson will introduce the film on Sunday. She will also
The sun is out, the snow is melting, and someday soon you may go downstairs and discover that your basement is wet. What should you do? First, it is important to determine why your basement is wet. When we first bought our 1870s home in Stillwater, water poured into the basement every time it rained. The reason? The roof didn’t have gutters and downspouts on all sides. Instead, rain sheet-flowed off the roof to the ground directly below, and quickly seeped in through the basement walls. After we installed gutters and downspouts to direct water away from our house, the basement rarely
COURTESY GAYLE KNUTSON
Grandfather’s Birthday, 2000.
speak on a filmmaker’s panel at the Walker on Saturday, March
14 at 2 p.m. For more information, contact the Walker Art Center
at 612-375-7600 or visit online at www.walkerart.org.
May Township supervisors face cost increases at March meeting BY LESLIE MACKENZIE CONTRIBUTING WRITER
“In a short period of time we will be a fire service running a township,” opined supervisor John Pazlar when the May Township Board of Supervisors considered a new contract with the Stillwater Fire Department at its March 5 meeting. The supervisors expressed concern that the cost of firefighting services is steadily increasing and will soon “dominate the township budget.” The township had requested that a represen-
tative from the fire department be on hand to explain the significant cost increase – from $117,229 in 2018 to a proposed $145,215 by 2021. No one from the fire department was in attendance. May, Grant and Stillwater townships all contract with the Stillwater Fire Department for services. Stillwater had already signed a new contract but May’s contract expired in December. “They are oblivious to the townships who set levies in March,” said Pazlar, who expressed frustration at the lack of
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Sand bags in front of a window well.
bargaining power that the town had. “We don’t have the tax revenue.” Pazlar and chairman Bill Voedisch wanted to know if the increases were in line with state permits, how many runs Stillwater made to May Township and how the budget broke down per run. (There were 68 runs to May Township in 2019.) The supervisors said it may be time to revisit the idea of the municipality providing its own volunteer fire department as a long term solution to ever-rising
collected water. It’s important also to make sure that downspouts extend far enough away from your home to prevent water from flowing backwards into window wells or your foundation. Use downspout extenders to redirect the flow and check gutters and downspouts periodically to make sure they aren’t clogged by leaves or seeds. If water is flowing downhill into your home from your driveway or the street, you will need to contour your landscaping to re-route the water around your home. Landscaping features could include a dry stream bed, contoured berm of soil, or a series of raingardens to capture and redirect the water. Be careful NOT to redirect water into your neighbors’ homes. Washington Conservation District (www.mn-
SEE MAY, PAGE 2
SEE BASEMENT, PAGE 2
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