After months of rancor and hot mics, International Falls council gets applause

INTERNATIONAL FALLS, MINN. – After months of pushback against a multimillion-dollar police headquarters project, city leaders here are potentially reversing course.

The City Council voted unanimously to re-engage with Koochiching County about police moving back into the old law enforcement center the department shared with the Sheriff’s Office for 40 years. This comes after a vote to proceed with renovating an aging Kootasca community center for police, a plan residents opposed at a time when their taxes have risen by 40%.

Council meetings in recent months have become heated, with officials caught on a hot mic saying disparaging words to citizens speaking out about the police project and city spending.

Now they felt heard. Their applause erupted Monday in council chambers, crammed with 50 people on creaky wooden pews in what was once a courtroom. But the city also rejected recall petitions against the council signed by more than 500 residents accusing the city of overspending and lacking transparency.

Council Member Tim Wegner, who motioned to go back to the table with the county, said in an interview that he was influenced to reconsider the police project not by petitions, but a letter penned by a former mayor, Shawn Mason, who feared speaking out.

“I can only imagine how many other citizens and business owners are staying silent for the same reasons,” Mason said in her letter read by Mayor Drake Dill at the meeting.

Mason told the council to show courage and hit pause on the project and work with the county. She said city finances are troubling with “a declining population alongside rising government costs and property taxes — an unsustainable trajectory."

The law enforcement agencies split in 2023 when Koochiching County raised rent for the first time since 1999. Then the city passed on the opportunity to move police into a $26.5 million Sheriff’s Office and jail now under construction. Police are renting space temporarily on the third floor of the Backus Community Center, home also to a daycare, theater and nonprofits.

Police Chief Mike Kostiuk said in an interview from his stopgap office that it’s not an ideal space for his officers.

“The Police Department just wants a place to go, and we don’t know what direction we’re going,” Kostiuk said.

Some in the community blame Kostiuk for moving out of the old law enforcement center and have accused him of creating a rift between the agencies. Kostiuk, who has been chief since 2021 and with the agency for nearly 20 years, disputed that and said the agencies continue working closely together.

“I think it’s easy to just assume that ‘He must be leaving because he’s difficult and the police don’t want to work with the sheriff’s department,’ ” he said. But Kostiuk said it comes down to the city and county negotiating rent, and he has no authority over that.

Kootasca is in poor condition and sits in a residential neighborhood. Renovation estimates came in around $5 million. It’s now down to $1.6 million, just for the first phase with an unknown price tag on the second phase.

Most people opposed pouring money into the aging building, which isn’t centrally located.

The county made a negotiable offer for the city to move back into the old law enforcement center for $160,000 per year. The Kootasca site would cost about $120,000 per year, Wegner said, to pay off bonds, not a lease since it’s a city-owned building.

Some residents have questioned whether investing in Kootasca would be a waste if the agency were to dissolve. More than 35 police departments across the state have done so in the past decade.

International Falls is shrinking and the police agency isn’t growing, but Kostiuk said operations are evolving to keep up with increased calls for service and unique public safety circumstances at the state’s busiest Canadian port of entry.

He also doesn’t view the recall petitions as being against the department.

At Monday’s meeting, city administrators explained the petitions were insufficient by lacking the birth year of each signee and by failing to prove malfeasance. Those requirements are not mentioned in the city charter but are outlined in state statute.

Petitioner Ed Bates said recall efforts are far from over, as it still remains to be seen if the city abandons Kootasca. A previous motion to renovate it was never rescinded, so those plans are still in motion.

Bates said he believes “the recall petitions played a part” in the council reconsidering, even if they were deemed insufficient.

Several residents told council members that they should still resign because hundreds of people signed the petitions. Council members didn’t step down, but Wegner said he hopes the council took a step in the right direction Monday.