The Polk County Board of Commissioners met Tuesday, October 15, at 9:30 a.m. at the Polk County Government Center.
After approval of Consent Items and the County Board Members Issue Forum, the Board turned to the Regular Agenda.
First on the agenda was Hoffman, Philipp’s, and Martell’s 2023 Audit Exit Presentation. “We are independent auditors, so we can make recommendations on how they can improve things, but for the most part, we need financial information presented to us in order to perform the audit. We just have a few recommendations to make their processes a little more efficient.”
Kurt Ellefson from the Veterans Office came to the Board today to get a resolution passed Supporting Operation Green Light for Veterans. The request is to encourage citizens in patriotic tradition to recognize the importance of honoring all those who made immeasurable sacrifices to preserve freedom by displaying green lights in a window of their place of business or residence from November 4 to November 11, 2024. “Today, I was here to ask the board to adopt a resolution for Operation Green Light,” says Ellefson. “What that is is, during Veterans Day Week, the week of November 4 through 11, we encourage the community to display a green light to honor veterans that week,” Ellefson said that at all county buildings that have a flagpole, the light on the flag will be displayed as green for that week. The Board approved the Resolution.
Next, on the Agenda, the Board heard Annalee Jones from Property Records. Jones came to the Board to review the Watershed Levy Requests for 2025, the NWRDC and HRA Levy Requests for 2025, and the Lake Improvement District budgets for 2025. We asked Jones what this all means. “The first was the annual levy requests for the watershed district; there are four watershed districts in Polk County,” said Jones. “There levy for the year that gets split between all four parcels that are located within each watershed district; that’s a process that needs to be approved by the county board, and then I go ahead and enter that in on the tax system,” Jones explains that this way each property gets assessed the correct dollar amount.
Jones says the same goes for the Lakeshore Improvement Districts, the NorthWest Regional Development Commission, and the Housing Resource Administration.
Jones explains that the other request she brought to the board for approval today was Ambulance Special Assessment requests for 2025. “So, there are three ambulance districts in Polk County that utilize a special assessment instead of a levy for their ambulance funds for the year,” says Jones. “When a parcel lies within a certain ambulance district it gets assessed a yearly fee by that ambulance district that’s just added right onto the normal tax statement.”
Jason Carlson, from the Tri-Valley Opportunity Council, came to The Polk County Board on Tuesday with an update on the Petition to Vacate Right-of-Way. Carlson asked for approval for the Board Chair to sign the Tri-Valley Opportunity Council’s petition to vacate the public Right-of-Way around the Polk County Development Achievement Center, parcel #82.02266.01. Carlson explains. “We came back to address an issue that we had that I brought forth previously,” says Carlson. “It was to vacate a right-of-way by our headstart building,” Carlson says that normally, the city would split a vacated right-of-way, the property contained within a right-of-way between the adjoining land owners, but this was a little different. “With the school district and the county being the adjacent landowners, we had an issue when I went before the school board, which was after I was with the county,” says Carlson. “The issue being that Tri-Valley has a playground that would encroach on school district property if we split the right-of-way between the two property owners.” There is a solution, says Carlson. “To allow Tri-Valley to assume all of the land on the east/west right-of-way on that block, thereby keeping our playground out of school district property and really not impacting the county in any way, given the that the DAC has trees around their property currently and this wouldn’t encroach on that at all.” The Board approved the motion that the Board Chair sign the petition.
Director of Property Records Sam Melbye brought the board a motion to appoint Election Judges for the 2024 State General Election and a resolution to establish an Absentee/Mail/UOCAVA Ballot Board for the 2024 State General Election. The board approved both.
Chuck Whiting, Polk County Administrator, presented to the Board, in the absence of Jake Snyder, Assistant Environmental Services Administrator, a motion to approve Jamie Nelson with Spruce Valley Services, LLC, to obtain a CY2024 Polk County Haulers License. The Board approved the motion.
Multiple Ditch Maintenance Requests were brought to the board for approval on Tuesday by County Engineer Richard Sanders.
County Ditch 23 – a motion to approve the installation of a field approach in County Ditch 23 of Brandsvold and Queen Townships and to survey and clean as needed. Approved
County Ditch 25 – a motion to approve the installation of a field approach in County Ditch 25, Section 13 of Nesbit Township. This approach is required due to the selling of adjacent land. The landowner is to install and pay for the initial installation, and the CD is to pay for future maintenance. Approved
County Ditch 46 – a motion to approve the installation of a field approach in County Ditch 46, Section 2 of Hubbard Township. Sloughing on the field side is occurring, plugging the ditch. Sanders requests permission to survey, clean, and repair the sloughing areas. Approved
Sanders also brought a motion for approval to the county for an increase on the quote from Bert’s for the snowplow equipment being put on two new trucks. “We had received quotes to put snowplow equipment on two new tandom trucks that we ordered last September that were supposed to be delivered in 2025,” says Sanders. “They were actually made early, so they were delivered to Bert’s here in late August, early September of 2024, and the final steel came in, and the final steel prices for all the snow plow equipment, and so the snowplow equipment was increased from $164,000 and change up to $170,000 and change.” The board approved spending the extra funds to equip the trucks.
A motion was made to approve the Certificate of Performance and the Certificate of Final Acceptance for CP 123-63-1408, etc., and to allow the County Engineer to sign the Certificates and the County Administrator to sign the Final Voucher. The original contract amount was $727,160.00, and the final contract amount was $689.028.60. The board approved.
The last item on the regular agenda was a motion approving the purchase of 10,000-15,000 tons of material from Davidson Construction at a price of $7.50 per ton from their pit at Marcoux Corner. Sanders explained, “The County Board approved us purchasing some gravel from Davidson Construction,” said Sanders. “They own a pit by Marcoux Corner, and they are going to be stockpiling gravel this fall and were wondering if we would want to buy a stockpile from them, so we are going to pay $7.50 a ton for them to stockpile us between 10,000-15,000 tons of gravel.”
The Polk County Board meeting was closed at this time to hold a Joint Ditch Meeting between Polk and Red Lake Counties.
A Joint Ditch meeting took place during Tuesday’s Board meeting. Polk and Red Lake Counties share Ditch 60. Sanders explained that Ditch 60 runs from the Red Lake River, north between Crookston and Gentily, along the West side of the Red Lake River. Sanders explains. “Because the ditch is in both counties, it’s a joint ditch, so the county board had to adjourn their regular meeting, and we invited two Red Lake County board members here, and we had a joint ditch meeting on JD 60.” The first item was to survey and clean the stretch of ditch from CSAH 13 West a mile and then North through CSAH 57 another mile into Parnell Township,” said Sanders. “The Joint Board gave us approval to survey and clean that.”
The second thing in the Joint Ditch meeting was that the Red Lake Board and the Red Lake Watershed had funding set aside to do feasibility studies on fixing the outlet to JD 60. This is basically from CSAH 11 and south past Recard Sod property. Sanders explains what will be done. “We are going to look at what the feasibility would be to fix that outlet to stop sediment from flowing into the Red Lake River,” said Sander. “HDR out of Thief River was the consultant chosen at a cost of $25,260.00 to do the feasibility study.” The Joint Board approved of this as well.
