The purchase of portable police radios, a grant proposal for a feasibility study and the acceptance of plans and specs for the Hancock South crossing realignment were all part of Tuesday’s Becker City Council meeting.

 

Police Chief Brent Baloun reminded council and the general public that radio communication within public safety is the key to a quick response and for officer safety. 

 

“Maintaining quality communication is vitally important for efficiency as well as for safety purposes,” he said. 

 

Baloun said the Becker Police Dept. is currently looking to replace and upgrade their portable police radios that they have had for approximately seven years. 

 

The quoted price for each new radio (with mic and charger) is approximately $3,900 each through Granite Electronics in St. Cloud. 

 

For 2016, Baloun said the Police Dept. has a budgeted capital amount of $17,160 to put toward these portable radios. However, this amount will only allow for the purchase of four radios of the 15 that need to be replaced. 

 

“As such, the police department has allocated funds through our other two capital projects to help enhance the ability to obtain additional radios,” said Baloun. “We were fortunate to save nearly $5,000 on our taser and $5,000 on our copier projects. This, combined with the option of $500/radio trade, would allow us to purchase seven total radios.”

 

Baloun said he has reached out to several local funding sources to see if they would be able to financially assist in the purchase of these radios and Liberty Paper, Inc, has generously agreed to donate $15,000 toward this purchase.

 

Council deliberated and approved the capital purchase of the 12 radios with the funds that are available via budget, donation and trade-in equalling approximately $47,000.

 

Jim and Peter Miller of Wenck Associates, in cooperation with the City of Becker, asked council if they could  prepare and submit an application to the USDA Rural Development State Office, under the Rural Business Development Grant (RBDG) program, for grant funds to conduct a feasibility study. 

 

The study would allow Wenck to evaluate potential environmental, economic and social benefits to the Becker community associated with forming a partnership to build infrastructure and capacity to convert collected organic waste to transportation fuel (CNG or green diesel). 

 

VONCO and Full Circle Organics would be ideal project partners, said the Millers.

 

Currently, Full Circle Organics is collecting and converting large amounts of organic waste into compost for resale at the VONCO II landfill site. In so doing, the nutrient value of the organic waste materials is captured, mitigating numerous, negative, lifecycle environmental impacts. 

 

This process, while capturing the nutrient value of the materials, fails to capture the energy content of the materials and to mitigate the climate forcing impacts associated with the methane emitted during decomposition. 

 

By processing the organic waste material through an anaerobic digester (AD), the nutrient value of the materials would (still) be captured in the residual material (digestate). 

 

In addition, the biogas (mostly methane) would be captured and converted to either renewable compressed natural gas (CNG) or renewable diesel fuel, which could be used to fuel truck fleets servicing VONCO II and/or City Fleets, providing a low cost source of green transportation fuel. 

 

In addition, the project could potentially generate income from the sale of incremental renewable fuel generated. By capturing and converting the methane emissions in the biogas through one of these processes, a project owner would be eligible to generate high value carbon credits (RINs) under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), rendering the economics of the project substantially more attractive than converting the biogas renewable CNG for sale into the pipeline and/or conversion to renewable electricity.

 

Jim Miller said ultimately, the objectives of the study are to support development of clean energy economic growth opportunities in the community and to mitigate the negative local and global environmental impacts associated with air emissions.

 

Council was told the RBDG grant application is due March 31 and would be submitted electronically, should council approve.

 

With the approval council agrees to collaborate with Wenck Associates to prepare and submit the RBDG grant application. Wenck will immediately commence preparation of a draft project executive summary and work plan.

 

City Administrator Greg Pruszinske presented a letter from the city’s engineer, Randy Sabart, with an estimate for the engineering services for the Hancock Street design improvements. 

 

Pruszinske reminded council and the public that the city has agreed in concept to making  improvements to Hancock Street to improve railroad safety, improve access to the city’s industrial park and get into position to implement a train whistle quiet zone.

 

With these goals in mind and with all the improvements BNSF is making, Pruszinske says the city can piggyback on their project and capitalize on the construction work they’re doing to drive down their costs.

 

 Thus, Pruszinske said, staff is proposing to the council they move forward with a supplemental contract with SEH to perform the necessary work on the final design documents, provide bidding servicers, complete contract document and oversee the construction of the project for an engineering cost estimated to be $64,900.00.

 

The next Becker City Council meeting is April 5 at 6 p.m.