June 10, 2021 at 1:12 p.m.
Cass Commissioners tour County Highway Garage in Remer
County Engineer David Enblom has proposed to build a county garage at Remer as an addition to the state garage.
The current county garage at Remer is an older, poorly insulated metal building on the outskirts of Remer and not connected to city water and sewer. If a new building is built, it would have to connect to the city system, he said.
The board has told Enblom any future new county garages would have to collaborate with other government agencies, looking toward future collaborative cost savings.
Enblom proposes to abandon the current county garage site and to build a new garage as an addition to the MnDOT cement block, better-insulated garage that is on Remer city sewer and water.
He told the board Tuesday, the county can save $500,000 in construction costs by building at the MnDOT site over the cost to build a separate building on the county's site. Of that savings, about $120,000 would be the cost to extend city sewer and water to the county site.[[In-content Ad]]
The county's proposed new building would be one and a half times the size of the current building, but utilities (including heat) would be the same as on the existing county building, because MDOT's building construction style is that much more energy efficient, Enblom said.
Dump trucks with a plow and graders barely fit inside the currently county building. While the new building is proposed to have the same three stalls to house one grader and two dump trucks with plows, Enblom said the added space in the proposed building will allow space around the equipment to work on it inside.
In the existing county building there is barely enough space to walk around the vehicles inside the building, let alone pull up equipment to work on them, Enblom noted. The county also would be able to share a much larger salt shed storage building with MnDOT.
It is Enblom's future goal by being in the same building with MnDOT to more easily work toward working out the most efficient snow plowing and summer grading routes for both agencies, without regard to which government agency owns which road.
Tuesday, the board accepted the $864,144.10 low bid of four from Anderson Brothers Construction of Brainerd to resurface eight miles of County State Aid Highway 3 east of Bena and the $1,214,862.27 low bid of five from Tri-City Paving of Little Falls to rebuild and repave 3.5 miles of CASH 1 from CSAH 15 to 34.
Enblom advised the board he may have to temporarily use some county fund balance money to proceed with these projects if there is a state government shutdown, because he has been advised there will be no one in the state MnDOT office during a shut-down to process county billing for federal funds channeled through MnDOT for local road projects.
About 90 percent of the CSAH 1 project will come from federal highway funds, he said.
Enblom informed the board about an invasive weed species that has turned up in roadside ditches from Walker, going toward the northeastern part of the county and up to Deer River. He obtained board approval to begin a five-year intensive mowing project to try to eradicate it.
The wild parsnip plant has clustered yellow flowers, grows about eight feet tall and causes a blistering rash similar to poison ivy, but more intense, Enblom said.
Originally, it was a European plant. It first appeared in eastern United State and has spread west. Wisconsin has been battling it for a long time, Enblom said. He also urged county residents to become familiar with it and to mow or spray it if they find it on their property.
Seeds have a five-year lifespan, so it takes five years of any treatment to hope to eradicate it, he added.
The board continued to the June 7 regular 9 a.m. board meeting at the courthouse in Walker a hearing on whether to turn over ownership to Torrey Township of a short road section running from CSAH 74 to Schoolcraft State Park at the edge of the Mississippi River. The road passes four private properties.
Second publication rights after Brainerd Dispatch.
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