With the county board trying to keep from increasing its levy too much, a decision to add a half-time position in the county attorney’s office is not made lightly. On September 13, however, commissioners voted to add a 15-hour-a-week paralegal position to the half-time grant-funded victim/witness coordinator position that will be vacated by Susan Maijala in October.
In a September 1 memo to the board, County Attorney Tim Scannell said, “Paralegals research statutes, case law, and academic articles; analyze and organize legal research and information; draft and prepare written materials for the attorneys, including court documents, contracts, and motions, and legal memoranda; assist in the courtroom during hearings and trials; and perform administrative responsibilities including answering phones, coordinating attorneys’ schedules, drafting correspondence, and tracking and organizing files.
“…A good paralegal will help this office run more efficiently and cost effectively and will enable the county attorney and assistant county attorney to focus more often and more directly on the legal services to the county and the public. …A paralegal completes legal work delegated by the attorneys, while the attorney remains responsible for all legal work done in the office.”
Scannell told the board that having a paralegal frees attorneys to do what they have to do and not get bogged down with things others can do.
In recent years, three law students who grew up in Cook County had summer internships in the county attorney’s office, and this helped Scannell realize how much more they could get done with paralegal help, he said.
The board discussed whether they should add only a 10-hour-a-week position to the victim-witness coordinator job. At 30 hours a week, Personnel Director Janet Simonen said, the person in this position would quality for benefits. The county would get a bigger pool of applicants if they offered a full-time job at 35 hours a week, Commissioner Jim Johnson said. “We’re trolling for people who want to live here,” said Simonen.
The county will be advertising a 35-houra week position that combines 20 hours of victim-witness coordination and 15 hours of paralegal work.
In other county board news:
. The board approved a request from North Shore Hospital for $9,659 of leftover 1 percent hospital tax money that Cook County holds in its coffers. The money will be used to pay various contractors for work done on the new hospital sign at the corner of Fifth Avenue West and Fifth Street. This amount is half of the cost of the sign. The other half of the total $19,318 cost will be paid by Sawtooth Mountain Clinic.
Contractors include DSGW Architects, Crawford Excavating, S&C Masonry and Concrete, Nordic Electric, Duluth Sheet Metal, E.R. Perry Signs & Engraving, and St. Germain’s Glass Co. . The board approved a loan of $66,800 to Crooked Spoon that will help the restaurant purchase the building it’s in on Wisconsin Street in Grand Marais. A previous loan from the county will be paid off in the process.
Business has been good, Auditor-Treasurer Braidy Powers said, and Crooked Spoon could be “a poster child for the Revolving Loan Fund.”
“It’s an asset to the community,” Commissioner Jim Johnson said. “I ate ostrich there!” said Personnel Director/Board Secretary Janet Simonen. “It’s kind of a dark meat.”
.The board approved two professional service agreements for rehabbing the existing runway at Cook County Airport near Devil’s Track Lake. The work will be done mostly with grant funding from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
The cost of engineering design, a benefit/cost analysis, a third party review, and administration will be $325,800, of which $309,510 (95%) will be paid through grants.
. A property tax abatement was granted to Peggy Lundy for the Cliff Dweller in Lutsen after she misplaced and forgot to return a questionnaire in January regarding retaining the motel’s classification as a “ma and pa” resort. Because of this her taxes, based on this year’s rates, would have been $16,488 for commercial classification instead of $2,788, a difference of $13,700 and would be bigger next year with any levy increases that will take place.
Assessor/Land Commissioner Mary Black said her department does grant this kind of thing when people forget to register their properties as homesteads.
A motion to grant the request was approved by a vote of 4 to 1, with Commissioner Sue Hakes casting the nay vote.
. The board approved an amendment to the official application for 1 percent sales and use tax funding for a new community center. The amendment includes purchase of a 40’x80’ synthetic ice rink with necessary accoutrements at a price of up to $65,000. This will add ice time in the shoulder seasons for the local hockey association, the school, and the community since the Curling Club is going to have increased use of the current Community Center ice.
. The 1 percent application committee comprised of commissioners Bruce Martinson and Sue Hakes, Auditor- Treasurer Braidy Powers, and County Attorney Tim Scannell denied an initial request from the Cook County Historical Society for an addition to the east side of the building. The application was denied for lack of official historical society minutes showing approval of the project by its board of trustees.
A quorum of 15 at the August 8 general meeting of the society voted to pay Larry Boen $6,250 for a schematic drawing of the proposed addition. According to the minutes from that meeting, Boen said a tentative bid for a 5,000-square-foot addition would be $625,000.
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