The Polk County Commissioners met on Tuesday morning in the Polk County Government Center Commissioner Board room.
SWEARING IN OF NEW DEPUTY AND MONTHLY SHERIFF’S REPORT
Polk County Sheriff Jim Tadman brought new Polk County Patrol Deputy Matthew Erlandson to the meeting to be sworn in and given the oath of office. (Picture below).
Sheriff Tadman also updated the board on the monthly call report. The department responded to 776 calls over the last month. The top 10 calls over the last month are listed below.
1. Civil Process-220
2. Traffic Stop-183
3. Boat and Water-54
4. POR (Predatory Offender) Checks-23
5. Welfare Check-22
6. Animal Complaint-19
6. Motorist Assist-19
8. Public Assist-18
9. Other Agency Assist-17
10. Info/tip-12
UNION LAKE SARAH IMPROVEMENT AQUATIC INVASIVE SPECIE SPRAY PROJECT
The Union Lake Sarah Improvement District requested $11,344.32 to help them cover the full cost of spraying for Eurasian Watermilfoil later this summer. “We partner with Union Lake Sarah Improvement District to help them spray Eurasian Watermilfoil. The point of that is to keep the weed knocked down so it’s not getting in people’s props and going to other lakes in Polk County and throughout the state,” said Jake Snyder of Polk County Zoning and Planning. “Last year, we had allocated $15,000 to help them spray for a new Aquatic Invasive Species, Curly Leaf Pond Weed. This year the target is to go back after Eurasian Watermilfoil and spray that in the shallow bays. The goal is to help them keep the weeds knocked down a bit.”
The money comes from a grant provided by the State of Minnesota with Polk County receiving the grant since 2014 to run the Aquatic Invasive Species (AIS) prevention program. “Polk County is allocated a little of $65,000 to run the AIS prevention program,” said Snyder. “We run it through an AIS task force made up of our Sheriff’s Office, our partners with our lakes Maple Lake and Union Lake Sarah Improvement Districts, Commissioner Joan Lee, and various other entities, including the Minnesota DNR, Soil and Water Conservation Districts, and really anybody that wants to be on the board we would welcome them.”
The Commissioners unanimously approved the payment of $11,344.32 to the Union Lake Sarah Improvement District. Now they will have to have a DNR-approved company apply the spray.
ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES PICKUP LEASE AND AUTOMATED HELP FOR RECYCLING SEPARATION
Polk County Environmental Services Directo Jon Steiner requested the board approve the lease of three pickup trucks from Enterprise. The county will get three 2024 RAM 1500 Big Horn/Lone Star 4×4 Crew Cab at a price of $60,972 dollars in an open-end (equity) lease with a 60-month term. “With the long lead times, instead of breaking it up into two purchases, we are getting all three,” said Steiner.
The commissioners gave approval to Steiner to move forward with new robotic equipment for the Environmental Services recycling sorter in Fosston. Steiner said AMP Robotics has a new product entering the market that will help separate recyclable material. They are Micro-Jets that use short bursts of air to separate materials, and it would cost one cent per item. The county would get a three-week trial period. “We have been looking at robots in the Material Recovery facility,” said Steiner. “This microchip system is a robot system without the robots themselves. Instead of the robot doing the work, it is using the same artificial intelligence system that scans everything and tells it what to eject with compressed air jets to blow the material off the belt.”
The system is cheaper than a robot system. “This system is an economical alternative, and we will employ that and see how it goes,” said Steiner. “We pay every time it works, so we will give it a shot and think it will be a good cost alternative.”
