Back in early February, the Sherburne County Board approved a program that awards grant funding to non-profits and organizations that provide different aspects of community support.
The Sherburne County Community Resource Support Program was implemented to support organizations who help to provide county residents with housing, food, childcare programs, employment opportunities, and access to social and mental health services. The goal was to help mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 public health crisis, and funding is coming from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).
The board set the program amount at $500,000, with no individual grant cap, since each grant application would come before the board for approval.
Last week, Assistant Administrator Dan Weber told the board the program is already a success. He presented the board with five applicants for board approval totalling $148,849. They include: Great River Faith in Action - $20,000, Princeton School District - $43,849, YMCA - $20,000, Big Lake Community Food Shelf -$30,000 and Open Doors For Youth - $35,000.
Weber also said there are more applications being reviewed. However, he said, those requests, along with the five presented for approval, surpass the $500,000 program cap. He said there were a total of 15 grant requests totalling over $1 million.
“I was going see if there was an appetite or desire by the board to possibly go over that ($500,000) as we review the last 10 applications that came in,” he said.
The five applications in front of the board for approval would leave about $350,000 in the program fund with about $800,000 in requests from the 10 remaining applications.
Administrator Bruce Messelt said there were some significant requests, like the Promise Neighborhoods, as well as some school districts. But he said there is more capacity in the ARPA fund to increase the program cap if the board wished to do so.
Commissioner Tim Dolan said he didn’t want to just approve the five applications because they were the first to come before the board.
“I would be flexible enough to look at adding more funding for the program if it came to that,” he said.
Commissioner Felix Schmiesing agreed. He didn’t feel it was right to approve applications on a first-come-first-served basis.
“We should have a way to bring them in and rank them,” he said, “and put the money where we think it will do the most good.”
The board decided to table the vote and review all the applications together, where they could decide to approve some, all, or cut some of the funding for some of the requests.
The board did approve ARPA funding in the amount of $238,000 for an Economic Development Coordinator. Weber said the first year will be completely funded by ARPA. Then the position will be phased in with two-thirds ARPA funding in 2023, and one-third in 2024. The board also approved $96,876.78 for Emergency Operations Center equipment upgrades.
Zoning
The board approved an Interim Use Permit (IUP) request by MN CSG 15 LLC for a OneMegawatt Solar Farm in Clear Lake Twp. near Hwy. 24 and Co. Rd. 8 on the Thomas Jr. and Penney Hammer - Trust. The IUP was approved previously, but a condition of approval was that they obtain a building permit within one year of approval. They did not meet that requirement, so they are going through the process again.
There are a two one MW solar farms that have been approved on the property south of this solar farm. One has pulled a building permit and the other has not yet pulled their permit. There is also an existing solar farm to the east across Hwy. 24.
The board approved a Conditional Use Permit for Timothy Reber for a Personal Storage Structure on .5 acres on 115th Ave. in Palmer Twp.
The board approved an IUP for Matthew Jacobs for a home business in an existing accessory structure on 10 acres at 62nd St SE, Becker, Santiago Twp. in the Agricultural District. The IUP is for a cabinet-making operation.
