Roads, the Hovland Town Hall and the airport were on the agenda for the Cook County commissioners on Tuesday, April 22, 2014.
Cook County Highway Engineer Dave Betts presented the 2013 highway department budget to the commissioners and gave an overview of the first quarter of 2014. Betts said his department ended up spending 104 percent of the 2013 budget, but plowing the late snow that fell last April caused much of that. This winter, he said, his department spent $38,000 more on heat than budgeted for due to the extreme cold, and more on fuel for the plow trucks and other equipment used by his busy crew who plowed the excessive and seemingly never ending snow that fell.
“I don’t want you to think that we turned the heat up. We were cold this winter, 55-60 degrees. I even brought in a small space heater for my office,” Betts said, adding that the county used propane and fuel oil to heat its buildings.
Maintenance crews worked on three major projects this past summer, said Betts. Crews put in a 13-foot, 7-inch aluminum-arch bottomless culvert with concrete footings in Durfee Creek. While there, said Betts, the crew did extensive stream bank restoration and rebuilt 1,000 feet of County Road 60 and constructed recreational amenities at the site.
Betts said work continued on the 1,300-foot Taylor Lane that the county board of commissioners adopted as a county road 103 in 2012. The crew removed bedrock and reconstructed the road to county standards and built a cul de sac for turnarounds at the end of the roadway, said Betts.
Maintenance crews also reconstructed 600 feet of County Road 60 in front of the Berglund Farm. Reconstruction included placement of fabric geotextile and a onefoot lift along that section of road.
The board accepted with regrets the retirement of highway department maintenance worker Gerald Gagnon, who announced his retirement effective June 3, 2014. The board authorized Betts to advertise for the position vacated by Gagnon. “He has been a valuable member of the staff and will be a difficult person to replace,” Betts said.
Betts also told the board that the engineering technician position vacated by Andrew Graupmann in September hasn’t been filled. He said he suspected that the lack of affordable housing and lack of pay were the two main reasons no one has taken the job. “At the top end of salary, we paid $10 an hour more for technicians in Hennepin County than we do here,” said Betts, adding that a good engineering technician was worth his or her weight in gold.
Hovland Town Hall to see improvements
After years of neglect the Hovland Town Hall will receive some badly needed maintenance. Commissioners Bruce Martinson, Garry Gamble and Jan Hall voted to hire Dan Meyer of Meyer Maintenance to do the work. Commissioner Heidi Doo Kirk voted against the resolution because Meyer isn’t listed as a licensed and bonded contractor.
Cook County Maintenance Director Brian Silence recommended hiring Meyer, saying he didn’t have time to do the work personally and it would take a lot of his time to put the job up for bids.
Meyer, who lives in Hovland, will clean up all excess and necessary junk and haul it to North Shore Waste and the Recycle Center. He will also repair the basement window, frame out the crawl space, finish interior walls of outhouse with plywood and paint it, fix the ceiling light, replace burned out 8-inch fluorescent tubes on ceiling of the main room, paint the dark stained walls of the four smaller rooms a lighter color and perform many smaller maintenance repairs that are too small to list.
Meyer will be paid $25 per hour, with the total project reviewed and okayed by Brian Silence.
Airport picks up funds
The City of Silver Bay has transferred $150,000 in Federal Airport Entitlement Funds to the Cook County Airport,” said Airport Manager Rodney Roy to the Cook County commissioners at their April 22, 2014 meeting.
Under terms of the agreement, Cook County will transfer back the FAE funds to Silver Bay on or before June 30, 2017 if Silver Bay needs the funding. Because Silver Bay doesn’t have any plan to use the money, it can legally transfer the money to Cook County, said Roy, who with his wife Dottie Roy manages the Cook County Airport.
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