Lincoln County tackles Justice Center costs, Courthouse security concerns

The Lincoln County Board of Commissioners met Tuesday, July 8 in the Lincoln County Boardroom.

Chairwoman Tiffani Landeen requested the commission consider a motion to appoint a Commissioning Agent for the Lincoln County Justice Center. Chairwoman Landeen described to the commission members the roles the Commissioning Agent would fill including working with the Tegra Group representatives to review the mechanical systems in the courthouse. 

“The cost estimate on this I believe was $70,000 and I’m asking for approval to hire the commissioning agent,” Chairwoman Landeen said.

Commissioner Joel Arends asked where the money would be coming out of. 

“The money is either going to come out of the construction budget or out of the owner contingency,” Chairwoman Landeen responded. 

Motion to hire the third-party commissioning agent, seconded by Betty Otten, motion carried. 

Auditor, Sheri Lund requested a presentation with possible action regarding the establishment of a Public Defender Office. 

“There are two options for the creation of a Public Defender’s Office, we can create our own here within and have it in house, or we can combine with Minnehaha County and their public defender’s office,” Lund said. No cost estimates have been acquired through Minnehaha County to share the Public Defender services. The cost of the office is estimated at $1,472,113. “This is about $200,000 over what our current contract costs and this would be what we would propose going into 2027,” she said. 

The current contract ends at the end of 2026. Lund asked if the commission wanted her to proceed with adding the public defender’s office into the budget. 

“For me, I guess I can support creating our own public defender office, and we’re going to have to dovetail some of it probably with the contracts that we currently have. So to me, it’s maybe a little bit of a hybrid, I think if there’s room to work with Minnehaha County, certainly we can be open to that, and maybe down the line when we get set up, maybe we are even able to help out some with conflicts in Minnehaha County,” Chairwoman Landeen said. 

A motion was made to add the numbers into the draft budget by Arends, seconded by Otten, the motion carried.

Highway Superintendent, Terry Fluit requested the commission consider a motion to authorize the chair to sign a preliminary engineering grant application for structure 42-080-193, located on CR117, from the South Dakota Department of Transportation through the Bridge Improvement Grant (BIG) program. 

“I have this in next year’s budget to do, and grant applications are due August 1. The total project will be about $74,000, the grant request is about $60,000 and our cost is about $15,000,” Fluit said. 

A motion to approve made by Jim Schmidt, seconded by Arends, the motion carried.

Building Superintendent, John Rombough requested the commission consider a motion to approve the Building Superintendent to enter into an agreement with Architecture Incorporated for consulting services on the Old Courthouse for $10,000. 

“We have formed a committee to determine what we will do with the old courthouse, and one of the first steps in forming that committee was to reach back out to the architectural company that did the structural assessment back in 2020 and see what it would cost for them to refresh their numbers so we can utilize those newer numbers to help make this decision,” he said. 

The commission discussed having a local construction company looking over the numbers to see if Architecture Incorporated was unwilling to put more into the project. 

“There’s things that need to be done and it has been five years, there’s been a flood, and maybe there are some other things that may have changed from the 2020 report, and I don’t know if we should be getting a cost estimate from an architect,” Chairwoman Landeen said. 

A motion to table the request until more accurate cost is acquired made by Schmidt, seconded by Arends, the motion carried. 

Commissioner Otten requested board discussion and possible action on evaluating security at the current Lincoln County Courthouse after the Justice Center is occupied. 

“We’ve gone back and forth and I’ve heard that our entrance security is going away once the Justice Center opens because of laws in effect and we are not compelled to have the security here at the courthouse. Minnehaha Administration does not have security to get into their building either because of the laws that are coming through, but we live in a day in age that is not Mayberry anymore. As you can tell, all across the United States, violence has been happening against ordinary people, not including people that are working in buildings,” she said. 

Otten reported that Sheriff Swenson told her it would be around $200,000 per year to keep security in the building. Otten requested an employee survey and a public survey asking residents how safe they would feel if it were not available. 

“Unless there’s some elevated threat level here where somebody is actively targeting Lincoln County employees, I just don’t see why we would spend another $200,000 for security,” Commissioner Arends said. 

Chairwoman Landeen asked for public comment on the item, Linda Montgomery took to the podium to share her view. 

“I can understand people that have been working here and it’s a secured site, and they know people are walking through security, and when you take that away, I can understand that there may be some level that they’re a little apprehensive. I walk into the Minnehaha Administration office multiple times and they have a whole lot more people and a whole lot more people that actually, you know, have no reason to be in the courthouse,” Montgomery said. 

No action was taken on the security measures. 

Commissioner Otten and Commissioner Doug Putnam requested board discussion and possible action on buying used vehicles from the Federal Government and hiring a service technician to fix and maintain county vehicles. 

“We’re looking into the amount driven and if a used vehicle will work as opposed to a new one. Betty put together quite a list of stuff here, it all has to do with looking things over better and looking at what a person can buy them for, and what the application is,” Putnam said. 

Otten received a list of the vehicles Lincoln County currently owns and made a list that included year, make, model, and price. Otten reported to the commission that excluding heavy equipment, trailers, and vehicles used for sprayers, the county currently has 72 vehicles for the 178 employees of the county. 

“I just want to be transparent as to why we’re asking for vehicles because many of these people that are asking for vehicles, like the 4-H grounds and the auditor, they have been using their own private vehicles and not getting their mileage reimbursed,” Otten said. 

Commissioner Arends requested making a motor pool to allow county employees to share vehicles and cut down on tax dollar spending. 

“I think a lot of these departments can share vehicles, and I think that’s what the public expects of public service and government. I believe if those departments just talked to each other, out employees are definitely collaborative enough to work with each other to share the vehicles,” Arends said. With no other public comment, Chairwoman Landeen thanked the commissioners for their work on the project.