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WALKER - Cass County commissioners Tuesday approved agreements with two cities and Leech Lake Band to share costs on three highway improvement projects.

The county's agreement with the city of Lake Shore designates the city to pay costs for a pedestrian trail along County State Aid Highway 77 (Interlachen Road) and the county to pay for rebuilding and repaving the CSAH 77 roadway through the city.

Estimated city costs include an estimated $90,000 for an engineering plan, $582,000 to build the trail, $125,000 for utility relocation and $158,000 to procure rights of way.

Estimated county costs include an estimated $1,000,067 for engineering and $5 million to build the roadway. The county will serve as lead agency and project manager for the trail and road.

The second agreement is between the city of Walker and the county.

Walker plans to replace or improve water and sanitary and storm sewer lines and resurface Second (two blocks), Third, Fourth and Fifth Streets south of State Highway 371, Tower, Birchwood and Park avenues between Fourth and Fifth streets, Michigan Avenue from Minnesota Avenue (Hwy. 371) to Seventh Street using a state public facilities grant (80 percent of cost) and local property assessments (20 percent of cost) in 2016 and 2017.

The city also will make improvements to water and sanitary sewer lines on Fifth Street going north from Hwy. 371 to the city dock. On that project, the county will use state aid municipal funds to resurface the street and make storm sewer and sidewalk improvements.

The city will be lead agency. County Engineer David Enblom told the county board he expects the county will get a lower price for its state aid project by bidding with the city's larger street and utility project.

Cass County's share of the total estimated $5,920,000 project is estimated to cost $318,632.80.

County Administrator Robert Yochum said the county also is considering paying an additional cost to have Walker install a storm drain connection in Michigan Avenue behind (south of) the courthouse for an estimated $58,000. That drain would connect a catch basin by the county's south parking lot to the city storm drain system whenever the county paves that parking lot in the future.

Cass County's agreement with Leech Lake Reservation shares costs to improve CSAH 75, which runs north from Federal Highway 2 by the Leech Lake Bingo Palace and Casino northwest of Cass Lake and County Road 150 in the same area.

Total project costs are estimated to run $770,000 for CSAH 75 and $180,000 for County Road 150. Leech Lake Band will pay $314,000 or 40 percent of the CSAH 75 project and $90,000 or 50 percent of the County Road 150 project.

Cass County will use federal highway money to pay its share of the costs.

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