FAIRMONT — Martin County commissioners on Tuesday heard from County Engineer Kevin Peyman, who presented a resolution asking that the state complete a speed study on County Road 26, east from Fairmont to the Faribault County line.

The purpose of the study is to determine if a 60 mph speed limit is reasonable and safe. The current speed limit on the stretch of road is 55 mph.

The board approved the resolution, and Peyman explained some of the reasons behind the request.

“Recently, counties have been able to ask for a 60 mph speed study like MnDOT has done on their roads for a few years now,” Peyman said. “We may have more that we’ll look at down the road, but it’s a year-and-a-half to a two-year process to get one done. Since Faribault [County] was doing theirs, I wanted to do 26 to go along with the one they did.”

Commissioner Elliot Belgard weighed in on the issue, asking about posted speed limit signs.

“I sit on the Region Nine transportation committee and we brought this up about whether or not we really want to go there,” Belgard said. “This will be our one county road that will do that — we don’t post the speed limits on our county roads — and we discussed if that would cause some confusion. I realize that if Faribault County does that then we maybe would too.

“The law says you don’t have to post 55 mph speed limits, so currently we don’t post,” Peyman replied. “With 60 mph limits, you do have to put up signs. I somewhat agree that we shouldn’t do every road that qualifies because it could get confusing, but in my conversations with Faribault County, we both thought that [County Road 26] was kind of a corridor between Fairmont and Blue Earth, more so than other county roads.

“All the studies I’ve seen on all the state [roads] that have gone to 60 mph, there really hasn’t been any marked increase in accidents or any real problems from that. I’ve also talked to our local law enforcement and they don’t have any problems with it either, but you could make a case to stay at 55 mph.”

Peyman also offered a general update on county roads.

“We started hauling some maintenance gravel last week. Primarily we’ve worked in the northeast portion of the county trying to get some rock and gravel as much as we can. Starting after the Fourth of July, that’s when we get our sealcoating, so depending on the weather we’ll tackle that in a week or two. Once that’s done, we’ll go full bore on maintenance gravel again to try and get that done.”

In other news, the board approved a motion authorizing the board chairperson to sign a grievance settlement agreement with Law Enforcement Labors Services Inc., accepting the resignation of former jail administrator Mark Geerdes. The union had already signed the agreement, which states that Geerdes will resign effective April 2, 2019; the union will withdraw the grievance; and that Geerdes will receive payment of his earned PTO and portion of the sick leave per the union contract.

In other action, the board:

o Approved a resolution of support for the 2020 state bond funding request in the amount of $20 million to provide financial assistance to the county for the construction of a county justice center.

o Approved a resolution of support for the 2020 state bond funding request in the amount of $300,000 to provide financial assistance to the Martin County Veterans Memorial Committee for enhancements to the Veterans Memorial Park in Fairmont.