Buffalo, Minnesota, and the World Trade Center in New York City seem like a world apart, but the events in New York and in Washington D.C., which began about an hour prior to the Wright County Board’s Tuesday, Sept. 11, meeting, had an effect on how the meeting went, as the commissioners acknowledged the carnage from the air attacks.
The meeting began with a minute of silence in honor of the victims who died in the attacks and, with the tragedy in mind, it affected how the county may proceed with an important refunding of existing bond issues.
County auditor/treasurer Doug Gruber came before the board with a recommendation from Evenson Dodge Investment Advisors that now would be the opportune time for the county to refinance a pair of bond issues from the early 1990s.
“Their feeling is that market figures are close to bottoming out and now would be the time to do the refinancing before they start rising back up,” Gruber said.
The rates have gone down significantly over the past couple of months, as shown by an accompanying document to the request. In July, if the county had refinanced, the interest rate savings would have been $585,000, with a present value benefit to the county of $464,500.
Less than two months later from the most recent figures, the interest savings would be $718,000 and a present value benefit of $584,000.
While this prompted some discussion of perhaps waiting to see if the rates might drop even more, commissioner Dick Mattson said the tragedy that was continuing to unfold as the board was in session could have an impact on that.
“I’m not sure how long we should wait on this,” Mattson said. “National disasters usually drive up interest rates and we could see that coming pretty soon.”
The board voted to proceed with the paperwork to refinance the bonds, but have Gruber look at the numbers and make a recommendation to the board at its Sept. 18 meeting.
In other items on the agenda, the board:
n Awarded the bond sale bid for the Lake Charlotte/Martha sewer system project to Dain Rauscher Inc. As part of the process, the county learned it was assigned a A-3 credit rating, very strong but not higher because of concerns from lenders that the county is quite dependent financially on the Monticello nuclear power plant, which is looking for government deregulation. That uncertainty of being able to continue to get tax base money from the plant kept the county with its A-3 rating.
The Dain Rauscher bid came in at an interest rate of 4.65 percent, better than the 5 percent projected rate and one that was credited simply to excellent timing.
– Laid over for one week a request from Plowe Engineering to outlet the fourth phase of a construction project in Albertville into County Ditch 9. The matter became an argument over who has the authority to approve such changes. Assistant County Attorney Brian Asleson said the county is a ditch authority, not a stormwater drainage authority, adding that the cities of St. Michael and Albertville – which completely contain all of County Ditches 9 and 21 – hold some responsibility for continuing to approve expansion without having a commitment to being responsible for stormwater runoff from those developments. There are still some questions concerning the first three phases of the same project and the matter will be discussed again before the county makes a final decision.
– Set a management information systems steering committee meeting for 9 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 26. The committee will discuss an MIS record management project for 2002 among other items.
– Denied a request from Pat Schmidt of Chatham Township to have a lakeshore property rezoned. She had come before the planning commissioner, hoping to have a parcel of less than 40 acres divided into four pieces – one for each of her children. Because the county’s land use plan, as well as the township’s land use plan, require lots to be no smaller than 10 acres, it was denied by the planning commission by a unanimous vote. The board upheld the planning commission’s decision and told Schmidt if she wants a change, she will have to go to the Chatham Town Board to get an exemption.
– Approved attendance by county coordinator Dick Norman at the Association of Governmental Risk Pools Governance and Leadership Conference Oct. 17-19.
– Referred to the ways and means committee a dispute of land use in Maple Lake Township. Adjacent landowners have had some contentious arguments over property line violations that have gotten ugly and commissioner Ken Jude tried to get two dates for the full board to view the property.
When schedule conflicts arose with both dates, the matter was referred to committee.
– Referred discussion of the contract with the City of Howard Lake for the construction of a water tower to the ways and means committee.
After the county had approved a document for construction, the city changed the language and proceeded with construction without county approval. The matter came before the board a month prior to the Sept. 11 meeting, but the city did not respond to a letter from Asleson looking for resolution to the matter.
– Set a budget committee of the whole meeting for 11 a.m. following the Tuesdsay, Sept. 25, board meeting.
– Referred discussion of a fringe benefit package for the county recorder to the personnel committee.