FAIRMONT — Martin County commissioners on Tuesday briefly discussed a possible location for a proposed Justice Center.

The board approved a motion to write a letter to the County Auditor requesting four tax-forfeited parcels of land near the Fairmont liquor store off Highway 15 be withheld from sale or lease for six months. The board heard from County Attorney Viesselman, who explained the process and language of briefly acquiring the property.

“The property we’re talking about is our No. 2 preferred site for the Justice Center and it’s been forfeited, so by statute the county can acquire the property free of charge,” he said. “To do that, we have to submit a letter to the County Auditor asking that the property be removed from being listed for sale. It would be removed for a period of six months and during that time we would proceed with getting a conveyance from the Minnesota Department of Revenue of the property to us.

“The way we can do that to get it free of charge is that a Minnesota statute provides that if a governmental agency is going to put the property to a public use, than you can get it free of charge. If you put it to what’s called a public purpose then you have to pay fair market value for it.”

Viesselman went on to explain that “public use” means something that is open to the public while “public purpose” does not.

“The statute lists what would be public uses, and the one category that applies for us is for a public service facility and one example of that is a police station or administrative offices,” Viesselman said. “So if we do the Justice Center, some administrative offices will be there, but clearly if we even limit it to the lesser model of a jail, the police station will be out there too and I think a jail alone qualifies as a public service facility too.”

If the county is able to acquire the property for the six months listed, it will be responsible for maintenance and care. Should the county decide not to move forward with the land acquisition, it would revert to forfeiture.

In other news, the board heard from County Engineer Kevin Peyman, who shared that the Highway Department is in the process of preparing for winter.

“We’ve been trying to finish up patching any bad spots that we think might be plow-catchers and that kind of thing,” he said. “We’ve also still been working on some of the gravels; the gravel is all hauled but we have been having a small crew of some people out digging up some of the bad spots, some of those frost boils that never seemed to heal. We won’t get to all of them but we’re trying to get the worst of them done and get them shored up through the winter.”

In other action, the board approved a motion to upgrade electronic equipment in the Board Room and the Sisseton Room. The upgrade will involve the installation of three 75-inch television sets to be utilized for presentations, with an eye toward future upgrades and usage. The equipment will be purchased for $6,676, with required electrical work costing $1,771.