The Lincoln County Board of Commissioners met Tuesday, January 7 in the Lincoln County Boardroom. All five Commissioners were present to welcome new commissioners, Betty Otten and Doug Putnam to their chairs and hear agenda items including new commissioner oath of office ceremonies, prison updates, and commissioner wages.
Judge Rachel Rasmussen was present to administer the Oath of Office to Betty Otten and Doug Putnam as the new County Commissioners. Otten will be replacing Jim Jibben and Doug Putnam will be replacing Mike Poppens on the Commission.
The first order of business was to elect a Chair and a vice Chair. Commissioner Tiffany Landeen was voted in to be the Chair and Commissioner Jim Schmidt was chosen to be the Vice Chair.
Chairwoman Landeen read a public hearing to consider an application for the transfer of a Retail (On sale) Liquor License to operate outside a municipality from Raj & Son Fuel, LLC. to Larsen Logistics, LLC, at Carlson Tract 2 in the S 1/2 of the SW 1/4, 31-96N-50, 46016 SD Hwy 46, Beresford, Lincoln County, SD 57004. The applicant was not present for the meeting and there were no proponents or opponents to the public hearing. Motion by Schmidt, seconded by Joel Arends. Motion approved.
Commissioner Otten requested a briefing on the proposed men’s prison.
Senior Policy Advisor for Governor Noem, Ryan Brunner, was present along with Department of Corrections Secretary, Kellie Wasko to answer any questions they were able to.
“I work with the Department of Corrections (DOC) in regard to the prison and I’ve been down in Lincoln County when it comes to some of the infrastructure conversations, I was at the Harrisburg City Council meeting, the Lennox City Council meeting, leading up to the decision and the selection of the site for the prison,” he said.
Brunner explained to the Commission that they tried to find land all over the state by purchasing land from farmers, but no landowner wanted to sell, so a decision had to be made.
“The DOC did do due diligence on that property with engineers and utility providers as to what the infrastructure situation was there and if you looked at land within 20 miles of Sioux Falls in Lincoln or Minnehaha County, the infrastructure there is actually better than a lot of other locations in rural areas. The electric line is only a few feet away and the state is going to have to build a substation on this property and that substation is moving forward, the contracts have been signed, the easements have been granted, the components have been ordered,” Brunner said.
The substation will cost around $4 million. Brunner turned the floor over to Wasko to give more information.
“For land and design, we had authority for $52 million, we’ve spent $25 million to date, we have about $26.5 million remaining. We were appropriated or authorized $10 million of APRA money that has been expended for water and sewer,” she said.
Wasko did tell the Commissioners the new facility will be called the South Dakota Correctional Facility, and the 2025 Fiscal year staffing costs would be $36.7 million, operating costs would be $18.7 million. Total funding available for the project will is $628 million and as of now, the total project cost is $825 million.
“I know that this is not an attractive conversation, and I have waited a year to be able to come and talk, and I am willing to talk, and explain how we got to where we are, and how we can move forward. Right now, I must put my best foot forward to start the construction of a new facility for the safety of my staff first and foremost and for the safety of the community,” Wasko said.
Chairwoman Landeen opened the floor up for public hearing, reminding the speakers that it is a non-action item so no votes would be taking place today. Tom Eastland was present to speak his opinion.
“Where have you been? This decision was made a long time ago. Was critical information of this plan that affects every citizen of Lincoln County intentionally and purposely withheld and kept secret. As lease holder, I was not informed until the Monday of the week that this plan was leaked to the press. There was a meeting on Thursday morning when the appraisal were presented and the land was transferred from school and public lands to the DOC. I was supposed to be informed, and I was not. I’d like to know if this was intentional. So far today, given what I know to be fact, the Department of Corrections credibility, I didn’t think it was possible, but their credibility has reached a new low with me. So I will take everything they have to say here today with a grain of salt,” he said.
Nine residents echoed the same thoughts including questioning who is going to answer emergency calls, why does the land not have to follow the comprehensive plan, and who will take care of the roads. After hearing everyone’s thoughts, Chairwoman Landeen thanked everyone and asked Wasko if she wanted to respond. Wasko told the residents she understood it was an emotional day, and she plans to come to Lincoln County again to discuss plans farther when she is able.
Emergency Management Coordinator, Harold Timmerman requested board action to approve a resolution appointing Harold Timmermann as applicant agent for Hazard Mitigation Grant Program and Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities Grant Program. This will allow Lincoln County Emergency Management Director Harold Timmerman to apply for mitigation funding through FEMA to continue to update the Pre-Disaster Mitigation Plan. With no public input, and no questions from the commission, a motion from Schmidt was made, seconded by Arends. Motion carried.
Auditor Sheri Lund was present for board action to designate three legal newspapers per SDCL 7-18-3.
“The three legal newspapers that are produced in Lincoln County are The Sioux Valley News, Tea Weekly, and The Lennox Independent, so my recommendations would be to appoint those three papers,” Lund said.
“I would move to add an additional one beyond those three, and that would be to the Dakota Scout,” said Commissioner Schmidt.
“It is not a good use of tax payer money to have additional newspapers when we don’t need to, in my opinion. If we have these three newspapers as our legal newspapers, people will know to go to those papers to look for the information. We do spend a lot of money on advertising,” Lund responded.
“If I take these three newspapers, I’m not covering where a majority of the people in our county live, and that is in Sioux Falls, and if we don’t have any idea there’s nothing wrong with the Sioux Valley News, there’s nothing wrong with The Lennox Independent, but their readership is probably a total of 5,000 people, and may I remind everybody, that the majority of our population live up there, so it seems to me only fair that we have some means of communicating with those people and that to me is the Dakota Scout,” Schmidt said.
Commissioner Arends made the motion to drop The Sioux Valley newspaper for the Dakota Scout as the legal newspaper and have The Lennox Independent and Tea Weekly as the two other legal newspapers, seconded by Otten. Motion approved 4-1.
Lund next requested board discussion with possible action to follow to reduce the budget authority in the Commission budget. Lund is asking that the Commission reduce the Board of Commissioners budget by $181,653.19 within the personal service for the removal of the position of the Commission Administrative Officer.
“Because of previous action from the Board, it has been indicated that the position of Commission Administrative Officer will not be recruited for. Because of the large amount of budget authority and previous actions the request would be to remove the budget authority from the personal service to align with Board actions,” she said. Motion approved.
Human Resources Director, Traci Humphrey was present for board discussion and action to approve Commissioner’s salaries for 2025.
“During the budget process, the Commissioners were allocated a 5 percent Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for 2025. Other elected officials were approved for a 5.5 per cent COLA in November, following the allocation of a 5 per cent COLA during the budget process,” she said.
A motion to leave the salaries as they currently are made by Arends, seconded by Putnam.
“We have three commissioners coming up in two years, I’ve been coming down here on my own for four years and eight months, so I know what it means to serve with a servants heart, I understand that, and I understand where Commissioner Arends is coming from as well, however, you have to be somewhat forward thinking because we’re not Mayberry anymore and for you to get some people that are looking to come on board for what the pay is when we are the number one growing county in the state, I think our increase should be 5.5 percent,” Otten said.
Chairwoman Landeen asked for a role call on Arends motion to leave the wages the same. Motion failed 3-2 with Arends and Putnam voting no. Schmidt made a motion to increase wages at 5.5 percent, seconded by Otten. Motion passed 3-2.