By Patrick Garmoe
News Tribune Staff Writer
Like a leaky faucet, the saga over plans for a water garden at Bayfront Festival Park didn't end again Monday night.
During tonight's Duluth City Council meeting, Councilor Russ Stewart proposed nixing the half-acre project for good at the current Slip 2, after seven years of debate.
Although he supports the idea, he doesn't like it going in at Slip 2, because water would have to occasionally be pumped from the harbor, because not enough storm water would naturally collect at the location all the time. The garden would be designed to teach people how storm water is naturally cleaned up.
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Since the debate began in 2001, councilors have voted on at least 14 motions regarding this project.
Stewart's resolution Monday didn't pass, by a 4-5 vote. He and councilors Garry Krause, Tim Little and Jim Stauber supported the idea of officially ending discussion of it at that location.
Because the resolution failed, the project is again in limbo, not officially approved said councilors, but also not officially nixed, either.
Stewart said he brought up the matter again because recently he received a newsletter from the Sweetwater Alliance -- the group formed around building the garden -- saying the half-acre project was approved by the council this summer and therefore they were kicking off their campaign to fund build it.
"It's at least misleading to solicit funds ... when the city has not approved the contract," Stewart said, to build it. At most, councilors said, several years ago they approved the idea of potentially putting a water garden in that spot.
"The City Council approved the land back in 2002," said Jill Jacoby, executive director of the Sweetwater Alliance. But because what they did is now in dispute, her group will immediately refund the money collected for construction of the project, and won't collect any more until the issue is resolved, Jacoby promised. So far, the group has collected less than $500 for the $910,000 project.
Chief Administrative Officer John Hall did tell the council that he has a meeting Wednesday with the Seaway Port Authority, which is interested in potentially working on a storm water garden elsewhere in the city, where there's a steadier flow of storm water. Hall hopes to get Jacoby's group interested in potentially working on that project.
