Polk County was preparing for a couple of large projects for much of 2019, and those projects will start to progress more rapidly now that the calendar has flipped to 2020. In December, the Polk County Commissioners approved the final 2020 budget, which included an estimated $3 million in capital improvement bonds. The bonds will be used for the remodeling of the Human Service Center in East Grand Forks, a roof replacement over the repair shop at the Polk County Highway Building, and work at the Polk County Government Center, including the installation of a new elevator.
On Tuesday, the Polk County Commissioners held a public hearing and finalized the capital improvement plan for the county, which they then followed by approving the sale of the capital improvement bonds, explains Polk County Commissioner Chuck Whiting. “This is a continuation of the hearing we had in December,” said Whiting. “It authorizes the county to sell bonds. We’ll have our financial advisor, PFM, work on that. We should get around $3 million in bonds sold in the next six weeks or so. That will come back to the board once we get the low bidder. In the meantime, we’ve gone out for proposals for remodeling the building in East Grand Forks. Hopefully, if all things go well, we’ll have a contractor by the end of the month.”
The awarding will be scheduled for one of the February board meetings. The bids for the remodeling of the Human Service Center are due on January 21 with the Board of the Commissioners considering the awarding of the project on January 28.
The County has also been working on upgrading its financial software, a process that has been aided by Abdo, Eick & Meyer, whom the board approved a payment of $33,750 to on Tuesday. Two proposals were received during the bidding process, according to Whiting, who said the review of those proposals would take place over the next few weeks. “We did go out for proposals on enterprise (financial) software,” said Whiting. “We received two proposals. I want to talk to the board a little bit about what the review entails and set up a review calendar with them over the next few weeks.”
The board also took a step on Tuesday to address the Nielsville Bridge by hiring Streamline Associates LLC out of Minneapolis to compete a Historic American Engineering Record for $15,911.50. According to Whiting, the report is necessary to be eligible for funding to remove the bridge. “The Nielsville bridge has been an issue,” said Whiting. “It needs some attention. Pretty much anything that gets done between Minnesota, North Dakota, Polk County, Traill County will need a historical review of the site. So, the board approved a contract with a firm to go and conduct that. We’ll split the cost, just under $16,000 to do that with Traill County. Fairly normal for these kinds of things. It will make us eligible for funding in the future if we can move on this one way or the other.”
The report is needed as the Nielsville Bridge is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. A Historic American Engineering Record was also completed when the two counties previously addressed the Thompson Bridge. The final report is required by both the State Historic Preservation Offices in both Minnesota and North Dakota, plus a review by MnDOT’s Culture Resource Unit and the National Park Service.
