Two Harbors Council Eyes Federal Grants, Great Lakes Funding After D.C. Trip

Mayor Conner returned from Washington with a clear directive for Two Harbors: get in line for federal Great Lakes funding before the window closes. At the March 23 council meeting, he briefed council members on his March 5 participation in Great Lakes Day, an annual lobbying effort organized by the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative, a nonpartisan coalition of municipal leaders united around protecting the ecological and economic health of the basin.

Conner was not alone in the Capitol hallways. The contingent included Sam Cunningham of Waukegan, Illinois; Eddie Melton of Gary, Indiana; Marcus Muhammad of Benton Harbor, Michigan; Mat Siscoe of St. Catharines, Ontario; and Ausma Malik, deputy mayor of Toronto. The cross-border makeup of the group underscores the initiative's reach: Great Lakes governance does not stop at the U.S.-Canada line, and neither does the case these mayors were making to federal lawmakers.

The council's federal funding targets are specific. Both the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative and the Brandon Road Interbasin Project, a federally backed effort to block invasive species from entering the Great Lakes through a Chicago-area waterway, were central to the conversations with congressional representatives. Two Harbors' pitch depended on presenting a unified regional argument for reauthorization and continued appropriations, rather than a single small city asking for its share.

On the state side, city staff reported taking steps to advance an application through the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources, which distributes Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund dollars to environmental projects across the state. The LCCMR grant track connects directly to the city's waterfront and ecological priorities, though no specific project or dollar amount was announced at the meeting.

Matt Johnson, representing the Lake County Housing and Redevelopment Authority, was also noted at the meeting, signaling that waterfront planning discussions increasingly intersect with the HRA's work on land use and community development in Two Harbors.

The council's posture at the March 23 meeting was largely preparatory. No grants were awarded, no projects were launched, and no deadlines were publicly named. But the combination of a mayoral lobbying trip to Washington, active LCCMR application steps, and a named roster of Great Lakes coalition partners suggests Two Harbors is positioning itself to compete for funding that, if secured, could underwrite shoreline protection and habitat work the city has long sought to advance. Missing those funding cycles would push costs back onto the local tax base or delay projects indefinitely.