Monday, Becker Township board held a meeting with many items on the agenda. In addition to hosting a public hearing and an open forum, there were planning updates, a metes and bound application, an engineer’s report, town hall exterior changes, road, and fire topics presented.

 

 

In this week’s public hearing, people attended the meeting to give their input on the trees covering the non-platted right of way on 175th Avenue SE (north end). Public notice was sent to Walt and Diane Murfin, saying Becker was going to do trimming and brushing on his property, so he requested a public hearing. There are approximately 66 feet of trees, and the consensus seemed to be that destroying these mature oaks would be a tragedy. 

 

Instead, owners Lucinda Lutz, Clint and Colleen Corrigan, Kelly Jurich and neighboring residents suggested that some of the trees be graded with class 5 fill to raise their level from the ground. The board mentioned how this is a maintenance and liability concern for the city. 

 

Resolution is that some of the trees will be removed, and road supervisors will go out and talk to property owners individually. Roads will also be improved so the giant roots don’t stick out. It seemed to be a good compromise.

 

 

David Roedel, Sherburne County assistant public works director, presented the facts surrounding the options regarding the Snake River Estates Trail. Sherburne County has jurisdiction over the pink part (which was built in 2006) but they lost track of it until they received the flood of complaints about people on the trail. Now, this has become a tough problem to solve because when the Active Living Plan changed, the trail wasn’t included.

 

The board listened to members of the community share their thoughts about the trail. While some residents were irritated by the fact that there is a trail in their backyard which threatens their privacy and their children’s safety, others voiced the opinion that if the trail is here to stay, they preferred that it be paved rather than be kept gravelly and unmaintained (as it currently is).

 

Updating the trail would be a project that Roedel and his committee hopes is less than $100K, but the cost is not yet known. Either way, the burden of paying would not fall on the residents; it would be Sherburne county’s responsibility. 

 

The problem of people riding motorized vehicles at all hours of the day and at illegal speeds (above 25 mph) was brought up, and a board member said enforcing the speed limit in this area by issuing tickets to all violators should handle that problem very quickly. 

 

This was unresolved. The township wants to research the green portion of the trail next. What happens afterward is still indefinite. Since the county owns the trail, they can technically proceed however they see fit, but they reached out to hear out the residents’ opinions. 

 

 

John and Lynette Golly applied for a metes and bounds split for their parcels. Their proposal would not create any new lots. Rather, it would adjust their current boundary lines. Their application met all criteria so the board made a motion to approve it.

 

 

Wes Davis presented the engineer’s report which involved a boulder crossing and partial payment ($30,000 left to pay after $233,000 payment) of 185th Avenue SE north new design. Engineers will start working on this soon.

 

Also, the board has jurisdiction over the right of way at 77th Street and 112th Street so they’re currently working on ironing out these details.

 

Next week, work will begin on 190th Street.

 

 

All the painting for the outside of town hall has been completed, but there is a woodpecker hole on the flagpole that will need to be fixed. Landscaping will not be done in time for elections this November. However, there will be nicer prairie grass laid down and done by next spring. 

 

 

The board is currently looking into purchasing an archival system with meta data keyword recognition which will enable search capabilities. This means all forty-three books of handwritten minutes from the previous years will be searchable by keyword to anyone with login access. 

 

The cost was quoted at about $4,259 to convert all these records into digital format and it will take anywhere between three to six months for the contractors to complete. The search engine feature will tack on an additional $1,200 to the price.

 

It appears that there will be new microphones coming soon so people can hear better at meetings in a room where the sound doesn’t travel as well as it could. There are individual microphones available for purchase for the tables since the portable ones are more expensive. A donor has offered to give town hall hardwired microphones to create a hearing loop in the space. 

 

Computer replacement was also announced.

 

 

The next Becker meeting will be on Nov. 12 at 7 p.m.