The Santiago Twp. Board met Wednesday to discuss roads, building rentals, cemetery business and planning for the upcoming annual meeting.

 

Wednesday’s meeting concluded in an efficient 45 minutes.

 

Supervisor Dave Jehoich said the road by the church was graveled and some class five put down on the driveway. Through an agreement with the church, half of the costs for the work was going to be paid by the house of worship.

 

Jehoich said crews patched 7th Street again and he also received a bid for repairs to 7th Street in the ditch and where two culverts are. He told the board the project would be conducted in two phases with Phase I getting worked on just after the first of the year and Phase II commencing in the spring.

 

Supervisor Jeff Pappenfus questioned the bid as to why there were two different rate quotes between the two phases.

 

“Why is it $1.50 a foot on one quote and $1.75 on the other?” Pappenfus asked Jehoich.

 

Jehoich said he suspected the higher charge on the other quote was due to more work being involved, but wasn’t sure. Pappenfus pointed out that the same contractor recently charged $1.48 or so a foot for a similar project.

 

“We need to hear ‘why’ it is higher,” said Chairman Stuart Nelson.

 

Jehoich said he would contact the contractor to get the questions answered.

 

In the meantime, the board approved the bid contingent on clarification on the per foot costs. They will further discuss the situation in January for final approval before the project starts.

 

Jehoich closed out his report on roads by saying Jeff Rhodes recently completed the crack-sealing project for the parking lot around the township hall.

 

Matt Weber said the township hall has been rented for events the last two weekends and there are reservations for two more weekends this month including Christmas Day. He also noted there are four or five reservations already put on the calendar for 2018.

 

Weber said the carpets were recently cleaned at township hall. Someone spilled coffee on the fresh carpets soon after the cleaning but Weber said the cleaning company quickly came back to re-clean the stain.

 

Jehoich said he was out of town during the last zoning commission meeting and noted there were just two items on the agenda for their meeting and neither agenda item had anything to do with Santiago Twp.

 

Weber said the fire department had a pancake breakfast last weekend, hosted and ran by the local Lions Club. He said the proceeds from the breakfast go towards items and business outside the fire department’s budgeted items.

 

Weber said he didn’t bring the latest report that cited calls for service and other items but said the month of November looked normal in relation to time of year and last year’s calls. He also advised the board all equipment at the station has been checked and is looking good.

 

Not much was reported for the parks since it is generally out of season but the board was told that in January, the park committee will meet to discuss what kinds of improvements should be made at the park and what priority level each improvement should be labeled.

 

Clerk Kathy Woolard said she received a request from someone about the township possibly selling lots in the old cemetery.

 

Plenty of discussion followed about the idea and the board agreed an attorney should get involved to see where they should proceed and an investigation should be conducted to find out  if any graves are still there.

 

Nelson said the board will re-visit the issue in the future after they receive more information.

 

Deputy Kyle Wilson of the Sherburne County Sheriff’s Dept. said there were 70 calls for service in Santiago for the month of November, with the majority of the calls being for traffic situations. He said one call was for a car/deer accident and another was a conservation call.

 

Pappenfus asked Wilson if he could station an officer near the intersection of Co. Rd. 3 and Co. Rd. 5 where he has noted people passing through the stop signs without stopping early in the morning. Wilson assured Pappenfus he would look into the issue.

 

The next Santiago Twp. Board meeting is Jan. 10 at 7 p.m.