(Wahpeton)– The Wahpeton City Council is giving the Dickinson County Conservation Foundation additional time to move the former Back Porch building. The foundation wants to move it to Kenue Park and convert it to an environmental learning center.
Following a lengthy discussion and a couple of motions that either failed or wound up being rescinded, the council voted Monday evening to extend the deadline a second time…to January 1st. The original one was September 1st. The current owner is paying the city 100-dollars a day for each day the building is still on the property. Monday’s action to extend the deadline even further reduces the penalty to 50-dollars per day. But if the building still hasn’t moved by January 1st, the penalty will revert back to 100-dollars…and the city will hold a 70-thousand dollar payment it still owes on the property.
Conservation Foundation President Jim Tuel said there was no way they could meet the December 1st deadline because they had to apply for moving permits…a process that could take up to two weeks. He also said they’ve been negotiating with a neighboring landowner to move the building over his property so they wouldn’t have to go down Highway 71. Otherwise, stoplights would have to be taken down, adding considerably to the cost.
Another reason for the delay, Teul said, is the fact that fundraising has been slow. So far, they’ve only been able to raise about half of the 30-thousand dollars it’s going to take to move the building.
One Wahpeton council member Monday night expressed his frustration over the continued delays in getting the building moved. Brad Jones said he doesn’t think the foundation is treating the city fairly by repeatedly asking for extensions…saying the first one should never have been allowed.
In the same vain, council members admitted they have no immediate plans for the site.
