TOWER- The developers of the planned town home project at the city of Tower’s harbor have six more months to make a commitment to move forward with the project.

The Tower City Council, on Monday, extended the April 1 deadline for Tower Harbor Shores (THS) to commit to building the first of the three planned town home units, after the city failed to provide a completed plat for the project ahead of the deadline. The project development agreement between the city and the developers required the developers to sign a sufficient number of purchase contracts with prospective buyers to move forward with the first of the town home units by April 1. But the developers have noted for more than a year that they can’t legally sign purchase agreements until the city has delivered a final plat.

Project developer Jeremy Schoenfelder, who was on speakerphone during this portion of the meeting, noted the plat was supposed to be completed last November when the developers agreed to the terms of the new agreement.

“We’ve been stuck in a holding pattern,” he said.

Jason Chopp, an engineer with SEH, explained the plat had been submitted to St. Louis County several weeks ago, but there were three issues still outstanding. Two of these issues, Clerk-Treasurer Linda Keith told the council, should be resolved in the next two weeks. But Chopp said the third, an issue regarding a snowmobile trail easement with the DNR, is unresolved.

“We submitted easement issue documents to the DNR back in November,” Chopp said. “They haven’t made any progress. They want their specific language, but we haven’t received it yet.”

Keith stated that the lack of a finalized plat wouldn’t preclude the development group from working on their own Common Interest Community, or CIC, overlay. Schoenfelder said those documents are nearly complete, but still require final language in the plat to insert into their overlay.

Mayor Orlyn Kringstad, who divested himself from his ownership stake in THS once elected last November, asked what type of extension the developers were requesting.

Schoenfelder said it was difficult to know, since there was no way to know when the plat would be approved, but he suggested a six-month extension of the initial April 1 deadline, with all the other connected deadlines in the development agreement being extended for the same period.

Councilor Steve Abrahamson said he would talk to the DNR to see why there was a delay with the snowmobile easement approval.

The council voted to approve a six-month delay.

A little later in the meeting, Fitton asked the clerk if the mayor had voted on the issue of approving the delay, and Keith confirmed that he had, prompting Fitton to again allude to a conflict of interest.

Kringstad responded that he has nothing to financially gain from the project, which is the normal criteria for establishing a conflict of interest. “My wife and I have completely divested ourselves from Tower Harbor Shores,” Kringstad said.

Former council member Joan Broten, sitting in the audience, spoke up on the issue. “The citizens of Tower voted for you as our mayor. They knew you had involvement with Tower Harbor Shores. That was a given. I don’t even know why that is coming into play, except for somebody trying to sabotage everything.”

Fitton said this was a reason he wanted the city to hire an independent investigator to look into the issue. Fitton commented that the example right here, “voting for something that you had an obvious attachment to.”

Kringstad reiterated that he had no financial benefit from the project but emphasized that the project is important to the city itself. He noted the millions of dollars invested over the past 15 years.

“You better believe that THS is important to this mayor and to this town,” he said.

Kringstad added that he feels the council needs to get behind the project and make sure it happens.

Fitton responded that the previous council had wanted to get the project done with and move on, placing blame on the developers for taking a year and a half to sign the development agreement.

But, in fact, on Nov. 26, 2018, some prior council members had attempted to nix the project and had planned to issue a new request for proposals for harbor development, rather than signing a new agreement with Tower Harbor Shores.