City council adopts assessment roll for 2019 street project

The Bemidji City Council approved the assessment roll from this past year’s street renewal project during their meeting last night.

The total cost of the project was just over $2 million, with about $270,000 of that cost expected to be recouped from assessments.

Streets worked on for the project included portions of Pershing Avenue, 8th Street Northeast, Dewey Avenue, 3rd Street Southeast, Gemmel Avenue and McKinley Avenue.

During the public hearing, one Gemmel Avenue resident appealed, citing that no benefit was created by narrowing the road, among other complaints.

Another Gemmel Avenue resident asked the council to get the public bus to drive down Gemmel, and city engineer Craig Gray said he already came up with a solution with Paul Bunyan Transit hours before the meeting.

Assessments on properties will be payable over a period of time, with a yearly 2.75 percent interest rate.

The council also held the first readings of two ordinances, one related to amending the city’s fee schedule for next year, and another for a proposed amendment of a recreational camping vehicle parking ordinance.


Larissa Donovan was the News Director for the stations of Paul Bunyan Broadcasting and has been, almost without interruption, since Election Day 2016, through July 2023. She covered all the beats in north-central Minnesota, such as local government, crime, education, environment and social issues. She studied communications at Bemidji State University. You can follow along with Larissa's live tweets of meetings and events on Twitter!


© 2020 HBI Radio Bemidji, LLC d/b/a Paul Bunyan Broadcasting 502 Beltrami Ave NW, Bemidji, MN 56601 This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area