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What to do with a building in Frost?

County Board chooses to put it up for sale at a future auction

By Chuck Hunt - Editor | Feb 26, 2023

Commissioner Tom Loveall, far left, makes a point during the County Board meeting last Tuesday. Auditor Darren Esser and commissioners Bruce Anderson and Greg Young listen to the discussion.

The Faribault County Board of Commissioners gave their staff the go ahead to proceed with several proposals they made, but not all of them, during actions taken at their County Board meeting on Tuesday morning, Feb. 21.

The board came up with a different idea than one of the options proposed when Public Works director Mark Daly brought up the subject of a county-owned building in Frost for discussion,

Currently the county leases out the building to a private citizen for $600 per year. That lease expires later this year.

Daly presented two options to the board. One was to continue to lease out the building and the other was to sell the building, most likely to the city of Frost.

After a long discussion, the board decided on another option, to put the building up for sale at a public auction or by sealed bid, and voted to instruct county staff to prepare a plan for the auction.

Daly reported that the property has an assessed valuation of $7,100. He also reported that the leasee had done many updates to the building over the past many years.

In another matter, the board did give Daly the go ahead to advertise for bids to replace a bridge located northeast of Elmore.

“The bridge was scheduled for federal and state funding to be replaced in 2024,” Daly told the board. “But now that funding is going to be made available in 2023.”

The board agreed to the proposal to move the project up a year and call for bids.

Daly added that there is no guarantee that they will be able to get the box culverts needed to replace the bridge next year, but he hopes so.

The County Board gave County Auditor/Treasurer/ Coordinator Darren Esser the go ahead to have a large tree branch removed from a tax-forfeited property in Winnebago. The branch has fallen into a tree on a neighbor’s property and has created a hazardous situation.

The board accepted a bid from Davis Outdoor Services for $900 to both cut down the branch and remove it from the property.

On another matter, however, the board failed to pass a motion to have Esser be able to lower an opening bid on a private land auction sale. The vote was two in favor, three against, to allow Esser to lower the opening bid, if no bids were received.

The private sale opening bid was set at $29,900, or about $6,500 per acre.

In other business at their meeting on Tuesday, the County Board:

• Approved several pay requests dealing with the remodeling work at the courthouse.

One was the monthly pay request for work done in the past month, which was $67,975. Another was to install additional electrical outlets in the courtroom, at a cost of $1,253. A third had to do with bypass plumbing and piping installation at a cost of $3,545.

The project is still on track to be completed in March, the board was told.

• Heard a Sentence to Serve report from Sarah Eischens and Tom Hennis of the Department of Corrections.

The report included that the crews worked a total of 33 days in the county, each crew averaged three persons in size, and they worked a total of 1,000 hours.

• Approved liquor licenses for the Derby Inn and for Riverside Town and Country Club, and a raffle gambling permit for Riverside Town and Country Club for August.

• Discussed the sewer and water issues which are going on in Riverside Heights, located north of the city of Blue Earth.

A report said the Riverside Heights board looked at three options. One was to repair the entire system or do minimum repair, a second option was to have sewer and water provided by the city of Blue Earth, and the third option was to have Riverside Heights annexed into the city of Blue Earth and have new sewer and water lines from the city.

It was felt by the board the most reasonable and economical solution was the annexation into the city.

Commissioners questioned if that could be done if the property (Riverside Heights) was not contiguous (next to) the city limits.

• Approved numerous training requests from employees from various county departments.