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Starbuck Council Hold Special Meeting PDF Print E-mail
Pope County Tribune - Starbuck Times
Written by Zach Anderson - Starbuck Times New Editor   
Wednesday, 06 April 2011 12:02

Hobo Park the main issue


The Starbuck City Council held an emergency meeting on March 31 at the Starbuck Community Center dealing with Hobo park campground issues as well as protocol issues within the City Council itself.

Hobo Park has a move list that people who stay at the park have an ability to move spots if other people that have seasonal spots decide to leave. There is also a waiting list that people who can't get into the park wait on until spots become available.

When councilman Tom Goracke who was responsible for working with the campground was done with his term on the city council the transition wasn't as smooth as hoped since there is no official guidebook.

Not all the people on the campground move list were called before the spots started getting filled by people on the wait list. A few campers who stay at the campground during the summer expressed their interest that they just want to be treated fairly. The people that stay at the campground are friends so they don't want to make a big scene out of it but feel the move list should always be checked first before moving on to people on the waiting list.

The city council agreed with this sentiment. Although not all the spots are the same sometimes people like the opportunity to move into a spot closer to or farther away from their parents, one man at the meeting said.

A suggestion was made for councilman Jamie Logan, who has taken over Goracke's duties, to meet with the campground people at least one a month just to talk out ideas or problems the campground has just to make sure everyone is on the same page. "I'm definitely open to that," Logan said.

The council along with people at the meeting decided it was best to just let the mistakes that happened this year go as is because the campground opens in four weeks and the potential backlash for telling the wait listed people who were promised spots that they didn't have the same spot as promised could hurt the park in a lot of ways.

As far as protocol the City Council would like to see more communication between the members because on a few issues they were bypassed on. There was an increase in garbage cost from $17,000 to $20,000 but no one knew about it until the state auditor sent a letter to Mayor Steve Dinsmore questioning it. "The City Council should have been aware of this," councilwoman Jeannie Pladsen said.

In the future the council talked about making sure to run everything by the council rather than just one council member knowing and the rest are left in the dark.