The Polk County Board of Commissioners met inside the Polk County Government Center on Tuesday afternoon and heard from Environmental Services Administrator Jon Steiner on multiple items he brought to the Board.
Steiner reported that the Polk County Resource Recovery Facility (RRF) was required to find a private insurance provider in 2021 when the Minnesota Counties Insurance Trust (MCIT) announced they were unable to get re-insurance coverage for that year, and they had a choice of three insurance companies. He reported that they had chosen to hire the Mahoney Group from Mesa, Arizona as a consultant to find coverage for the service for $25,000 and execute a contract for Property Insurance with Starr of Chicago, IL going from August 1, 2022, to July 31, 2023, with the exact amount of insurance premium to be determined. The final contract was to execute additional coverage for Terrorism Insurance with Starr.
The next item was a resolution to authorize Polk County Environmental Services to negotiate with Harrington Inc. on accepting delivery of a 40,000-gallon tank for the new leachate collection system on November 1 in exchange for a cost-share on the Landfill Contractor to construct Phase 14 of the MSW Landfill. The tank was initially meant to be delivered on August 1 in the amount of $161,487.50, but due to price increases, the delivery was pushed back to December 1. Harrington was the only manufacturer to successfully get the original manufacturer to honor the quoted price and moved the production date up to November. “We had a quote, and then the vendor came back and said the manufacturer can’t do it either in the timeline or at the price they quoted. So, we’ve been back and forth on that, and we’ve got it down to where we can get it for the price that we initially were quoted, but the tank will be delayed until after the project and the contract at the Landfill is done,” Environmental Services Administrator Jon Steiner explained. “So they would have to come back to do that in November, and if they do that, that’s an additional cost that wasn’t in our project. So I asked the Board for the authority to negotiate that with that company to try and get that price down and get them to pay for as much as we can of that extra cost for that contractor to come back and do the work.” Steiner added the county would have to pay an additional $15,000 to have them return and work in winter conditions or on frozen ground but hoped to lower the price or have them pay for it all together once negotiations are complete.
Steiner then requested the board to approve a quote from Demo Plus Inc. of St. Cloud in the amount of $86,760 to repair and add new insulation, metal cladding, and flights to the upper 75 feet of the Stack at the RRF in Fosston that had been damaged in a windstorm in April.
Steiner requested the Board to authorize the RRF to solicit quotes of $110,000 to $130,000 to improve the roof of the former Stenberg Building in the Fosston Recycling Building, which has several leaks and insulation damage due to the leaks that they constantly had to keep repairing.
Steiner requested the Board to authorize the Polk County Transfer Station to solicit quotes to improve portions of the existing lot by having Stantec Inc. inspect and shoot elevations on the surfaces to figure out a drainage plan for the lot, which is made of a mix of old and new concrete and asphalt, then tear out and pour in new concrete for the entire lot. “Rather than do it all piecemeal, I had a consultant go out and come up with a concrete replacement plan for the entire lot. So, they shot the surveys, and we have the access points and elevations where we figured out where to put the breaks in the lot, so water flows where we want it to,” Administrator Jon Steiner explained. “There’s an area by the yard waste pad that we built last year that the old asphalt just completely gave away. So, that would be the first area we would look to improve or replace with concrete for this summer, and that would be the first part of that long-term concrete placement plan.”
Steiner also requested the board to authorize the Polk County Environmental Services to solicit bids for a roll-off hauling contract from the Transfer Station to the Landfill or RRF and from the RRF to the Landfill, as the current contract expires at the end of the year. A renewal for the contract was declined, so they needed a new one which will cover the next two to three years. He noted that the price of the contract is yet to be confirmed as he believes prices will rise due to fuel prices rising, labor costs, and increasing interest.
The Board approved all motions unanimously.
Steiner then gave a report on the Polk County Solid Waste Facilities coming up on several long-term and big-ticket investments for which bonding for the payments made the most sense. He reported that several expensive projects would need to be funded at the Landfill and the Resource Recovery Facility over the next 40-plus years. Due to the anticipated price of some of these projects, he explained that determining the mechanisms for payment early is preferred. Due to rising interest rates and timelines, securing bond revenues prior to when they’re needed would be financially beneficial to the County. “We have other big projects at the Landfill that revolve around the compacity of the Landfill long term over the next 40, 60, or 100 years even. So, when you look at bonding locally for that, you usually do it on a 20-year bond or note, so you want to put in long-term projects,” Jon Steiner explained. “So, I tried to cluster a lot of those projects together and get the Board thinking about doing this maybe this fall or winter. Bonding for some of those long-term projects, and spreading the cost out over 20 years instead of trying to afford these big things in the operational budget this year or the next.”
The final item that he brought forward was a report of a lot of heavy equipment being utilized for the Polk County Waste Facilities, and due to supply chain issues, rising interest rates, and inflation, longer than standard lead times are often incurred. And over the next few years, several payloaders, forklifts, dozers, and material handlers would be considered for such purchase consideration.
The next meeting will take place on Tuesday, June 28, at 8:00 a.m. in the Polk County Government Center.
