FAIRMONT– Celia Simpson, a community and business development specialist with CEDA, gave an update on the Martin County Broadband Partnership program during the Martin County Board of Commissioner meeting on Tuesday.

Simpson shared that she has been working with the broadband advisory committee.

“Their job is to facilitate access to a 100 download, 20 upload megabytes of internet service to all households and businesses within Martin County,” Simpson said.

She spoke some of the different challenges in different areas of the county. Simpson also spoke about the Martin County Broadband profile, done by the Blandin Foundation, which does a county broadband profile map every year looking at what investments have been made on broadband in different counties.

“Out of 87 counties in Minnesota we’re ranked 70th which is not where you want to be. You want to be on the higher end, closer to one,” Simpson said.

She added that according to those findings, only 21 percent of the county has access to 1,000 plus megabytes.

Simpson pointed out that Martin County has allocated $1.5 million in funding toward the Martin County Broadband Partnership Program. She also spoke about some of the various grants the county has gotten in recent years, including from Federated REA.

“Their goal is to provide to the rest of the unserved or underserved in Martin County. They got $8 million from the Border-to-Border 10 program and are looking at the Ceylon area, up to Welcome and over to Truman. They broke ground on that last Tuesday,” Simpson said.

She said 457 households, businesses and farms are included and of the $1.4 million award from the county, $780,000 of that went toward this project.

Commissioner Joe Loughmiller said he was supportive of these kinds of projects, especially when it comes to promoting Martin County and rural development in Martin County.

“If someone is going to be a remote worker, and I’m a remote worker, they need this 100/20 level of service. If we want them to build out here and build our tax base, these are the kind of investments that make sense,” Loughmiller said.

Moving to other matters, the board heard from Sheriff Jeff Markquart, who asked for a renewal on the law enforcement services agreement with the cities of Ceylon, Dunnell and Granada.

Markquart said that County Attorney Taylor McGowan had looked at the contracts and brought them up to date. Commissioner Billeye Rabbe asked how they landed on the hourly rate of $87.50.

“We took our patrol deputies budgets and all of their expenses and came up with an hourly rate that way,” Markquart said.

Rabbe asked if that was the same hourly rate for Truman, which the Sheriff’s Office recently took over, and Markquart said yes. He also pointed out that Truman has requested 40 hours per week whereas these three contracts are on an hour by hour basis, but at the same rate.

The board approved of the contract renewals.

Markquart also shared with the board a request from the city of Trimont for additional services. McGowan assisted with drawing up that contract as well.

“It goes to the end of the year and we’re a little indeterminate on how much the Sheriff’s Office will be needed,” McGowan said.

While the city of Trimont has its own police department, Markquart said there is a lapse in their coverage and they want some dedicated time.

The board approved it at the same hourly rate as the other contracts.

During a public comment portion of the meeting, Commissioner Jaime Bleess on Tuesday handed out a packet of figures, which goes over a different way to fund the Justice Center project, to each of the commissioners

“Out of respect of the number of hours I put into it, I ask that you take some time to look at it in the next couple of days,” Bleess said.

He said that since March, when the board voted 4-1 to discontinue work on planning for a new facility, he’s been going over numbers in an attempt not to waste the $3 million the county has already spent on the project.

“I was thinking about how I heard from Commissioner Kristenson and his reservation about such a big levy impact in one year… and the awareness of our reserves being pretty high and the interest coming through on those reserves being pretty significant,” Bless said.

He said that instead of putting $6 million down in a down payment model, he looked at using it to fund the front end of the debt service on a declining balance model so the $6 million would still earn interest and parts of it would be used at the beginning.

“Ultimately I’ve been working through it with the Auditor/Treasurer to make sure I didn’t screw anything up,” Bleess said.

He said that this model would allow the county to fund the Justice Center at a 1 percent levy increase for eight years while leveraging reserves and the interest earned on the reserves.

“It would be an option,” Bleess said.

Loughmiller asked Auditor/Treasurer Mike Forstner if he had any comments. Forstner said that a lot of numbers used are conservative.

Commissioner Billeye Rabbe asked how many staff hours were put into the work. Bleess said he wasn’t asking for anything to go forward on Tuesday, just that he wanted the board to consider it.

In other news:

— Planning and Zoning Director, Pam Flitter, presented the MPCA County Feedlot Program Performance Credit Award Schedule for work done in 2024.

— County Recorder, Michelle Dunker, informed the board that there were some changes to the fee schedule, effective July 1, as authorized by the Minnesota Legislature. The board approved of the changes.

— The board approved a motion to direct staff to develop a draft ordinance granting authority to counties to adopt an ordinance to limit the type of firearms that may be used to hunt deer within the county for board review and consideration.

— The board approved the hire of Kyle Redenius as a full-time Sentence to Serve (STS) supervisor. Redenius has been working for STS for over 20 years but due to the state pulling away its funding for the program, the county had to step up to fund the rest of the program and thus hire to fill the position.

— The board approved the hire of a full-time correctional officer.