Although the organization is still short of funds, the Cook County Tennis Association (CCTA) came before the Cook County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday, November 17, to ask the board to approve a bid of $121,300 submitted by Dermco-Lavine Construction to reconstruct two of the county’s tennis courts.
The board was also asked to approve a contract to Fred Kolkmann to oversee the work. Kolkmann has worked with the CCTA on this project for the past year when it was determined that the two courts needed extensive work.
Dermco-Lavine will powerwash the courts, remove and replace the south fence line, clean out cracks and control joints and fill them with court patch binder, install the ProBounce surface and apply a color coat to the surface.
To date, the CCTA has $107,000 to help pay for the job. That money has come from a patchwork quilt of agencies and government entities that includes two grants totaling $17,000 from the U.S. Tennis Association Northern Division; $10,000 in CCTA funds; $20,000 from the 2017 Cook County budget; and $60,000 from the county’s local option sales tax recreation and infrastructure funds.
A grant for $10,000 has also been submitted to the Lloyd K. Johnson Foundation, said CCTA Board Member Gene Glader, but the results of that won’t be known until late December.
“I would hate to see the project fail at this point,” said Commissioner Jan Sivertson.
“You’re so close. I feel like Jan. I would hate for you to stop now,” said Commissioner Ginny Storlie.
Commissioner Garry Gamble said that since the tennis association has been in operation it has contributed 26.8 percent of the funds necessary to build and maintain the courts while the county has contributed 24.4 percent, the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board, 15 percent; the City of Grand Marais 11 percent; the county 1 percent recreation funds, 11 percent and; School District 166 and Lloyd K. Johnson Fund picking up the rest.
Gamble lauded the tennis association for their efforts and then made the motion to accept the bid. Commissioner Frank Moe seconded and the board voted unanimously to allow the bid to be accepted with Board Chair Heidi Doo-Kirk saying that if the $10,000 Lloyd K. Johnson grant wasn’t approved, the county would find money somewhere in its budget to cover the shortage of funds.
Glader said work will begin in the spring if the weather permits, or will be done after the Fisherman’s Picnic Tennis Tournament.
IT department to get help
Information Technology (IT) Director Rena Rogers came before the board with a request to spend $9,000 annually for operational and administrative support for the AS400 system beginning January 1, 2016.
Rogers explained the need for the service, “With Aimee’s [Luick] retirement later this year we have a significant resource gap for managing this system. This is a problem facing most of the counties using the Minnesota Counties Information Systems (MCIS) software. MCIS has begun to address this by hiring an expert to do the work that Aimee and Kevin [Twiest] do. They estimate that the time it takes to work with this platform is about 10 hours per week.”
Rogers said that while Twiest knows how to do some of the work, he was hired by the county to perform other computer tasks and it takes him much longer to perform a job than it would someone with the proper AS400 training. The board voted to purchase the service, and Rogers explained that an MCIS employee could do most of the work the county needed done remotely.
County Land Use Plan
Planning and Zoning Director Tim Nelson brought the much-anticipated county Land Use Plan submitted by the Land Use Plan Committee to the board. Nelson said the committee members “volunteered their time over a period of nearly two years to craft the plan update.”
Nelson said the date of December 2 has tentatively been set for the public hearing, which would hopefully allow the plan update to be fully adopted prior to year’s end.
Several commissioners said they hadn’t been able to access the plan on the county’s website, and Nelson said he would be working with the IT department in the next few days to rectify that problem. He also said anyone from the public who didn’t have access to the Internet could get a paper copy of the plan if they came to his office.
Because of issues with their schedules, the board set the public hearing for December 16. Nelson said he would like to finish the project this year because the contract with the consultant who has been working with the planning committee expires at the end of the year. So far, said Nelson, the public has submitted more than 100 comments about possible changes to the county’s land use plan.
Highway Department
County Highway Engineer David Betts presented the third quarter financial report to the board. Most of the projected numbers are coming close to what has been actually spent at this time, said Betts, but some items will run over when the final bills come in. So far 67 percent of his yearly budget has been spent.
One of those overruns is for seal cracks. Because the county got a good price on sealing cracks this summer, Betts said he took advantage of that and added roads that weren’t initially budgeted for, but needed the work done. He also said the county replaced a lot of culverts (14) this summer and there will be an overrun there.
Moe asked Betts how it was going in light of his department being short an assistant county engineer and two other employees.
“We’re just putting out fires right now,” Betts said, adding he was frustrated that he didn’t have time to plan for road projects that will need to be done in the near future.
On the issue of staffing, Moe asked, “Is there anything additional that we can provide?”
“Our pay range isn’t even close,” said Betts. “Our cap isn’t even the starting rate most places.”
Betts said he interviewed a candidate for the assistant engineering job and the individual took a job elsewhere, “For more than I make.”
County Administrator Jeff Cadwell said once the budget is completed he would work on options for compensation and classification categories for all departments, including the highway department.
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