The Polk County Board of Commissioners met on Tuesday at the Polk County Government Center.
The meeting began with Polk County Engineer Richard Sanders seeking the resolution of acknowledging street construction sponsoring the City of Lengby and the City of Fosston.
“The state legislature passed bonding and funded the local road improvement program,” said Sanders, “35% of that account is allocated toward township roads and small city streets.” The city of Lengby is applying for a grant to upgrade its local city streets through the local road improvement program. Since they are a city with a population below 5,000 residents, they cannot receive the funding directly. Polk County now has to sponsor both Lengby and Fosston (Fosston also has a population below 5,000), and the finances will run t through the county.
The board also approved the certificate of performance/final acceptance for the CSAH 17 overlay from Highway 2 to Business 2 and the overlay from Trunk Highway 2 up to CSAH 17. The final cost of the projects is $2,108,059. These projects were bundled into one contract, and the board approved the final price.
The board also approved the Polk County Highway Department to purchase an EZ Liner Stencil Paint Machine due to the current paint machine reaching the end of its useful life. The Highway Department repaints county stop sign notices yearly. The cost of the new device is in the amount of $73,530.52, and money was allocated toward this purchase in the Polk County Highway Department’s preliminary budget.
The board also heard from Jacob Snyder of Planning and Zoning. Snyder presented the board with the resolution to submit, adopt, and implement the Sand Hill Watershed comprehensive management plan. “The majority of the watershed is in Polk County; all of the counties will make board resolutions to adopt and push it to the state for approval,” said Snyder, “This replaces our ten-year water plan we used to have a county plan that all of our sheds within our water boundaries and now the state has gone away from that. They’ll do watersheds that don’t follow county boundaries; this is a plan for counties and different partners. You have SWCDs in there and the watersheds themselves.”
The board approved this resolution and will also look to have it approved by the state. Snyder also sought the board’s approval to reappoint Tom Noah for his second term to serve on the Planning Commission Board of Adjustment and appoint Planning Commission board member Paul Jore to his third term. The commissioners approved both appointees.
Polk County Administrator Chuck Whiting discussed with the board the memorandum of understanding regarding the district formation costs for legal and engineering services between Polk, Norman, and Clay counties. This concerns the West Central Regional Water District, where Polk County has contributed ARPA funds.
“Polk County contributed American Rescue Plan Act money toward the extension of a water main coming over from North Dakota into Climax,” said Whiting, “Our share was to upsize the pipe, which would allow water service to be extended throughout the area.”
Legal work and engineering studies will be conducted in this project, and the board ultimately approved Polk County’s share in the cost of the legal work (to not exceed) $135,000.
Whiting also updated the board on the County levy leading up to December, which is still seeing adjustments. The board wants to reduce the levy to a 2.5-2.6% increase. “This is much lower than what we have been doing over the past few years,” said Whiting, “I think we can do it by use of fund balances, which means using funds that we already have, and it can shave the levy a bit more. Otherwise, I think we have a good budget heading into 2024.”
The Polk County levy public hearing will occur on Tuesday, December 12, at the Polk County Government Center at 6:00 p.m.
The consent agenda included the approval of minutes from the November 7 meeting; it also had the approval of bills and disbursements in the amount of $92,749,41.
