The Cook County Public Health and Human Services (PHHS) Board meeting took place before the regularly scheduled county board meeting on September 22 and PHHS director Sue Futterer came before the board with a proposed five percent increase in her 2016 budget. That was a steep drop from the 17.4 percent increase presented at the August 14 meeting and included in that 5 percent raise were enough funds to cover hiring two new supervisors.
Commissioners lauded the efforts of Futterer, PHHS department heads and new county administrator Jeff Cadwell for keeping the request as low as it was.
Library budget increase partially approved
Members of the Grand Marais Public Library board, Grand Marais City Councilor Anton Moody, and Mayor Jay Arrowsmith DeCoux met with the board to discuss how much money the Grand Marais Library would need from the county to add a full-time position.
The city of Grand Marais has already pledged $22,000—half of what was requested to pay for this job. The county is required to match the city’s levy as much as five percent for the library each year, but no more unless the board decides to make an exception.
After much discussion the commissioners voted to increase the library’s portion of the levy by 8 percent this year and 8 percent next year. That works out to about $11,000 per year.
Because the salary isn’t guaranteed, Mayor Arrowsmith DeCoux said the union wouldn’t allow the position to be filled at this time, even though a full year’s salary could now be guaranteed, but he thanked the county board for their time and said, “We should meet more often to discuss things,” which the board agreed would be a good idea.
Personnel change recognized at sheriff’s office
Cook County Sheriff Pat Eliasen appeared before the board with a request to move Amity Goettl to Step 4 in the county’s pay scale to reflect her skills and duties in her new position as public safety technology specialist.
When asked where the money would come from to pay for this position, Eliasen replied that he had found it in his department’s various budgets, and the salary increase wouldn’t be reflected in the 2016 levy. Eliasen also pointed out that Goettl had been doing much of this work for his department over the last four years. The commissioners voted unanimously to accept Eliasen’s request, also complimenting Eliasen on his efforts to keep the levy down.
In other business
. Cook County Maintenance Director Brian Silence came with a request to replace the three curling club/ ice rink furnaces in the Community Center with three Goodman 10000 BTU furnaces priced at $12,837.
Silence brought the low bid he received from Chuck’s Heating & Refrigeration to the board for their perusal. Total price of the furnaces with installation was $13,623, which the board accepted.
. With County Highway Engineer David Betts’ recommendation, the board authorized a final payment of $76,588.60 to Ulland Brothers Inc. for completion of work on County Road 12.
. The board also approved $10,000 that will be used for the design and concrete work to build a new pavilion at the Hovland Town Hall.
. Nesgoda LLP and Eagle Lake Forestry both received contracts to perform hazardous fuels mitigation on Needham Road. The work will be funded through a Firewise grant.
. After meeting in a closed session with County Attorney Molly Hicken, commissioners rejected an offer from K. Johnson to resurface the hockey rink at the Community Center. K. Johnson poured the cement for the rink in 2013 and the cement is crumbling. The board instead will hire a contractor to take core samples from the rink to see if the cement needs to be replaced entirely, as is now strongly suspected. Once the samples have been examined and results in, the board will pursue further legal action against K. Johnson if warranted.
. At the request of the Revolving Loan Committee the board approved $1,000 to hire an attorney specializing in bankruptcy/foreclosure to advise the board on collection of delinquent loans.
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