Tonight Duluth Mayor Don Ness presented his strategies for solving the remainder of this year's remaining budget deficit.
Last week Ness announced that a deficit of more than $600,000 dollars was still lingering in the general fund.

Ness said he plans to address the shortfall with $250,000 of non-AFSCME concessions, selling land, and delaying a facility-needs assessment.

Ness also hopes the state Public Utilities Commission will approve a two-and-a-half million dollar sale of a steam plant to Minnesota Power.

"What's clear is that the approval of this sale is taking more time than we were hoping for and it is less likely that we will have cash in hand by the year's end from this sale," Ness said.

The city says on top of a general fund deficit of more than $600,000 there is also an approximate $1.7 million operational deficit.
To help fix the problem Ness outlined six strategies to help fill the gap.

Those include charging residents and businesses for street lighting, union and non-union concessions, selling land on Park Point and West Duluth and also delaying a facility needs assessment.
The mayor says he hopes all of the strategies can be implemented before year's end.

"If any of those other elements don't come through, then we'll have a remaining deficit once again to deal with and our options keep getting more and more limited and I think layoffs in that situation, if we weren't able to implement these strategies, then layoffs, unfortunately would be one of the remaining strategies left," said Ness.

In other council action, a "three opportunities for improvement" ordinance dealing with landlords is expected to receive a vote Monday.
The measure says a landlord's rental license can be revoked by the city after three nuisance incidents.

Also, Jim Stauber says his front yard parking ordinance is expected to receive a vote on Monday.
That measure provides a clearer definition as to what constitutes a front yard for means of enforcement.