2020 Vol 14, Issue 5 November Gem Lake News

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mail boy0 November, 2020 Volume 14, Issue 5 Gem Lake News Special Interest Articles: • Election Results and Certification • Exciting Information about Culverts • City News, Page 4 Upcoming Recycling Dates: • November 18 • December 12 • December 16 • Tip: put out your bin the night before for 7 a.m. pick-up. Gretchen Artig-Swomley, Newsletter Editor State statutes require each city to officially certify the results of an election within a certain amount of days of the event. Gem Lake held its certification meeting on-line on November 12 at 7:00 p.m. This meeting was held virtually, due to rising COVID-19 numbers. Anyone for whom the city clerk had an email address, received an email link to the meeting several days prior. At this meeting, the number of each votes each candidate received was reviewed and certified. According to the Minnesota Secretary of State’s official web-site, the winners were as follows: For Mayor: Gretchen Artig-Swomley with 59.35% of the vote. For City Council (two spots open): Ben Johnson with 32.8% of the vote; and Laurel Amlee with 25.45% of the vote. As of November 3 at 7:00 a.m., there were 402 registered voters in Gem Lake. A total of 374 of them voted, meaning a voter turn-out rate of 93.03%! Election Results Certified Nov. 12 Recreational Fires in Your Backyard As the weather outside gets frightful, a backyard fire might be quite delightful, right? Well, that depends. Open burn situations, called bonfires, are prohibited without a permit, but small recreational cooking and recreational fires are okay in certain circumstances. First, they need to be supervised by an adult, second, they need contained within an approved fire ring, and third, they need to be three feet or less in diameter. Here is the exact language from Gem Lake ordinance #77, section 6: “Open burning prohibited. It shall be unlawful for any person to kindle or maintain any bonfire, nor shall any person normally furnish as such material for any such fire, nor shall any person authorize any such fire to be kindled on or in any street, alley, road, land or public grounds or upon any private property without first obtaining a permit (continued on page 2)