DETROIT LAKES (KDLM) – The Detroit Lakes City Council has opted to temporarily table a request from the Teamsters Local 320 to hold a BBQ for Becker County union members after the Becker County Administrator raised concerns during Tuesday’s City Council Meeting.
Teamsters Local 320 had submitted a Special Event request to hold a BBQ for Courthouse and Human Services employees on August 23 along Lake Avenue and Holmes St. on the Northeast corner of the Becker County Courthouse. The routine request was pulled from the consent agenda when Becker County Administrator Pat Oman raised concerns that the event would pose a safety concern, interfere with parking, and create a nuisance for people trying to access county services.
The request appeared to some on the Council as furthering a divide between the County Administration and the Union which represents a group of county employees, “There are issues over at the Courthouse with employees and management and I don’t want to have anything to do with it,” said Dan Josephson, Alderman Third Ward.
Oman, however argued that the issue was with the location and not the event or organizers, “This has nothing to do with that, you can put whatever applicant name you want on the agreement, it’s still a safety issue, it’s a parking issue, it’s a customer service issue.”
Speaking with KDLM News on Wednesday, Roger Meunier the Business Agent for Teamsters Local 320 said this would be the first BBQ event they’ve held in Becker County for Union members, but they hold similar events all over the state. “We have no issues with any other place in the state of Minnesota that we do this. We’ve had some issues with that group there and this administrator and this is just one of his ploys he’s trying to do.”
Ultimately the request has been tabled until next month, the City now plans to coordinate with Teamsters Local 320 to determine if they would be willing to relocate the event possibly to the Washington Square Mall parking lot.
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