Split vote sends Canton annexation agreement forward

The Lincoln County Board of Commissioners met Wednesday, April 8 for a Special meeting. Commissioners heard agenda items including an annexation agreement with the City of Canton and a Road and Utility Construction agreement.

Chief Civil Deputy State’s Attorney, Drew DeGroot requested the commission consider a motion to authorize the chair to execute an Annexation Agreement with the City of Canton. 

“This is kind of putting a bow on all the previous agreements that we’ve had with the city with a couple of exceptions. Primarily, the one exception would be the installation of sanitary sewer line all the way up North Street. That’s been addressed in the agreement as exhibit 6A. We do have some preliminary estimates and have provided those to the city and it would be up to them to take further action of   whether they would want to proceed with that or not. The other matters the city has requested would be turn lane markings at the entrance of 480th Avenue off of 18. Preliminary indications from our engineers is that there’s enough room for those markings on the road. They also requested a turn lane into the South entrance of the Justice Center. We are still working through that with the Stockwell Engineers to whether that would be feasible at this point. There are some concerns that there may not be enough room, but there are indications that there may be enough room so we are still working through that,” DeGroot said. 

“On the annexation agreement is this all talking about going to the North with the sanitary sewer as well?” Chairwoman Tiffani Landeen asked. 

“Yes,” responded DeGroot. 

“So is there a deadline for the city to make a determination because the contractors aren’t going to wait around when they’re done and I don’t even know that we have the pipe on the ground,” she continued. 

“No you don’t and that’s why I provided the preliminary estimates to them today. Their next meeting would be April 20. That would be the deadline for them to make a determination at their city commission meeting,” DeGroot said.

 Landeen asked if the contractors will still be on site at that time. 

“Correct, but what the city has agreed to is paying for 100% of the cost if that would be demobilization and the utility contractor would have to return that and that responsibility would be on the city and any other ancillary costs that would come from demobilization or delay would be the responsibility of the city. So that is encompassed in there that they would be 100% responsible for any costs associated with that sanitary line to the North of the South entrance,” DeGroot said. 

 “We voted that we were going to pay for the asphalt to the North to give those folks along the road a nice road when the city indicated that they weren’t going to put the sanitary line in, now they don’t want to put the sanitary line in. There is no point in us laying that asphalt in, so that’s probably the biggest point of contention with me is I don’t want to pay to remobilize people to lay asphalt. Now granted, we’re going to have asphalt out there to put the last lift on the parking lot, so maybe that can all work together, but I don’t want the County to be on the hook for remobilizing to lay that extra asphalt down,” Chairwoman Landeen said. 

“Are we still doing the turn lanes even though those numbers were all skewed?” asked Commissioner Betty Otten. 

“That would be a commission decision, that is a request from the city. Do I think it makes sense for future planning purposes? Yes, but that’s ultimately a commission decision. There wouldn’t be much of an additional cost at all to add the turning lanes onto or off of 480th on 18. That would just be painting the markings, the additional turn lane into the South entrance. I’m sure that would be an additional cost, we just don’t have that yet,” DeGroot said. 

Commissioner Joel Arends asked if there was an official dollar amount assigned to the missing field on page 3 of the document sent to the commission.

 “The initial estimate that the city would have to approve is $1.127 would be the estimated cost for that additional instillation. So that would require city approval to do that,” he responded. 

Chairwoman Landeen asked for public comment on the agenda item.

Linda Montgomery spoke via Zoom. 

“I still find it even more clear that you are signing a document that is not something that is finalized. You have so many questions, you talk about the concerns, that the city is still working on some things. This has been an ongoing thing, but when I was able to read this this morning, this seems like a pretty brand new document that I have not read before that you have provided. This annexation involves more that just the Justice Center, it involves people and it involves citizens of Lincoln County. I realize you are under a deadline, but that deadline seems like it was a created deadline,” she said. 

Motion to authorize the chair to execute an Annexation Agreement with the City of Canton was made by Otten, seconded by Jim Schmidt, motion carried 3-2 with Arends and Doug Putnam being the nay votes.

DeGroot next asked the commission to consider a motion to authorize the chair to execute a Road & Utility Construction Agreement with the City of Canton. 

“This would encompass the full project obviously contingent on the City of Canton whether they want to proceed under the estimated cost.  What this does is state that the contractors through the county will be installing the sanitary lines, utilities through West Street or 480th Ave and up to the North contingent again on whether the city wants to proceed with additional utility work,” he said. 

Motion to approve was made by Schmidt, seconded by Otten, motion carried 3-2 with Putnam and Arends being the nay votes. 

Chairwoman Landeen asked for public comment for items not on the agenda. 

Linda Montgomery spoke via Zoom “I’ve been going over in my head what happened yesterday with the Veterans Memorial and what was disheartening is that if we had any type of opposition to the plan that was put forward yesterday, I am a veteran and what was presented yesterday was not a veterans memorial. I go around to the different counties and I look at the memorials for veterans and you can tell from the street exactly what they were. This Veterans Memorial looked more like it was to be an enhancement of Justice Center, not something that is a veterans memorial. In fact, there was no flag in sight and they said “oh, it’s over there,” Well, I’m sorry, yes it was beautiful, it was great landscaping for the Justice Center but when you just take that and put six pillars, small, and say oh this is a veterans memorial. I also question why no veterans were part of this discussion, I’ve talked to a few and some feel that the way it was put if we really cared about our veterans we would spend the $280,000 on this,” she said.