The Polk County Commissioners met on Tuesday morning and heard from Curt Knutson representing the Valley Shows Building, Polk County Highway Engineer Richard Sanders, they approved the purchase of mowers, and four liquor licenses.
VALLEY SHOWS BUILDING
Curt Knutson, a Valley Shows Building board member for over 10 years, told the board that the building is basically three different buildings pieced together and it has a structure failure where the three roofs meet. “We have a roof is failing, where the three roofs come together. It’s because of the snow load two winters before it kind of crumbled and had some cracked rafters and things like that and we would like to get them fixed up so we can continue to rent out the facility to boarders and equine people and make our budget work,” said Knutson. “We can’t have three-day events anymore or board anybody in that facility on that end and until we can get it fixed our budget is suffering just a little bit.”
The Valley Shows Building is the only place equine people can go in northwest Minnesota. “We have had good public support for the building. It is used quite a bit,” said Knutson. “The equine people don’t have anywhere else to go in northwest Minnesota so it is an asset for the city and we would like to continue to use it.”
Knutson said the bid to redo the roof is $60,000 and he asked if Polk County would have any funds available for the group. Polk County Administrator Chuck Whiting said he can look into a couple of things and took his contact information and will be in touch.
PUBLIC HEARINGS
The Board had a public hearing for an outlet of unassessed property into Polk County Ditch 35. The hearing was held because a request from Van Hapka to add his property to the assessed area of Polk County Ditch 35 because the Watershed wouldn’t let him to a tiling project until the Polk County Board of Commissioners approved the petition. “The reason why we had to have the hearing was a landowner had petitioned his land be added to the Ditch 35 benefitted area,” said Polk County Highway Engineer Rich Sanders. “Because his land is up on the ridge east of Trunk Highway 75 and it drains west down the ridge and his water would end up in County Ditch 35. He was required to be added to the benefitted area in order to do a project by the watershed. He petitioned the county to do so and the county board approved the petition today.”
Sanders encouraged other landowners that are interested in doing the same thing to contact him. “If there are other landowners that want to do the same thing, just contact our office and we can discuss getting your lands added to a benefitted area,” said Sanders. “So if you have a tiling job or need to do surface drainage that would end up in a county ditch, we can do it for you.”
HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT NEWS/PURCHASES
Donarski Brothers are crushing gravel for a private landowner next to Polk County’s Liberty pit and they approached them about cleaning up the property between the two pits. Donarski Brothers estimated there is about 25,000 yards of gravel left and they said they could clean up the Liberty Pit for $3.90 a yard. The commissioners approved the contract.
The commissioners approved the purchase of a 15-foot Shulte Model FX1800 flex-wing rotary mower with the lowest quote coming from Titan Machinery of Crookston at $23,590.
The board also approved the rental of three mower tractors with the lowest and only bid coming from Valley Plains Equipment of Crookston at $19.00 per hour, which is the same as the previous two years.
The commissioners approved a $10,000 payment to the Minnesota DNR for their portion of the new fishing pier on the East Shore of Maple Lake. The pier was placed where the culvert used to be, but it was removed when they reconstructed the road. The pier was put in place to give more people access to fishing and it is also ADA compliant. The pier is valued at an estimated $100,000. The board approved the $10,000 payment.
The final Highway Department approved purchase was two mower tractors from Titan Machinery of Crookston at a cost of $173,967.03. Titan Machinery was the lowest bidder by $15,000.
LIQUOR LICENSES
The commissioners approved liquor licenses for Lakeview Resort on Maple Lake, Union Lake Sarah Campground, One and Only in Euclid, and the Snow Sled Inn in Gentilly. The licenses are good from June 4, 2021 to June 4, 2022.
