Council approves park license, weighs future of DOC funds

The Lennox City Council met Monday, August 11 at Lennox City Hall. Mayor Danny Fergen and Council members heard agenda items including mobile home park licensing, special maintenance fees, and money from the Department of Corrections.

Mayor Fergen started the meeting by requesting a continued conversation from the previous meeting when the City Council approved a temporary extension of the Mobile Home Park License for Lennox Mobile Home Park in June. 

“Following your extension, Kyle and I have met with the owners of the park, continue to monitor the work and communicate with them. Significant progress has been made, and additional work remains, but we’re confident that the owner will see it through to finish and we’re supportive of issuing a full license at this time,” City Administrator, Nate Vander Plaats reported to the council. 

Alderman Bill Daugherty asked what improvements have been made in the short time since the last meeting. 

“The main improvements are going to be that skirting on the trailer on the West side of the park, that’s the primary improvement,” Vander Plaats responded.

A motion to approve a mobile home park license for Lennox Mobile Home Park, Standing Stones, Inc. made by Chad Swier, seconded by Laura Thiesse, motion carried.

The City of Lennox annually establishes a Special Maintenance Fee. Vander Plaats asked the Council to pass Resolution 2025-08-11-01 for the approval of the fee. 

“This fee is collected on all residential and commercial properties in Lennox. The revenue from the fees is deposited in Fund 220, which is a special maintenance fund which is used exclusively for street maintenance projects. Up to this point, that’s been slurry seal projects, some gravel maintenance and a few other minor maintenance projects. In the future, we will also include mill and overlay projects and other large maintenance projects,” Vander Plaats said.

 In 2025 the Council increased the fee to $2 a linear foot and forecasted a 50 cent increase for 2026. 

“With things kind of sitting in a holding pattern on where the prison’s actually going to end up, now it’s going to be up to the South Dakota legislature to determine a path forward, and that will have a direct impact on our sewer fund, whether it’s to move forward with the plan improvements soon to accommodate a prison site that’s within 10 miles of our municipality or whether it’s we have this money to do  the next agenda item, dream about. I wonder if it would be a good idea to table this for the time being so we can get a better feel for where that’s going to be,” said Alderman Daugherty. 

Motion by Daugherty to table the conversation to the September 8 meeting, seconded by Swier, motion carried.

The City of Lennox received $10.5 million from the South Dakota Department of Corrections in return for agreeing to provide wastewater treatment for the new men’s prison. 

With Alderman Billy Welch being absent from the meeting Vander Plaats did not want the board to take action, but just provide information. 

“There are endless possibilities for what could happen with this money, but I want to get folks in the frame of mind where they’re thinking about what that looks like and what the most responsible thing to do with it would be,” Vander Plaats said.

 Vander Plaats urged the board to not take any action until after the September 23 meeting. 

“I’ve got a proposal from HDR to look at our reserve funds, but I’ve got that on hold. I don’t think we have to do it right away. There’s a few things that Tyson and I can do in the background and take a look at our reserve funds,” he said. 

President Swier shared his thoughts with the council. 

“I know some of us visited the wastewater treatment plant recently and I think the path we’re going down when we thought the prison was for sure coming here with the drying bed and the holding tank is needed at some point, but it’s probably not the most pressing thing that our citizens probably would benefit from. So from my point of view, if we’re going to spend money on the wastewater treatment system, we should maybe focus on areas that are weak points that could affect houses in our town because what we’re talking about there doesn’t necessarily improve or reduce the possibility of flooding basements, it’s just going to save us time if we have enough when we start dumping directly into the river,” Swier said. 

Discussions on the money received from the Department of Corrections will continue at the next meeting.