New lights were installed at Irish Stadium as the Maple Lake Lakers prepare to host the 2013 Minnesota Baseball Association State Tournament.

6 to remove old sewer pipes and replace them with an 18-inch pipe from Ash to Linden on 1st Street. The project also included adding a manhole on County Road 8 for a total project cost of $103,898.55. Funding was provided by federal financing obtained for the sewer reroute project.

• Approved a plan from the Boy Scouts to save Jude Hall. City Assessor Ken Yager valued the building at $40,000 after repairs. Don Mooney provided the results of a mold inspection and said with $1,500 to $2,000 in materials and volunteer labor, the mold could be cleaned up. Repairs as outlined by the Scouts would include replacing areas of

sheetrock, installation of gutters and rain spouts, filling stucco cracks, installing two ventilation fans and a second dehumidifier. The Scouts offered to fund the project and to remove their property from the building so it could be rented out by the city for other uses.

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September

• Offered incentives to facilitate the sale of the old Warrior Boats building on Highway 55. A bank foreclosed on the property the previous year and Wayne Elam of Commercial Realty said the proposed sale of the building to a local business fell through earlier this summer. However, he said another business about to break ground on a 12,000 square foot addition to its Annandale facility put those plans on hold to explore the purchase of the Warrior Boats’ building. Elam said the buyer and seller were about $150,000 apart in the negotiations and city economic consultant Paul Bilotta suggested possible incentives that could be offered by the city to help close the gap. The council proposed a tax abatement for five years with a value of $47,000 and a loan from the city’s revolving loan fund at an interest rate of 1%.

• Approved a plan from the Maple Lake Lakers to update the lights at Irish Stadium in preparation for hosting the 2013 state amateur baseball tourney. The cost of Musco lighting equipment with installation was just over $98,000, with the Lakers to reimburse a portion of the costs from state tournament profits.

• Passed the proposed 2012 budget and levy. Due to the state shut-down in July, the city was not able to obtain information on tax capacity to set a proposed tax rate. And City Clerk Linda Hruby pointed out that the state will no longer pay a share of the homestead tax credit, which will reduce tax capacity and cause a tax increase for residents even if the levy remained the same as last year. The preliminary budget for 2012 was set at $1,357,420, which was an increase of $54,008 from 2011. The levy amount for 2012 was $786,313, an increase of $52,651 from the previous year.

• Ended an effort extending back to 2008 to have a landscaper correct its poor work in residential areas after the Birch Avenue reconstruction and authorized the hiring of a local landscaper to com-