County to mull joint powers board for sewer study

The Crow Wing County Board took no action Tuesday on providing $40,000 to a joint powers board for a wastewater sewer system feasibility study.

The joint powers board consists of county board members and Thirty Lakes Watershed District representatives. The board was formed to look at wastewater sewer systems.

The Thirty Lakes Watershed District decided to budget $40,000 from its budget, but only if the county board would do the same. Richard Beeson, of the watershed district, said the money would be used on legal matters and on initial costs associated with the study.

"This would help us move ahead," he said. "The money would be returned to the county from the users when the sewer system is set up."

Peter Herlofsky Jr., county administrator, and Roy Luukkonen, county auditor, plan to discuss whether the county would be able to loan the money to the board for the study.

In other business, the county board:

Adopted the League of Minnesota Human Rights Commission's bias and hate crimes response plan that will aid county residents in dealing with these crimes.

The commission will have representatives from various communities available when a victim needs to talk to someone. The representative then will connect the victim with the proper service to help them.

Scott Foster, chairperson of the commission, said this plan is needed after the September terrorist attacks in America.

"Our senses have been heightened with regard to racial and ethnic stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination, scapegoating and hate crime," said Foster. "This formulation of this network will assure county residents that we are aware of and ready to respond to acts of prejudice and discrimination."

Heard an update on the out-of-home placement budget, which is about $654,000 under budget.

Heard the financial status report. The social service cash balance is about $3.27 million or $50,400 less than last year. Overall, the department has spent 72.1 percent of its budget and received 68.7 percent of budgeted revenues after 83.3 percent of the year.

Approved the final draft of the Mississippi Headwaters Board Comprehensive Plan. The plan maintains the same restrictions as the previous plan.

Appointed Denny Holmen as the informational systems director. Holmen was the information systems supervisor. He will earn an estimated $62,000 a year starting in 2002.

Received the quarterly report from the Minnesota Department of Corrections for its Sentence to Serve program. In the first six months of this year, the STS crew worked close to 28,000 hours. The dollar benefit of the STS labor at $5 an hour calculates to almost $140,000 and the estimated market value of the completed projects was about $193,000. The amount of jail days saved was 2,452 at $52 a day or $127,504. The amount of fines worked off was $38,000.