During Tuesday’s meeting, the Sherburne County Commissioners heard the annual update for the Northstar line and had a tough discussion about the future of the passenger line.

The Northstar ridership dropped by about 95% during the height of the pandemic. As a response, services have been cut back significantly, with only two rides each direction being offered every day. Metro transit expected that ridership would come back to more normal levels after Labor Day, but found the Northstar’s return to be delayed due to the Delta Variant.

Despite cutting staff to save costs, the metro transit authorities do not anticipate a full return, including weekend trips, anytime soon, especially since Anoka county has not yet paid their share for the service for the second half of 2021.

Commissioner Felix Schmiesing was concerned that the Northstar rail would never be able to recover or return from COVID-19. He wanted to discuss the feasibility of continuing operations. Commissioner Lisa Fobbe agreed that the numbers never came near what the commissioners had hoped to see when the project was first started. The metro transit authorities agreed as well, saying that they expected ridership to never return to pre-COVID levels, and there needed to be a discussion between all interested parties to discuss the situation.

U of M Extension

Stearn, Benton, and Morrison counties have had an agreement for many years to collaborate together regarding the University of Minnesota Extension, in order to pay for experts in agriculture, animal husbandry, and other areas to serve the community. Most counties will pay for one position from the extension, and that person has to serve various fields such as these. The three-county partnership is different in that they all chip in to pay for several experts to serve all three counties with a greater level of expertise. 

Recently, the three counties approached Sherburne to offer a position in the partnership. A representative from the U of M extension office presented the partnership, and brought along Carla Mertz from Ironshow Farms, who is from the extension’s Farm Family of the Year. Mertz noted that she has personally used the extension’s services when she and her family were first setting up their farm. She also noted that many individuals from the community have contacted her about setting up a home farm and raising animals, some of which were referred to her directly from the county commissioners, and while she said she was honored to help these individuals, she believed the experts from the extension office would be an amazing resource for the community to utilize. 

The extension representative said Sherburne County was welcome to join, and she thought it was a good opportunity, but she wanted the commissioners to be fully on board with the project, since the partnership has gone so well for many years and they don’t want to see a partner who’s not fully committed enter the partnership. 

The commissioners debated the decision. Commissioner Tim Dolan said he was unsure about the justification for spending the money to enter the partnership. He wanted to see data showing the need for the services, which the extension was unable to provide, since they collect information based on the region, but not necessarily by the county. Schmiesing agreed that if all the commissioners weren’t committed, they should hold off until more information is available. 

The extension representative said she would get the information to the commissioners, but she needed to have a final answer soon.

The commissioners said they would discuss again soon.

Permitting

Planning and zoning has had a series of issues with their permitting system since they implemented it in 2015. Since then, they have made adjustments and fixes to make the system fit their needs. They were recently informed by the product vendor that some of the changes the department wanted to make would not be possible without an expensive upgrade to the system, costing between $100,000-200,000, and the county would further have to pay to develop the exact service they wanted. Of course, staff from planning and zoning thought this was an excessive amount to pay for a product that didn’t seem to really fit their needs in the first place. After exploring and researching other options, they approached the commissioners to ask for a request for proposal for other companies to bid to provide the permitting service. 

In Other Business, the Board:

• Did their annual review of the fee schedule;

• Switched over to Google Docs (AO Docs) for their online document system;

• Held their ditch authority meeting;

• Discussed a settlement during a closed session, and agreed to pay $75,000.