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."
Wegner said he didn’t go into that meeting intending to ask the council to collaborate with the county, which remains open to negotiations. But he decided it was “for the good of the community to give it one more chance.”