On Tuesday morning, the Polk County Board of Commissioners met inside the Polk County Government Center for a regular meeting.
FINANCE AND PROPERTY RECORDS- RON DENISON AND ANNALEE JONES
Finance Director Ron Denison and Property Records Assistant Director Annalee Jones came forward with a review of recommendations for County Ditch Levy Assessments Payable for 2023. Many of the ditches had completed their work in 2021 and 2022 and now had their Levy Amounts updated for the county residents’ tax statements for 2023.
“The impacts only impact the property owner’s adjunct to the ditches. The benefitted properties will pay those levies on their ’23 tax statements,” said Denison. “Those are the costs associated with maintaining those ditches that exist in these properties. So, the tax people will apply to those particular properties.”
After going through all of the ditch assessments, the total levy for the ditches came to $220,400, which the board approved. The full list of assessments can be seen below-
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ELECTION ADMINISTRATION- SAM MELBYE
Property Records Director and Election Administrator Sam Melbye announced that one of the District 1 Commissioner Seat election candidates had begun advertising their campaign in the cities of Crookston and Fertile by hanging fliers on business buildings and other structures on Friday, March 3. The county had been notified of these actions and, on the Fair Campaign Practices, requested an interpretation of the statute from County Attorney Greg Widseth to ensure the process would be fair for every candidate, as signs and campaigning of non-commercial signs could be used 46 days before the primary election, which is March 24. The candidate stated they were following their interpretation and the correct procedure of the statute.
“We don’t handle any violations. A complaint would have to be filed by somebody else with the Office of Administrative Hearings,” said Melbye. “So, we’re just trying to keep the campaign practices as close as we can and guide them the best we can in Polk County, so they’re following statute.”
HIGHWAY-RICHARD SANDERS
County Engineer Richard Sanders approached the board to give an update on the Polk County Road Safety Plan (CRSP). The Minnesota Department of Transportation had approved a contract to get Alliant Engineering, Inc. from Minneapolis to update the Polk Counties’ 2013 County Road Safety Plan. Sanders welcomed Alliant Director of Transportation Planning Tim Burkhardt, Consultant Project Manager Michael Kondziolka, and Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) Safety Engineers Girma Feyissa and Mark Wagner via a Zoom call to share the updates to the plan.
“MnDOT’s hired Alliant Engineering out of Minneapolis to do the update to our County Road Safety Plan, and we’re going through the whole process of reviewing our old plan, putting together new priorities, and looking at projects so that we can apply for Federal Highway Safety Improvement Program funding to do those projects at those locations,” Sanders explained. “One of those projects coming up in the future is the roundabout at Trunk Highway 75 and County Road 21. That will be identified in our updated plan, and we already have HSIP funding set aside for that location.”
The CRSP revealed that 60% of severe crashes (serious or fatal injury) occur on local roadways in Minnesota and is focusing on reducing those crashes and providing technical support for county implements of the HSIP-funded safety projects by reviewing crashes on those roads over the last five years and holding safety workshops with local safety stakeholders.
In Polk County, they found the majority of crashes happened in the local county, and rural county roads (94% of severe crashes happen here), but the most common place where severe crashes happened were at Intersections, Lane Departures (which caused 40% of crashes in the state), and single-vehicle crashes that are Run-Off the road. Alliant and MnDOT had conducted a safety analysis for the “high crash” locations to identify the risk factors based on the roadway and traffic characteristics common to areas with fatal and injury crash histories, such as speed limits, traffic volume, and curve density to let them proactively deploy safety projects at these at-risk locations.
To address these risk factors, they wished to add striping, chevrons, and lighting on the roads to reduce nighttime and severe crashes in rural areas by up to 40%. Addressing these factors would cost about $2,000 per mile for striping, $15,000 per light, and $3,960 per curve for Chevrons. They would also add Centerline and Edgeline Rumble Strips to reduce head-on and sideswipe crashes by about 40% and run-off-road crashes by about 20%, which will cost $3,600 per mile for Centerline strips and $5,850 per mile for Edgeline Strips. They would also consider reconstructing some intersections to turn TT Intersections into Single T Intersections, which would increase the cost from $150,000 to $300,000 per curve.
GIS ProWest Block Support Hours Agreement
The board approved an agreement with ProWest, which was working with the county and giving technical support to the GIS Department’s ESRI software on many highway and county department projects. The agreement would set them up at a rate of 80 hours of support for $10,900.
GIS Supervisor Position/Technician Position
Sanders then presented a resolution that their GIS Supervisor was retiring at the end of the month and requested the board to allow the Highway Department to fill the GIS Supervisor position and the GIS Technician Position as they planned to promote that person to the Supervisor position as both are Union Positions. The board approved the resolution.
Overlay CSAH 60, 20, and 17
Sanders then came forward with the results of the bids they had opened for completing the overlay on County Road 60 to Trunk Highway 17 (CSAH 60), County Road 17 from Business 2 to Highway 2 (CSAH 17), and County Road 17 to County Road 19 (CSAH 20) during the summer. The lowest responsible bidder they had received was from the Anderson Brothers Construction Company of Brainerd LLC for $1,954,566.50. Sanders requested for the board to approve their suggestion. The board approved the motion.
PUBLIC HEALTH-SARAH REESE
Public Health Director Sarah Reese approached the board with a Memorandum of Understanding for Payment from the Don’t Call Me Josephine Project. The project welcomed Wellness Coordinator Amanda Lien as a Public Health Consultant to address safety issues during evaluation activities such as COVID-19.
“There is a collaboration of partners in Northwest Minnesota that came together as part of the Regional Health Equity Network. The network’s goal is to connect, strengthen, and amplify relationships and partnerships around health equity and the needs and voices of our communities. We’re really excited to participate in the Don’t Call Me Josephine Project in coordination with partners from Leech Lake Family Spirit, Studio 110- In Progress here in Crookston, the Minnesota Association for Children’s Mental Health, and a variety of other community members from across our region are going to come together with the leadership of the group.”
The members will be consulted to help inform the development of culturally responsive pandemic precautions and the shape process and protocols for the sustainable development and evaluation of programming that addresses broad health equity issues across communities. Lien requested that her time be up to 104 hours and reimbursed at $75 per hour. The board approved the Memorandum.
Out of State Travel Requests
The board unanimously approved a list of requests for Out of State Travel. The first request was to select to participate in the 2023 Behavioral Health Training Institute (BHTI) cohort, where Reese and Shauna Reitmeier would receive training and technical assistance opportunities to enhance Public Health’s mental health and substance use efforts. The training institute will be on Saturday, April 29, and Sunday, April 30, and NatCon23 (National Council for Mental Wellbeing) from May 1 to May 3 in Los Angeles, California. All training/conference, travel, and lodging expenses will be covered for program participants by the National Council.
The second request was for the NACCHO 360 Annual Conference from July 10-13 in Denver, Colorado, at the Sheraton Denver Downtown Hotel, as her role as the Minnesota Local Public Health Association Chair was extended thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic to attend NACCHO 2022 and 2023.
Opioid Settlement Advisory Council Recommendations and Update
The board unanimously approved the addition of Marge Donnell from East Polk to the Opioid Settlement Advisory Council as she had a lived experience and expertise with Opioid addictions. She then gave an update on the council’s actions over the past few months. In January, the Council received a presentation from the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) and discussed each member’s role in prevention. In February, they received a presentation about overdosing happening in target areas and the environmental scan to see what recommendations they could follow to deal with problems in an environmental area. They were preparing information on what was happening for treatments the council could do and would hear from several local healthcare providers, such as RiverView and Alluma, at their next meeting.
Inter-County Head Start Consultant and Nutrition Consultant
The board unanimously approved a contract for the Inter-County Head Start program to allow the Public Health department to continue providing annual Health Consultant and Nutrition Consultant services. The contract will reimburse Wellness Coordinator Kristy Rott with $50 per hour for up to 20 hours per year and Health Consultant Codi Lehmann at $50 per hour for 30 hours per year, with mileage reimbursed, which the board approved.
Gold Childcare Center Health Consultant
Polk County Public Health had received a request from the Gold Childcare Center in East Grand Forks to provide a Health Consultant role to one of the childcare centers they are preparing. Public Health is already a Health Consultant at a childcare center in Little Knights in Fisher. They could fulfill the request and requested the board to approve the motion to fulfill it, which they did unanimously.
FINANCE-RON DENISON
Finance Director Ron Denison gave an External Audit Services report. The county received a multi-year audit services proposal from Hoffman, Philipp, & Martel, PLLC of Thief River Falls, for an audit services agreement from 2022-24. They had sent a draft preliminary budget worksheet for the audit for the county, which included all travel and other related expenses. With the County’s 2022 Budget, they had a total for the year with an Audit Contract Price of $143,000. The board approved the Audit report.
SHERIFF- JIM TADMAN
Polk County Sheriff Jim Tadman approached the board to make a motion to hire a Justice Center Deputy after the resignation of the person in the position. They had also received the resignation of the Telecommunicator position and requested the board to allow them to hire and fill the open position. The board approved both motions.
Retiring K9 Buffy
Tadman had also received news that the K9 buffy had suffered a career-ending injury to her back hip and wished to apply for a K9 grant to purchase a new K9 while letting Buffy live out the rest of their life with handler Deputy Kyle Olson.
CONSENT ITEMS
The board’s Consent Agenda was to approve their Auditor Warrants and their board minutes from their meeting on February 28. The final item was to approve a payment to The Door Guy in Crookston for $5,218.42 for a Life Master – Gate Opener Deposit for Environmental Services in the Polk County Transfer Station. The board approved all its Consent items.
The Polk County Commissioners will meet next on Tuesday, March 21, in the Polk County Government Center.
