The Polk County Board of Commissioners met Tuesday morning in the boardroom at the Polk County Government Center in Crookston.
NALOXONE PRESENTATION
Polk County Health Department Director Sarah Reese and Wellness Coordinator Sarah Shimek made a presentation to the board about naloxone, or Narcan. The board was presented with wallet cards that had information about Narcan and how to administer it as well as a kit with two doses of Narcan. The presentation highlighted the growing opioid epidemic across the country and how having Narcan available to the community can help save lives.
“It’s available at all three of our public health offices for free at Crookston, McIntosh, and East Grand Forks. Anyone can come in anonymously and confidentially and get a box daily if they want, and we’ll keep providing that as long as we have funding available,” said Shimek. “So we were able to utilize opioid settlement funds that was agreed upon by our Polk County Opioid Advisory Council and our county commissioners, because they know the importance of providing that to our community members in Polk County.”
NIELSVILLE BRIDGE GRANT AND COUNTY DITCH ABANDONMENT
The board of commissioners unanimously approved a resolution agreeing to be the lead applicant for the 2026 Bridge Investment Program Grant that would provide funds for the replacement of the Nielsville Bridge. The bridge, which connects Minnesota and North Dakota on the county’s southwest side, has been closed and is one of three bridges along the Red River in need of replacement. Therefore, Polk County agreed to join and be the lead applicant in this federal grant application with Clay and Norman counties in Minnesota as well as Cass and Traill counties in North Dakota.
“We’re going to be asking for a substantial portion of the bridge replacements, and as part of the grant application, we put together a timeline on which bridges would be replaced at which time, so the first bridge that we have being replaced is the Nielsville Bridge, then the Georgetown Bridge, then the Hendrum Bridge, in that order, and if we don’t receive full grant funding like we’re applying for, and they only give us a portion, that’s the order in which we would fund those bridges as well.”
The board of commissioners then held a public hearing regarding the proposed partial abandonment of County Ditch 70 east of Roome Township, southwest of Crookston. After no comments were received, Sanders went over the section of County Ditch 70 that was being proposed for abandonment, providing photos of the ditch area showing that it no longer exists or serves a purpose to nearby landowners.
“I gave my portion of the proceedings, which showed a lot of photos of no ditch, showed a lot of photos of where drainage was going, besides into County Ditch 70, and just gave the board a good sense that that portion of County Ditch 70 should be abandoned, because it showed no function and no utility to the lands around it,” explained Sanders.
The board approved the abandonment as proposed, with funds from the ditch system going toward paying for the costs of the abandonment.
LAKE AGGASIZ BEAN AND TILLMAN INFRASTRUCTURES CONDITIONAL USE
The board unanimously approved conditional use permits for a new septic system for an existing accessory structure at a Maple Lake property, Lake Aggasiz Bean for their commercial agricultural business in Fanny Township near Euclid, and Tillman Infrastructures to construct a 355 foot cell tower and associated equipment on a property in Russia Township southeast of Crookston.
Lake Aggasiz Bean has been operating their edible bean cleaning & drying facility since 2014 and want to expand the site use to include rail car loading to ship their products via rail car.
“They had a large scale project they’re looking at doing this year about adding a rail spur and loading rail cars on the site, and so we grouped them into a section of our ordinance that deals with commercial agricultural uses and needing a conditional use permit to do that, and that was approved today,” said Planning and Zoning Director Jacob Snyder. “They can move forward with their project and continue to be a bean co-op for the foreseeable future, so it’s a good thing that they’re growing and they’re expanding and doing those things and creating marketplaces for our farmers, and so we commend them on that.”
The Tillman cell tower was a point of contention, as the proposed location is in a floodplain that regularly floods in the spring, but since that land has limited development prospects, this project has some viability and would help the surrounding area with cell coverage.
“That whole section there really functions as an impoundment in spring flood season. And so we were approached with an application last year to develop a cell tower on the site, and as I told the commissioners today, is as far as site development on this site, it is extremely limited,” explained Snyder. “You have no chance of doing housing, you have no chance of doing agricultural bin sites, just because of the floodplain regulations alone.”
ELECTION STAFF HIRING
During comments from Deputy Clerk Samuel Melbye, the board unanimously approved a temporary easement with the Minnesota Department of Transportation for the Polk County Government Center property at 612 North Broadway as part of the upcoming Highway 2 redevelopment. The easement will run through December 1, 2028. Additionally, the board approved a resolution reappointing Melbye as the Identified Official with Authority (IOwA) as part of the Minnesota Department of Education’s Education Identity and Access Management program.
Finally, the board approved the advertisement and hiring of an elections and forfeiture specialist along with four temporary election workers for the upcoming primary and mid-term elections. The need for additional election workers stems from the county offering early voting for the upcoming elections.
“We have some increased responsibilities from the legislature, so we’ll be doing an early voting here at Polk County Government Center, where anybody can come in and vote and put your ballot into the machine, just like a regular polling place,” explained Melbye. “So, with something like that, we needed additional help, and the board was generous enough to offer me to go and look for that help to help us with everything we need to run a good election here.”
COUNTY STAFF MARKET ANALYSIS AND PAY GRID ADJUSTMENTS
County Administrator Chuck Whiting presented the 2025 market analysis and proposed 2026 pay grid adjustments to the county board, which was unanimously approved. The analysis is dne every three years to see where the county’s pay grid compares to other counties across Minnesota. The presentation showed that Polk County’s pay grid is comparable to other counties, and the grid will rise by two percent starting July 1.
“When we have vacancies and we’re trying to hire people and retain people, we’ve just simply got to remain competitive while still being affordable. So we worked with David Drown Associates here over the last few months, and they put together the report for us and brought it to the board here today,” said Whiting. “It goes up two percent on July 1st, and we’ve got a lot of work to do now with each collective bargaining group, but we’ll try to implement this here within this year’s budget and position ourselves next year for going forward in negotiations for 2028 and beyond,”
The next Polk County Board of Commissioners meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, June 16th, at 9:30 a.m. at the Polk County Government Center.
