Jefferson County Commission Update

Hi Folks,

We have had several phone conferences over the past couple of months to finalize the loan and grants for the Sugar Beet Row sewer project. The final step will be the creation of the Rural Special Improvement District to take place on December 13th. The request for bids will go out shortly after the first of the year and construction should take place this spring.

I had several calls this weekend because of an article and ad in the Whitehall Ledger from North Western Energy saying they were going to close Kountz Road for ten days, starting this weekend. Trying to sort something like this out on a holiday weekend was pretty challenging. The end result is that the road will remain open since most of the work is being done off of the shoulder of the road. We will probably need to put a policy in place about proper procedure for any potential road closure. Folks do need to be aware that Kountz Road will be closed for several weeks to install a bridge across Pipestone Creek beginning in March. We will keep you informed of the timelines as they become available.

I need to apologize for a mistake made by the County during the process for a referendum on creating a new ambulance district. Because the decision to create the district would be up to the people of the district we didn’t think we needed to do a Resolution of Intent to Create the District. However, that was required, so we will start the process over. The first step will be to hold a Public Hearing at our meeting on December 20th and then discuss and decide on the resolution of intent. If that passes, we would then need to do a resolution to call for the referendum and open up the filing period for the trustees. The election would likely be late spring or early summer.

FYI: The late Muhammad Ali: “The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.”