Reid Huttunen formally hired as East Grand Forks city administrator

Hannah Shirley, Grand Forks Herald
·3 min read

Jul. 25—EAST GRAND FORKS — The East Grand Forks City Council voted 4-3 Tuesday night, July 25, to hire

Reid Huttunen

as the next city administrator. His first day in the new position will be Tuesday, Aug. 1.

Huttunen comes to the job from the East Grand Forks Parks and Recreation Department, where he has worked as the superintendent for seven years.

The council will seek an interim parks and recreation superintendent to take Huttunen's place. Council members, as well as Huttunen, appeared to be in agreement that they would seek an internal candidate first.

"I think it's certainly right to look at internal (candidates) initially. I guess I hadn't even thought about a potential external candidate for it," Huttunen said. "As the mayor said too, I certainly plan to still stay really involved in a lot of these projects that are ongoing that need to be wrapped up through the summer months, and I haven't really had thorough discussion with internal staff if they have any interest. I wanted to see what the thought process in the City Council is tonight, but I think that's as good of a place to start as any."

In other city council news:

* Guidance from the state on cannabis regulations

is still minimal

, city attorney Ron Galstad told the council, and it appears it will more or less stay that way for the time being.

"There's not a big consensus on how any of the cannabis-related changes are going to be handled," Galstad said. "A lot of them are case-by-case. A lot of them are counties interpreting laws differently. A lot of it's potentially going to land on law enforcement, and law enforcement doesn't have the access to it right now. So we're working on that."

Galstad will draft a city ordinance this week prohibiting personal cannabis use in public places. The council will consider it at its next meeting.

* East Grand Forks will get a $225,000 increase in funding through the Minnesota local government aid program thanks to changes to the funding formula made during this year's legislative session, Marty Seifert of the Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities told the council.

* Now that staffing shortages in the East Grand Forks Police Department have been addressed, a student resource officer will return to East Grand Forks schools by the end of September. The district intends to cover 65% of the costs with EGFPD incurring the other 35%. EGFPD Chief Mike Hedlund will appear before the school board with more information next month.

* The Grand Forks/East Grand Forks Metropolitan Planning Organization has been awarded $500,000 through the Safe Streets and Roads for All Action Plan Grant. The cities of Grand Forks and East Grand Forks will each be responsible for $50,000 to match the 80/20 split with the federal program. The funds will be used to conduct the safety study and prepare the action plan with an end goal of improving safety of the traveling public.