County Board

The Cook County Board of Commissioners met on Tuesday, June 27 and covered a lot of topics.

Cook County Highway Engineer Robbie Hass came before the commissioners to request the county board approve using State Aid Funds for a highway maintenance facility.

Hass said in 2021, the county board approved a resolution to use State Aid Funds to construct salt-sand and cold storage buildings. That said, the highway department decided this year that it needed a heated facility instead of building a cold storage facility.

Because of the change from cold to heated, the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) requested a new resolution regarding the storage building, which the county board approved on Tuesday.

Currently, a salt-sand storage facility is being built and will be completed this fall.

Hass said the storage building would be funded 59 percent with State Aid construction and 41 percent with the highway department reserves, as planned.

Scott Dowling (District 5) and Brian Broomall (District 3) were appointed to the new Highway
Advisory Committee. Dowling is a DNR forester, and Broomall is a local contractor. There is still an opening for District 2 on the Highway Advisory Committee.

A resolution to renew an interim use permit submitted by Carol Berglund
and her daughter Tamara Krause to operate a seasonal event/wedding barn in the FAR-3 Zone District 3 at 392 County Road 60 was approved. The permit is valid for one year.

One wedding was held last year, and everything went well with no complaints by neighbors.

Commissioners approved a request for a conditional use permit for Darin and Trisha Bloomquist to build a 4,500-square-foot structure/ garage on their property off Bloomquist Mountain Road and County Road 14. The planning commission held a public hearing on June 14, and no public comments were offered at the hearing.

The planning commission approved the request unanimously, as did the county board.

* Leah Ekstrom from Human Resources came before the board with changes to five job descriptions and a change in job grades. The Highway Clerk was considered an undervalued position, and the difference in the job description was approved, and the job grade moved from 130 to 140. The Public Health and Human Services Fiscal Supervisor job description was updated, and the job grade moved from 180 to 200.

Two positions were updated and revised in Land Service, and a new job description was added.

The two job positions revised were the Land Services Use Specialist and Land Services Trail Coordinator Wetland Specialist. The new position is the Land Services Rental Administrator, and Compliance Officer will assist the department in vacation rental compliance and other areas of planning
and zoning enforcement. All three positions received job grades of 180.

The job descriptions were written by David Drown Associates (DDA) and then reviewed by the department directors before returning to DDA, who used the Keystone classification system to develop job grades.

Commissioners approved the new job descriptions and job grades after asking a lot of questions about the process used.

Commissioners approved a funding request for one percent ($20,399) of the County’s Local Assistance and Tribal ARPA funding to support the development of a National Center for Public Lands.

The request came from the National Association of Counties and the Western Interstate Region, who asked counties that received Local Assistance and Tribal Consistency Funds under the American Rescue Plan Act to consider donating one percent to the development of a National Center for Public Lands. Cook County receives $2,039,902 in LATCF funds over two years.

One of the many goals of the Center is for “County partnerships with federal agencies, states, tribes, and other counties to reduce wildfire risk, responsibility develop energy and minerals, improve public access to federal lands, protect watersheds, conserve species and their habitat, and protect watersheds, conserve species and their habitat, and protect our natural treasure.”