The Sherburne County Board Tuesday approved allocating an additional $20,000 in SCORE funding to help cover the cost for cities and townships to operate during their clean-up day events.

But there was a 10-minutes discussion before the commissioners gave their approval.

 

Solid Waste Administrator Dave Lucas said historically, agreements with townships and cities have limited funding to 75% of eligible costs. However, sometimes the events exceed the eligible amount, and the solid waste advisory committee suggested covering some of those costs.

 

“We brought this before the committee and they feel this is a valid concern and we should be able to offer additional funding if that were to occur,” he said.

 

Commissioner Ewald Petersen said he objected to the idea because some cities and townships have higher costs for accepting materials like appliances, tires and electronics. He felt it was counter-productive to have prices so high.     “The idea of having these clean-up events is we are trying to discourage people from dumping into ditches and waters in the area,” he said, “because it is very expensive to hire someone to pick this stuff up.”

Lucas agreed.

 

“You’re right. The committee further discussed coming back at a later date and taking a critical look at how we arrive at setting eligible costs for cities and townships,” he said. 

 

Lucas said the committee would have to look at whether it makes sense to set a minimum limit cities and township would have to collect to receive funding, “because there is a disparity between what some townships charge and what other townships charge, so their eligible costs are different.”

 

He said setting a standard would put everybody on the same playing field.  “You can charge more if choose to, but this is your limit if you’re going to receive reimbursement from the county,” he said. “Maybe we should go out for bids at a county level for vendors.”

 

Lucas said it could be a way to make SCORE dollars go as far as possible.

 

The board approved the $20,000 additional allocation for this year only.

 

The board approved a request by Sherburne County 4-H for $4,800 in SCORE Funding for collecting organic waste during the Sherburne County Fair July 20-23.

 

The funds wil be used to purchase compostable food serving products, compostable trash bags, collection, transportation and tip fees at the compost facility. It will also cover the cost of purchasing two picnic tables made from recycled plastics.

 

The board also approved an allocation of $3,004.94 to the City of Elk River  to help purchase 30 new recycle containers to increase recycling efforts in the city’s park and sports complex system.

 

The board accepted a proposal by Stainbrecher Companies to clean up two tax forfeit parcels - one on Putnam Ave. in Big Lake and another on Co. Rd. 15 in Big Lake Twp. at a total cost of $29,750. The board also accepted a proposal by Helmin Construction to clean up a 2.5- acre tax forefit parcel in the Deer Forest Development in Becker Twp. at a cost of $3,183. 

 

The properties must be cleaned in order for them to be included in the county’s tax forfeit sale later this year.

 

The board awarded the contract for road improvements to Co. Rd. 42, Co. Rd. 45, 136th Street and Georgetown #1 Addition in Baldwin Twp. to Hardrives at $3,388,971.27. Other bidders were Knife River ($3,473,675.67) and Veit & Co. ($6,016,914.04). The engineer’s estimate was $3,739,807.70.

 

In other action the board:

 

• Approved a joint powers agreement with Baldwin Twp. for the 136th Street road project;

 

• Approved publishing the primary and alternate 2016 Summary Financial Statements and vendor list in the Elk River Star News and Citizen-Tribune newspapers;

 

• Approved a grant request of $51,000 from the MN Dept. of Public Safety to defray the cost of mandatory crime victim services;

 

• Approved tobacco licenses for Frontier Liquor, Holiday Station Store 239, Jim’s Market, P&A Liquor, Speedway Superamerica 4535, Uptown Off-Sale and Casey’s General Store 3458 in Zimmerman and Ridgeway Bay Resort in Baldwin Twp.;

 

• Approved tobacco licenses contingent on local approval for  Holiday Station Store 598 and SAFE Discount Liquor (Becker Twp.), Station Operations II LLC/Sandune Stop (Orrock Twp.), Briggs Lake General Store (Palmer Twp.) and Santiago Country Store (Santiago Twp.).