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WALKER-Dale Yerger, director of Deep Portage Learning Center, obtained Cass County Board approval for the Deep Portage Foundation to purchase and have installed a solar power system at the center.

It will provide at least 7,000 kilowatt hours of electricity or about half the power needed for the rifle range classroom. Deep Portage and its foundation fund and operate the center. The county owns the land and buildings.

The center has additional clean energy operations at the center. Yerger said they recently switched from fluorescent lighting to direct wire LED lighting and have realized a substantial savings.

Sheriff Tom Burch reported to the county board the last phase of the sheriff's office conversion to the ARMER radio system will be to install radios at Pillager and Pine River-Backus Schools. The cost will be $12,360.78 and should be complete by May 31, he said.

The sheriff will eliminate one regular dispatch position and replace it with an assistant chief dispatcher position.

Cass will receive $57,611 from the 2016 state boat and water safety grant.

Wilkinson Township donated $250 to the sheriff for the Lakes Area Dive Team.

The county board authorized Bob Stein, sheriff's investigator, to attend The Indian Country Strangulation and Suffocation Seminar in Columbia, S.C., in June. There will be no cost to Cass County. It is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Justice.

The commissioners awarded a contract to Devon Shafer of Hackensack to inspect new individual sewage treatments systems throughout the county for $95 per system. The county received two other quotes, but one was withdrawn. The other was for only the north half of the county.

Andrea Foster will replace Dan Meier as the District 3 representative to the Cass County Budget Committee through 2018.

Cass will receive $232,164.81 from the Chippewa National Forest 25 percent fund this year. This is a distribution that reflects federal forest timber sales in the Chippewa from the prior year.

Of that $116,082.41 goes to the county highway department and the balance is divided among school districts in the county that overlap the federal forest. This is the same amount Cass received in 2015.

The distributions have declined every year since 2009 when the total allotment was $466,552.87 and highway department share was $233,276.44.

Commissioners Scott Bruns and Neal Gaalswyk will represent Cass County Board April 13 at the National Joint Powers Alliance annual meeting at Madden's near Brainerd where two students from each member school district will be recognized.



Jim Schneider, probation director and a Cass representative to the Northwestern Minnesota Juvenile Center Board at Bemidji, reported to the county board the director of that juvenile center for delinquent youth has resigned after 15 years of service.

Three Ninth Judicial District judges will select the new director, he said.

In addition to serving delinquent youth, the center also serves children who pose a threat to themselves and others, but are not delinquent, Schneider said.

Cass is a member county that oversees the facility. Rates for treatment at the center range from $165 per day for member counties to $218 per day for non-member counties and depend upon the type of service the juvenile needs.

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