Board squares things away for new year

Fifth District commissioner Gary Peterson was chosen as the new chairman of the Carlton County board of commissioners at the annual re-organizational meeting Tuesday, Jan. 4. Fourth District commissioner Mark Thell became the vice chairman of the county board and chairman of the committee of the whole meetings for 2022. For a number of years, leadership roles for the board and the committee meetings have rotated with each board member takings a turn.

The board approved meeting times and days. Regular county board meetings will continue to be held on the second Tuesday of each month at 8:30 a.m. with the adjourned sessions scheduled on the fourth Monday of each month at 4 p.m. Meetings will be held either at the Transportation Building or the Community Service Building, aka the former Cloquet City Hall at 14th Street and Cloquet Avenue. COW meetings will be held the first Tuesday at 4 p.m. at the Transportation Building. The COW jail/justice center study group will meet at the Government Services Building in Cloquet the third Monday of the month at 2 p.m. with the first meeting on March 21.

Non-commissioner appointments to the committee meetings include all department heads, with Rick Norrgard for transportation issues and Dan Reed as representative of the Carlton County Association of Township Officers.

Standing committees and commissions assignments changed very little. Commissioner Proulx listed the new Carlton County Drug Prevention committee and volunteered to serve on it with Bodie as an alternate. The CARES Act committee was expanded to include new American Rescue Plan Act duties. Enbridge pipeline representatives are commissioners Thell and Peterson.

The Kettle River watershed has been added to the One Watershed One Plan policy committee with commissioner Bodie representing St. Louis River; Thell, the Nemadji River; and Peterson, Kettle River watersheds. Peterson reported that the wolf management committee will probably be disbanded this spring.

The board accepted a joint bid for legal notices from the Pine Knot News and Moose Lake Star Gazette that included shared publishing of all meeting minutes and other county legal notices, with the delinquent tax statements and financial statements appearing in the Gazette only and any Census or redistricting notices running only in the Pine Knot.

The board discussed President Biden’s mandate that all employees of organizations with more than 100 employees must be vaccinated or test negative weekly and the need to develop a policy for the county by Jan. 10. The board approved a request by county coordinator Dennis Genereau to develop a draft policy. Particulars of this policy are complex and yet to be specifically determined. The policy would collect data on which employees have or haven’t been vaccinated. Employees would be responsible for testing and the costs of the test, but the county will provide some paid time to get tested.

Genereau estimated there are about 50 staff employed with Carlton County that have not been vaccinated, out of approximately 365 total.

The OSHA standards are supposed to be implemented by Jan. 10 but there is a case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the mandate.

At the Dec. 28 meeting, the county board set the salaries of the elected officials with the county attorney at $134,005 and the sheriff at $126,784 for the budget year 2022. This year is an election year, and by statute any candidate for those offices must know what the minimum salary is for those offices. The minimum salary for those two offices was set by board action at approximately $114,442. The sheriff and county attorney previously agreed to a rating of their paid salaries as reflected in the job descriptions that should be completed soon.

Plowing

The Carlton County Transportation Department reminds everyone that mailboxes and their supports are the property of the mail route patron and are placed within the road right of way at the owner’s risk.

Damage resulting from snow debris and the heavy snow pushed off the road from the plows is not the responsibility of the county; however, officials will evaluate mailbox supports in limited cases. The supports must have been damaged by county equipment that made actual contact on a case-by-case basis, and the mailbox supports are properly located and installed.

Per the Carlton County mailbox policy, that means the support:

1. Has a swing-away post.

2. Has an elevation of 42 to 48 inches above the roadway surface.

3. Is 8 to 12 inches outside of the paved or aggregate shoulder or 6 to 12 inches back from the face of the curb.

Damage to proper supports must be reported to 218-384-9150 within 48 hours of a storm event for consideration for repair. Mailboxes will not be replaced.

The department also reminds residents that plowing snow into public road rights of way is a crime. Snow left by plowing onto a roadway from private property is considered a hazard to traffic. Snow piled in a road right of way, such as the ditch, which would cause drifting onto the roadway is considered illegal. Accidents caused by snow plowing will result in civil liability to the snow plow operator and/or the private property owner.