The Sherburne County Board Tuesday approved the hiring of Gina Hugo as the county’s new parks coordinator.
Hugo is currently the forest resource specialist with Sherburne Soil & Water Conservation District (SWCD). She has 20 years of experience in the field and currently coordinates with Sherburne County Public Works on many park projects each year.
“We’ve never had a parks coordinator position,” said Sherburne County Director of Public Works Andrew Witter. “We used to have an arborist back in the early 2000s.”
Witter said the county board has a lot of interest in the future of the park system. They felt it was important to the community to have a strong and proactive parks department.
“With myself not having the resources to manage four county parks and the hundreds of acres we currently have, we felt there was a need to get somebody in there that can really advocate for the parks, go after some grant funding, do some master planning and figure out what the long-range vision is,” said Witter.
He said Hugo is qualified in all those areas.
“She’s done a bunch of grant writing. She’s got long range planning experience and she’s very familiar with our county parks,” he said. “She probably knows our county parks better than anyone out there. She’s not just a tree specialist, but she know rare and endangered species and invasive species.”
Her start date is yet to be determined while Hugo transitions from current her position.
“We don’t want this to be a burden on SWCD,” said Witter. “I know she struggled with this decision, but I also know she’s very excited about the future.”
Road Bids
The board awarded the bid to construct a roundabout at Co. Rd. 45 and 125th Street to New Look Contracting at $1,382,284.80. Other bidders were: Minnesota Paving & Materials - $1,407,872.55, Knife River Corp. - $1,527,463.10 and Meyer Contracting - $1,562,070.43.
Other Business
In other action the board:
* Accepted an Initiative Foundation grant in the amount of $4,000 for support for strategic planning, fund development and board training for the Elk River Chamber;
* Accepted the 2019 Boat and Water Safety grant of $9,808 for the sheriff’s office to purchase supplies and equipment relating to boating safety and enforcement;
* Approved a temporary On-Sale liquor license for Big Lake Spud Fest;
* Proclaimed May 2019 as Foster Care Month and Mental Health Month in Sherburne County.
