Cass County Board: Grant approved for an assisted living facility

   BACKUS — Cass County Administrator Josh Stevenson began the Tuesday, April 19 Cass County Board meeting with two American Rescue Plan Act Grant (ARPA) requests.

   The first request was from Due North Living, LLC in the amount of $4,000 to assist in replacing and updating their HVAC system at Brookside Assisted Living & Dignity and Grace Assisted Living.  These facilities are located in the Pine River and Backus communities and focus on caring for individuals who are on medical assistance and cannot afford to pay for their care out of pocket. Stevenson mentioned this request would fall into the Other use fund category and would exhaust all of the funds in that category. The board approved the request unanimously.

   The second request was from Jonathan Knowles with Madeline Properties in the amount of $25,000 to update his two housing properties with new windows and HVAC systems. Stevenson stated this request would fall under the workforce housing category and there was $75,000 remaining in that category. Commissioner Neal Gaalswyk questioned Knowles what type of housing this was, and it was stated they were two separate single family dwellings. The homes are both currently occupied and in the Walker area. Gaalswyk stated there was just not enough information in the request for him to make an informed decision on this request. Therefore, he motioned to table the request until additional information was obtained. A second to the motion was made by Commissioner Rick Haaland, with all commissioners approving the motion.

   Stevenson then requested the board motion to approve the summer meeting schedule as all “Road Show” locations have responded. The only meeting that has not been scheduled yet is the annual planning meeting. The reasoning is because the Land Department meeting room, which is the normal location for the meeting, will be unavailable for the summer and Stevenson has been trying to locate an alternative location to allow all department heads to meet in person. Stevenson stated currently the only location available would be Deep Portage Learning Center on June 10. It was brought into motion to approve the summer meeting schedule and to move forward with securing Deep Portage Learning Center for the annual meeting, and approving that meeting at a later date. All commissioners approved the motion unanimously. 

   Stevenson then briefly outlined the Cass County Soil and Water Conservation District liaison committee meeting report. One highlight from the meeting Stevenson mentioned was staffing workloads. Currently the Environmental Service Department technical support position is spending 60% of their time doing work for the Environmental Service Department and 40% of their time for the county and is being paid accordingly. It was noted Cass County can expect $9 million every two years in funding for work being done in the five associated Watersheds. Therefore, it would be warranted to make this position 100% related to the Soil and Water Conservation District. No action was taken on this report as this was just a receive and file.

   Sheriff Tom Burch joined the meeting to request an amendment increase to his Body/Squad Camera budget amount by $86,512 for the current fiscal year and an increase of $75,000 over the already budgeted $35,000 for every year thereafter. It was stated the current body/squad camera system was outdated and the new system would have more benefits. Along with having more storage and automatically updating footage to the cloud, the camera’s would automatically be activated under certain circumstances. This would reduce the risk of operator error of not turning the camera on and allow easier searching and sharing of footage. The commissioners approved the amended amounts of the budget.

   The next meetings are as follows: Commissioner’s board meeting 9 a.m. Tuesday, May 3 at the Land Department meeting room in Backus and Commissioner’s board meeting 6 p.m. Tuesday, May 17 at Pillager City Hall, 306 Elm Ave W, Pillager.