FAIRMONT– At the Martin County Board of Commissioners meeting on Tuesday, Jonathan Loose of Wold Architects and Engineers presented a proposal for an increase in fees for the Design Services agreement. The increase of $76,000 in fees is due to the additional work needed to be completed on the new proposed site for the proposed Martin County Regional Public Safety and Justice Center. The commissioners are still in the process of finalizing details on the new site and have not yet revealed its location.

The county was previously considering four tax-forfeited parcels of land near the Fairmont liquor store off Highway 15.

“The way we see it, looking at a new site means that there’s some adjustments that need to be done to the design,” Loose said.

He said that this does not mean that the design is starting over, but that some things need to be re-evaluated.

Commissioner Elliot Belgard asked if the money would be spent whether the project happens or not. Loose said it will be used for the design process.

Commissioner Kathy Smith, who is on the justice committee, said that when they decided to change the site, they knew there would be additional charges. However she said this will be the most cost-effective site, even with the additional $76,000.

“This site is so much better. There’s so many more possibilities for growth in the future,” added Commissioner Steve Flohrs, who is also on the committee.

Belgard said that he wanted to stress that the increase was not Wold’s responsibility as it was a decision made by the committee.

“I think people are appreciative that we take our time to get it right. This is an important project, certainly the most important in Martin County in half a century. It’s important that we get it right,” Belgard said.

The board approved a fee increase in the amount of $76,000 for the Wold Design Service Agreement. The money will be coming out of the state bonding money the county was granted in 2019 after both the senate and house committees toured the facility. At that time $2.1 million was given to go toward the planning, designing and site development of the proposed Justice Center.

The board also heard an informational presentation from ICS Construction Management Firm. The board recently awarded ICS to provide Construction Management Services on behalf of the county for the proposed Regional Public Safety and Justice Center. Mike Piper and Chris Zeimer of ICS gave the presentation.

Piper said that ICS started off in 2006 as an owner’s representation firm in rural Minnesota working mainly with public school districts. Since then they’ve expanded to construction management services.

While they’re based out of Minneapolis, Piper said they have been doing a lot of work in southern Minnesota and have also worked on other jails throughout the state, including in Anoka County and Koochiching County.

“We have a really long working history with Wold Architects. We’ve done 63 projects and are in the throws of doing a couple other jails with them right now,” Piper said.

Piper said they understood the county was open to discussing different procurement methods of either construction management-agency (CMa) or construction management at-risk (CMr). Zeimer went over pros and cons of both methods but did say that in either situation, they will control the site.

“We’re not advocating for one or the other. We’ve done both throughout the state, probably more CMa to be honest,” said Zeimer.

Smith said that the justice committee discussed it and felt that CMa was the best direction. ICS said they’d work on finalizing a contract and would be in touch with the commissioners.

Moving to other matters, Human Resources Director Leigha Johnson provided an update on the recruitment of assistant county attorney.

“We haven’t gotten a whole lot of traction on this opening,” Johnson said.

She said they were about to begin working with a team that does executive searches for counties, but as the group doesn’t have much experience with county attorneys, it ultimately couldn’t offer a guarantee so they won’t be working together.

Johnson said she and current County Attorney Terry Viesselman are working on a new recruiting strategy. She said she plans to reach out to an HR group to see if anyone knows of other companies that do executive type recruiting.

Belgard stressed the importance of working quickly on proceeding.

“We’re taking advantage of Terry who wanted to retire at the end of last year and is still here working hard for us doing a lot of stuff,” said Belgard.

The Martin County Commissioners also moved on recruitment of a full-time Economic Development Authority Coordinator. For the past 15 years the EDA has contracted with a consultant to provide business services to new business startups and existing businesses, as well as general work for the EDA, but the county EDA has been notified that in the near future those services won’t be provided.

Belgard said they’ve been looking at and tweaking the job description at the monthly EDA meetings.

“There’s a lot of people looking for that position, including the city of Fairmont,” Belgard said.

Johnson said the classification of the new position is at a grade 14, which is a starting hourly wage of $28.14.

The board moved to approve the EDA Coordinator job description and authorize recruitment.

In other news, County Engineer Kevin Peyman said that at the Feb. 15 meeting, the commissioners approved the purchase of a Tandem Axle truck from Truck Center Companies at a state contract price of $116,284.

Peyman said that in the past they’ve always been locked into that price, but this year for the first time, dealers won’t sell at the contract price anymore and have been cancelling orders. Because of that the bidding office through the Minnesota Department of Transportation has been allowing them to add a surcharge instead of cancelling the order.

“We just got notified that two surcharges were added to our truck,” Peyman said.

He said if they don’t agree to the surcharges by next week the order will be cancelled. The two surcharges equal an additional $7,450 on top of $116,284 that was already approved.

Peyman further explained that any freightline dealer will have the same surcharges and

of the two main dealers for trucks that counties use, one of them has cancelled all county orders and are now taking anymore but just filling military orders. He said if the county were to cancel their order, another county will buy it instead.

“We’ve never had to do this before but I don’t know what our options are,” Peyman said.

He said he recommends the commissions approve of the surcharges. Commissioner Richard Koons made a motion to approve of them and Commissioner James Forshee seconded. The motion passed.

In other news, the board:

— Reappointed Kevin Peyman as Martin County Engineer for another four year term, effective May 1, 2022 through April 30, 2026.