The Lincoln County Commissioners met Tuesday, Dec. 3 in the Lincoln County boardroom. Commissioners heard agenda items including a public hearing for a liquor license, bridge inspection updates and airport change orders.
The commissioners first order of business was a public hearing to consider an application for a temporary on-sale liquor license to operate outside the municipality for Lincoln County Fairgrounds Foundation Inc for an event to occur on March 29, 2025, Located at the Lincoln County Fairgrounds, 27711 Hwy 17, Lennox, SD 57039, legally described as 34.12 Acres in NE Quarter including railroad property Section 29-Township 99- N Range 51 West of the 5th principal meridian Lincoln County SD. Chairman Jim Jibben asked for proponents and opponents to come forward on the event. With no public comment, the motion was approved.
Highway Superintendent, Terry Fluit joined the meeting to give an update on the 2024 Lincoln County Bridge inspection updates.
“Starting last year, we split our bridges up because we have around 150 and we will do half every year. This year, we had about 90 structures that we had reinspected this year, and all of these basically are on township roads,” he said. Josh Prather from IMEG was present and explained to the commission that his company was in charge of a routine inspection and element inspection on the bridges which looked at the approach the deck, the structure, substructure, channel and check them for scour.
“A couple of these structures are ones that the county went in and did some work on these to get the load limit restrictions lifted or lessened so we are out there trying to make a difference and trying to extend the life of our bridges by the maintenance we do,” Fluit said.
Highway Assistant Superintendent, Jared Narum was present for board action to authorize the Highway Department to purchase a motor grader from Butler Cat in Sioux Falls utilizing a five-year finance in the amount of $448,499.71.
“We are looking to buy a motor grader, this is a budgeted item, and that budgeted item is to finance this machine for five years. We don’t know yet what the interest rate is going to be as we can’t lock into an interest rate until the machine hits the shore,” he said.
Narum believe the interest rates have been dropping since he began working on the terms for the machine, and believes if the pattern continues, there can be potential cost savings.
“The last time we bought a motor grader was ten years ago, the one we will be replacing is 22 years old with over 10,000 hours on it,” Narum said. Motion to purchase the Caterpillar was made by Jim Schmidt, seconded by Mike Poppens. Motion approved with Poppens making the note of “any department, not just your department, Jared and Terry, if we have the opportunity to pick between two machines and one machine is made less than an adjacent state away and one is assembled in Brazil or some other country, lets take a serious look and give that a lot of weight in making the decision.” Motion approved.
Commission Administrative Assistant, Paul Anderson was present for Airport Manager, David Myers for board action to approve change order #1 for AIP #3-46-0078-023-2024 that increases project costs by $20,631.02.
“This is a change order to the South apron project, so it will increase the project cost for the county by $500 or so. I believe this was due to cost overruns that they weren’t expecting,” he said.
Motion to approve the change order made by Poppens, seconded by Schmidt. Motion approved.
Anderson also requested board action to approve partial payment estimate 3 for AIP #3-46-0078-023-2024 and BIL #3-46-0078-022-2024 be authorized to be paid in the amount of $401,992.92 on behalf of Myers.
“This is a partial payment; this is money that goes out to be reimbursed at the 90 percent and five percent rate. Right now, this is asking for the approval to pay it, the money for this will come out in 2025,” he said.
Commissioner Schmidt moved for approval, seconded by Poppens. Motion approved.
Comments