County’s Veterans Memorial plan stalls

With all members present, the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners met Tuesday, April 7. Commissioners heard agenda items including discussions on the Lincoln County Veterans Memorial, FAA agreements, and right-of-way acquisitions.

Commissioner Betty Otten and Jim Schmidt requested a presentation from Stockwell Engineers on design for Lincoln County Justice Center Veterans Memorial and possible board action for approval of designs. 

“We had a meeting last week on the Veterans Memorial and it was a wonderful meeting and Stockwell Engineers will present the presentation,” Otten said. 

Landscape Architect, David Locke gave the presentation.

“We worked with commissioners and staff in regards to developing Lincoln County Veterans Memorial on the courthouse site,” said Locke. “The location for the Lincoln County Veterans Memorial site will be in the Southeast corner of the building between the employee parking lot and the public access parking lot.”

“Everything is very symmetrical and linear. When we look at incorporating Veterans Memorials, we want to make sure that we have everything lined up and that there are proper distances and locations of the monuments and number of monuments,” Locke continued. 

Stockwell is planning to incorporate many patriotic features to the monument including colored inscribable pavers, and red, white, and blue flowers throughout the space. 

“Did you create and scaled down versions for us to review so that we as policy makers, people have to make a decision on how much money to spend, have maybe like menu of options. I heard just now that there was some kind of meeting where some folks were at where things were decided, nobody reported that meeting to me. I don’t know what the results were of that meeting, I don’t know who was invited to it, but are there other options to look at,” Commissioner Joel Arends asked. 

“I can answer that for you,” Commissioner Otten stated “After we went to this meeting we’re looking at no more than $285,000 to put this all together and because it came in so much less than I thought it was going to be, we did not look at other option because we thought the price was well in line with what we could afford for the memorial,” she said. 

Commissioner Doug Putnam posed an alternative idea. 

“Couldn’t you come up with something a little more simple instead of a big labyrinth? We’ll have to hire another groundskeeper just to take care of it. We don’t need all of the flowers and stuff. It’s a memorial for the veterans and I’m 100% behind them, but maybe we put wall up with every veterans name would be a nicer deal. This is an elaborate deal that I think is a joke and I want nothing to do with it. But Joel and I will lose on that one because there is three against two. Hell, spend a million bucks, but this is wrong. It looks wrong, it is wrong, it’s plain wrong,” Putnam said. 

Commissioner Schmidt asked if there was any action the board was willing to approve for Stockwell Engineering to move forward. Motion for the Chair to enter into an agreement for the Veterans Memorial construction upon final form approval by the State’s Attorney’s Office not to exceed $285,000 by Otten, with no second, motion failed. The Commission asked Locke to provide a scaled down version of the memorial to look at cost saving areas. 

Drew DeGroot requested the commission consider a motion to approve an agreement with Mead & Hunt to provide an Independent Fee Evaluation for the hangar area expansion project. 

“This is an independent fee required by the FAA. What it does is has an engineering firm independently study what Helms and Associates would be charging us for that South 30 acre expansion and to put it in simplest terms, that they’re not cost gouging the county,” DeGroot said. 

Motion to approve by Arends, seconded by Otten, motion carried 3-1 with Putnam being the nay vote stating “I guess I wasn’t done talking yet, so I will vote no.”

Highway Superintendent, Terry Fluit requested the commission consider a motion to authorize the chair to execute right-of-way acquisitions and temporary easements for the CR116 and CR105 roundabout project. 

“The four are for White, Poppens, Hendrickson, and Feiler and we are looking for approval from the chair to sign the easements and acquisitions,” Fluit said.  

Motion to approve by Schmidt, seconded by Arends, motion carried.

Auditor, Sheri Lund requested the commission consider a motion to approve and authorize the Chair to Execute the Joint Agreement for Combined Elections.

 “This is the last agreement that we have for the combined elections. This will be with the Sioux Falls School District,” Lund said. 

Motion to approve the agreement by Schmidt, seconded by Otten, motion carried.