June 10, 2021 at 1:12 p.m.
Cass capital improvement planning session held, public hearing set for June 18
The board updates that plan annually.
The county currently has more than $11 million in a capital projects fund, which has been created over several years by dedicating some fund balances at the end of each year to capital improvement needs.
There will be a public hearing on this year's proposed plan at the board's regular meeting beginning at 6 p.m. June 18 at the Sylvan Town Hall.
Capital improvements include such projects as new building construction, improvements to existing buildings, road construction, Enhanced 911 radio service and recreational trail development.
Some of the issues the board will consider at the work session will be to evaluate whether it continues to be most cost effective to keep spending about $100,000 per year to make improvements to the courthouse complex in downtown Walker or at what point the board might consider beginning a redevelopment project on the Ah-Gwah-Ching property.
Whenever the board makes a shift to Ah-Gwah-Ching development, building a jail/courts/law enforcement center complex has been proposed as the first component.
Tuesday, the board voted to agree to extend Cass's current agreement with Crow Wing County through 2023 to board at least 40 Cass prisoners per day in Crow Wing's jail.
Cass started boarding prisoners in the then-new Crow Wing jail in 2007. The current Cass-Crow Wing contract was set to expire by 2017 and would have to be renewed this year in order to extend it.
Cass has been boarding an average of 43 to 44 inmates per day in Crow Wing County. The inmate population still held in Cass's jail at Walker has increased from an average of 13 or 14 a day in 2008 to 20 per day this year.
Cass and Crow Wing each have state licensing to hold more prisoners than they currently do.
In the capital improvements review, Cass commissioners will look at whether they want to do a major overhaul to some or all of their county highway equipment garages located in six cities around the county. Most were built in the 1970s.
The board has set a policy that any new, replacement highway garages should be built as a co-location facility with another government agency such as MnDOT to improve operating efficiency. A proposal for the Remer garage is still on the table.
A proposal to build new with MnDOT at Pine River has been taken off the table, County Engineer David Enblom to the board Tuesday. With the date for extending the Highway 371 expansion from Jenkins to Pine River uncertain at this point, Enblom said, plans to move the MnDOT garage there has been delayed indefinitely.
If the board chooses to upgrade existing garages by repairing damage, replacing oil furnaces with more energy efficient propane ones, re-insulating and adding space, the cost is projected to run $120,000 to $143,50 per building.
The board also is expected to evaluate whether the county still views its land holding at Ah-Gwah-Ching as primarily for county use and that of a future medical complex or whether the county now considers any of its holding there as excess property that might be sold.
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